A digital presence is one of the most important elements required for running a business in this era and having a website is considered to be the first step towards it.
There are more than 10,000 web hosting platforms available worldwide and You will have to choose the best web hosting platform from a wide range of options available in the market.
There are around 1.2 billion domains registered online as of today. The web hosting industry is expected to grow up to USD 171.4 billion by 2027. In the year 2019, the shared hosting segment had dominance in the market with up to a share of 37.64%.
Let’s look at some of the important points you need to keep in mind before you choose web hosting for your small business.
Customer Support
Customer Support is a very important factor while choosing web hosting for small businesses. To gauge the quality of customer support, you will have to analyze what type of support you require depending upon your own knowledge about website hosting.
If you are a beginner you would require much more support for setting up your website and addressing your queries related to it. Always look for a web hosting provider which gives 24/7 customer support. Ensure that they have proper customer service representatives
While choosing web hosting for small businesses make sure you always look at the support provided by them.
Backup Facility
Backup is a very important feature you require for your website hosting. Ensure that you have clear information about the backup storage space offered by your web hosting package. You wouldn’t want your customers or your clients to search for your business and find a blank page.
That is why you will have to look for the amount of backup provided by your web hosting service. Always look for a web hosting service that has a very good reputation in the industry.
Also, ensure the uptime guarantee provided by the web hosting provider. It is a guarantee or a pledge which is provided by the website host ensuring that your website will be accessible for a certain percentage of the time. It is always preferable to choose a web hosting service that gives a 99% or more uptime guarantee.
Add On features & Their Price
Before you purchase a web hosting service for your small business, you should know all the add-on features you get with it. Most web hosting platforms provide hosting services for a very low price. You may even get it for as low as USD 5.
Make sure you check the features and the services which are provided by the web hosting platforms. Check for all the required services and go forward only if they offer the services and features you require.
Upgradability
While you are choosing your web hosting service for a small business make sure to check the option of Upgradation of the hosting plan. Always try choosing the web hosting service which has a lot of options that let you upgrade according to the growth of the business.
You will have to upgrade your hosting service when the traffic increases or take up some new plans so that your website doesn’t crash when your business starts growing. Scalability is a very important aspect you need to look for from your web hosting service. You should always look at the future possibilities and then make a wise decision about your web hosting service.
Shared service
Another decision which you will have to look for is whether to choose a shared service or independent hosting service. Normally the web hosting service you get for a cheaper price is shared services. You will be sharing your hosting server with a lot of other websites.
The downside of the shared service is that if one website crashes then all the other websites will crash and this always adds a negative remark for your website. Since Google uses page load speed and all these factors for ranking your website, it’s always better to choose an independent hosting service for your business whether it is a small, medium, or large scale business.
This will give you a better ranking on Google because of faster and stable performance.
Exit Policies
Although most of the sites do provide an easy way to change your hosting, some do not. Make sure that you go through the process and the possibilities available in case you would want to exit from the particular web hosting service and move on to another one in the future.
You should ensure that your web host wouldn’t make it difficult for you to shift the hosting service to another provider when you require it in the future.
So always ensure about the exit strategy before choosing the web host for your small business as this will give you an idea about how genuine and reliable is the particular hosting platform or service provider. You can either go through their site or just reach out to their customer service who will tell you about it.
Reviews
Well, reviews are always important for investing in anything. You can either directly check out their reviews on Google or reach out to a friend who is using that service. Moreover, some forums like HostingDiscussion, WJunction can help you a lot as you can find a group of people who are using a particular web hosting service. General forum sites like Quora can also be a great help to know the honest opinion of people who are using the service.
Conclusion
These are some of the factors to keep in mind before choosing a web hosting platform for your small business. The web hosting industry has a wide range of options and is expected to grow more in the coming years.
