It is important that your small business has a website. For many businesses, it may be even more important than a physical presence in the form of a store or office building. A business website doesn’t have to be massive, complicated, or even expensive to launch, but you do need some kind of web presence. After all, many users flock to Google first when trying to find a new product or service they need.
As the name suggests, web hosting is where your website is hosted. It’s the home of your website, which means your website’s speed and reliability will depend on the web hosting service you choose. It is therefore crucial that you choose a host carefully. Much like you don’t want your business to have an ugly storefront, nor do you want your web presence to be unattractive. However, getting your website online can be a daunting process, especially if you’re not tech-savvy.
Read on and we’ll explain everything you need to know to find the best web hosting for small business, so you can set up an online store or just an online presence with minimal effort.
What type of hosting is best for my business?
Each web hosting provider offers a different service and set of features, but they also offer different types of hosting. These can be roughly divided into four main categories: shared hosting, VPS, dedicated and cloud hosting. Shared hosting is the cheapest out there because it means your website is hosted alongside other websites. This tends to mean that the speed will be slower as you can be affected by the performance of the other websites on the server. Also, you aren’t usually given that many features. However, it’s ideal for a small business that just wants to have an online presence of some sort.
VPS hosting and cloud hosting are a pretty similar type of hosting service as your website is still hosted alongside others. However, the number of other websites is usually fewer, and you benefit from a virtual private server, which usually means more flexibility and overall performance at a price.
The most expensive but highest quality form of web hosting is dedicated hosting. This type of web host offers the best speed, performance, security and uptime, but comes at a significant cost as you are given an entire server for your website. For a small business, this is almost always overkill.
What should I look for when buying web hosting for my business?
For most small businesses, cost is a significant part of the decision-making process when buying web hosting. (See ours cheap web hosting Services Roundup for more on that.) You’ll need to consider buying web hosting, a domain name, as well as potential add-ons like an SSL certificate (if you’re selling online). Some web hosting plans come with everything included, while others add it upon purchase.
Ease of use is also key, with an intuitive control panel making the process much smoother, as well as great customer support. If you want to sell products through your website, you need to look out for features that allow you to set up an ecommerce website with some hosts that offer special packages for an ecommerce store. Some web hosts also offer built-in page builders, so you can create a website in a matter of hours by choosing a theme rather than editing the design yourself.
Speed is also a factor to consider as a slow loading website will put customers off and can hurt your search engine rankings. Reliability is also essential, although all the hosting companies that we have listed here are very reliable and offer very high uptime.
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