Best Web Hosting For Small Businesses
Web hosting is a business providing services for making a website and preparing it to appear on the Internet.
Web hosts are businesses who help websites or web pages appear on servers – special computers where websites are stored, with technologies and services needed.
Websites are used to display work profiles, blogs or information about organizations on the Internet.
When people want to search business websites, all they do is type the business name on their browser and the computer leads them to the business’s server and web pages appear through search engine on browsers.
There are different web hosting facilities which accommodate every business differently according to their needs.
While some web hosts require businesses to have their own domain to host with them, and or help them purchasing one.
Others only provide guidance for businesses to learn and help themselves further.
And some help from helping purchase domains to building websites to preparing websites and to appear on the Internet and also with search engine optimization purposes, for websites to appear on top of search engines.
Depending on the size and the scale of assistance or help needed, businesses choose web hosting services relying on elements registered below:
Bandwidth
First and foremost thing that should be taken care of while choosing web hosting service providers should be disk space and bandwidth needs.
That means if the site will contain loads of pages, a lot of graphic visuals, cater to higher traffic, more disk space and bandwidth will be required.
If a website is simpler and caters to lower amount of traffic, smaller disk space and bandwidth can be worked with.
Compatibility
Businesses should not overlook compatibility between the business needs and services provided by web hosting companies.
Businesses should keep in mind the type of operating systems web hosts are providing, and if they support your level of requirements and cater your needs, or not.
Reliability
Web hosting services need to be reliable and available in times of need, in times of websites crashing down or lagging or any kind of assistance regarding websites.
Highest rates of availability web hosting companies offer are 98 and 99%. Although that is not what’s always delivered, so make sure web hosts credibility is already proved to avoid any trouble in future.
Hosting Packages
There are different web hosting packages which entertain different needs of businesses. The more multiplex the website, the more comprehensive configuration package needed.
Leading ones listed down below as follows:
Shared Hosting
Where more than one website are sharing the same server – along with memory, CPU or any other resources needed.
They happen to be and are found on a single server. These consist of primary websites such as file sharing, basic ecommerce sites and email sharing. Shared hosting is considered as the smartest way because of how cheap it is.
VPS Hosting
VPS (Virtual Private Server) is designed and created for a single website. The server could be the same, but the services provided cater a single website.
This means individual resources for individual websites, like memory storage or CPU or processing power. This is considered a safer and secured, because websites will be kept separately and is still affordable.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated web hosting lets a website have a separate server and also lets business owners have full access and take full control over to their server.
They can arrange things according to their own likings. However, this package has its own elite features which may be unnecessary to some businesses.
WordPress Hosting
WordPress is shared hosting service that entertains more exclusive clients.
These servers have elements that match WordPress performance such as pre-installation, faster load time, WordPress updates and security features that work with WordPress.
This can only be useful for businesses that have websites on WordPress.
Top Features of Top Hosting Quality
Quality of hosting can be affected by several factors that should be taken into consideration during the process of decision making.
Some of the important ones are:
Uptime Guarantee
Uptime is the percentage of time a web hosting service is available and running, which doesn’t mean services will be unavailable the rest of the mentioned time, it actually is the assurance of availability of services for at least that period of time.
Uptime matters the most because websites need to be up and running 24/7 and cater its viewers any time of the day they need.
Or else what’s the use of a website if it’s unavailable half of the time, which will bring no traffic.
In order for websites to be up and running all the time, web hosting services need to be up and running at all times. Highest uptime is rated 98 or 99%, and that is just great for the business.
Load Time
Load time is the time a website or web pages take to load which should be quicker and better, because with faster internet speed, people need quicker working web pages.
Hosting services should have faster load times to keep up the traffic on websites.
Customer Service
In today’s era or Godspeed communication of reviews or complaints, businesses need to have good customer services on their websites.
Knowledgeable, available and quicker customer service promises satisfied viewers.
Top 5 Web Hosting Services for Small Businesses
Hostgator
HostGator is the best overall hosting provider, ranked at the top as the best web hosting service provider for small business. It is user friendly, and has an uptime rate of 99.99% which is why it is highly recommended while doing web hosting shopping. Offers shared package, VPS, dedicated, cloud or reseller.
InMotion Hosting
InMotion comes in second on the chart of top web hosting services for small businesses. It may not be the cheapest option, but it sure is has great security, storage space and support if looking for shared or VPS hosting, and also has its own website builder if some business needs. Offers shared, VPS, dedicated and WordPress hosting as well.
Bluehost
Bluehost is particularly WordPress hosting. However, it works for businesses with a budget, offering one-click WordPress installation, free back-ups, and great uptime. With so much to love about Bluehost, a little lesser storage space can be overlooked as it assists clients who need shared, VPS, dedicated, reseller and WordPress hosting.
1&1 IONOS
1&1 IONOS offers shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated and WordPress hosting. It’s cheaper and has excellent promotional deals – $1 per month shared hosting for the first year. What sets 1&1 IONOS apart from every other web hosting service providers is the support they offer, personal consultants for every customer who help them with any or every query or help they have right there and then.
A2 Hosting
A2 hosting, known best for its customer service, SiteGround, has name for reliability, GoDaddy, famous and most used for its extra features and iPage, known for its cheap plans are some of the web hosting service providers which come below in the chart of web hosting. They all support shared, VPS, dedicated and WordPress hosting as well. These web hosting services are mainly used by small businesses that are not looking for any complex features or over the top assistance with their websites.
Conclusion
The crux of the story would be, to choose web hosting services properly once to dodge any problems with websites in the future. Comparing features and types of hosting services stated above with what web hosting services are offering, a long lasting guaranteed web hosting service can be chosen for businesses, which will up the website game and bring more sales/viewers for the business.
If you want to upgrade your hosting from shared hosting to a VPS, you may try cheap VPS hosting options available in the market.
Author Bio
Faiza Farooqi is an Ecommerce Manager at Codup who accepts challenging strategies and puts amazing ideas on the table! She is an active community manager and also blogs at Codup Readers.