A web host is essentially the company or organization that owns and maintains servers, high-performance computers that stay connected to the Internet at all times and keeping the web sites they hold up and operational. When your business uploads its website files to the web host’s servers and the host gets your site’s domain name properly configured, your site will go live and be available to online visitors.

Web hosts have varying rates and typically charge either a monthly or yearly rate. The rate is often based on the amount of data your site needs the webhost’s servers to store or how much data is transferred in and out of your site per month. The fancier your site is and the more traffic it gets, the more expensive it will likely be to host the site.

According to recent research, the cost of web hosting typically runs from $10 per month to thousands of dollars per year. Most small businesses pay between $180 and $600 per year for a simple web site. Small business owners who have extensive online databases or a large volume of online sales may pay $250 per month for web hosting.

There are free web hosts out there, but most of them place advertising on your site to offset the revenues they aren’t receiving from you. If you’re okay with other sites advertising on your site, and don’t have a big budget for web hosting, this may be an accepatable option for you.

When looking for a web host for your small business it is important to find one that is reliable. If your host’s servers frequently crash, people will not be able to visit your website. For small businesses that rely on online sales, having a buggy website can be fatal to their business. When picking a web host, you should shoot for a host with a minimum uptime of 99 percent or better.

Another key consideration when choosing a web host is whether the host has enough data storage space for your needs. If your site needs to grow in the future, your data needs may outgrow your host’s capacity. Changing web hosts can be extremely inconvenient. Before choosing a web host, determine if they have the capacity to handle your future needs as your online presence grows. You’ll also need to make sure the site does not have restrictive file size uploads, as some hosts have limits on the size of the files you upload or restrictions on the type of files you may upload, allowing you to only upload simple HTML and GIF or JPG files. Make sure your host offers you the flexibility you need with regard to file size and type.

Bandwidth allotment is also important, particularly if your site is going to have a lot of traffic. You’ll likely need about 1 to 3 GB per month in bandwith if you’re making sales online.

You’ll also want to choose a web host that is compatible with a variety of web design programs, as your business may have needs that require the use of specific design programs. A good web host should allow you to use FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH, MySQL, and crontabs.

If you’re going to be taking payments online, it’s important that your web host allows SSL. SSL is a cryptographic protocol that allows for the secure transmission of data such as credit card information via the Internet.

Your web host should have a user-friendly system that allows you to easily and conveniently make changes to your website. The process should also be quick, as you m

Lastly, a good web host should have an excellent technical support staff. You should be able to contact them 24/7 and they should be able to quickly address and resolve any problems that you may have.

When looking for all these important attributes, your best resource is perhaps other business owners. Ask them who they use for their web hosting needs, what service plans their host offers and how reliable the service is. Also visit their sites to see how they look. If you like what you see, chances are that you have a winner.

If you don’t choose to use the web hosting company’s software, you or your web developer can upload your web design to the hosting company’s servers by following the hosting company’s guidelines, policies, and accepted software. Once the uploaded files have been submitted online to the web host, the website or webpage is available on the Internet for your customers and clients to see.

The tools provided by the web hosting company, and even web building software packages make it easy for anyone to design and build web pages and load them on the Internet. These easy to use web builders allow you to customize pre-made pages, so you don’t need to understand HTML or how to do complicated programming. You can also hire a web designer to design the artwork and technical aspects of your website, which would provide a completely individualized look for your website.

Choosing the Best Small Business Web Hosting Company for Your Needs

There are web hosting companies that will charge just a few dollars per month for your website, and some that will charge much more. Generally the cost of the hosting is dependent on a number of things. Some hosting companies charge very little, but they will add banner ads to your web site, which might be okay if you are doing a personal site, but probably not the best choice for a business. Typically these banner ads would advertise similar businesses to yours, so basically you would be providing space to the competition.

Think about your company’s goals and what you need to accomplish. Will your site have just a few pages, explaining who you are and what you do? Or will you have hundreds of pages detailing product or services and need a shopping cart and some sort of payment method? Often the web hosting pricing is dependent on how much space you will use on their server. (A server is the computer that will hold all your web pages.)

It is also important for you to realize that if you choose a hosting company for your small business and determine after a period of time that you don’t like the hosting company, you can move your domain name and your website to a new company fairly easily.

As you are looking at the different web hosts, make sure you look at comparisons sites. If you plan to build your own website, look at the reviews and see how easy it it’s to use the hosting companies website builder. Some are much easier than others. The reviewers will make statements like the best thing about X company is that it offers unlimited email accounts, if don’t plan on using the email services or only need three email accounts, than this isn’t important.

Decide if you will need 24/7 tech support. If your website is critical to your business, you may not only want tech support, but may also want server redundancy (which means there is more than one server that your website will be stored on, if one goes down, the website is still up.) and other technical and customer support options. If the website isn’t critical, than you may be able to choose a hosting company that has great stats when it comes to up time, (meaning their servers are rarely down) but that don’t provide round the clock service or redundancy.

If you need shopping cart, or a way for the customers that go to your website to buy things, make sure the hosting company allows or supports that option. This includes anything you specifically require for your website.

Summary

The best small business web hosting company is one that will meet your needs, not only for designing and implementing your website, but for making simple and complex changes, as well as for reporting and getting the website listed in search engines.

As you are choosing a web hosting company for your business, look at the types of reports the hosting company will provide. You may want to check at what point browsers are leaving the site, if some pages get more hits than others, and more. Also check what guidelines the hosting company gives you for getting your website noticed by the search engines. This is an important part of driving traffic to your small business website.