How to Decide on Web Hosting for Small Business

If you have a small business and are considering starting a web page, there are many things to consider. There are many companies out there that offer plans for web hosting for small businesses. Cost is just one of many factors in choosing a web hosting plan.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. SSL. What type of service are you providing on your web site? If your small business handles any private information, you need to purchase a plan that offers SSL, secure server login, in order to protect your clients private information. Remember that credit cards are private data so if you are hosting an ecommerce site, it is imperative that you purchase SSL.

2. Here are a few things that most all plans include. Be sure to consider their usefulness for your application so that you are not paying for undesired services. In many cases, you will find out that they are exactly what is advertised—free.
   • Unlimited e-mail accounts.
   • Unlimited Data Storage
   • Unlimited Data Transfer
   • Unlimited Databases (My SQL, PostgreSQL)

3. Data Transfer Rate is important. How many people will be on your site at a time? You can only transfer so much data at once so if too many people are on the site you will have slow load times. Be sure to purchase a higher data transfer rate than you actually need to accommodate for growth of the site.

4. Many find a dedicated IP address and remote desktop access to be a valuable asset when setting up web hosting for their small business. This allows them to access all of their files from any location.

5. Often small businesses do not have a ton of content for their site. You may be selling one or two products or services. In order to give reputability to the site, you need to add more content. This can be done by setting up a blog, forum, photo gallery or some sort of social networking tool. These types of services are often sold with the small business web hosting package as bonuses.

6. Who is going to build the site? This is the last thing to consider. If you have some experience building web pages, you can usually get packages of scripts with your small business web hosting package which will allow you to easily piece together a site. If you do not have experience, you can often get a discount on the programming through the web hosting company if the entire site and the hosting are purchased at the same time.