Small Business Hosting Packages – What You Need
It is a necessity for a small business to have an online presence these days in order to stay ahead of the competition, but how should a business owner choose between the various small business hosting plans available? What follows will provide some guidance in that matter.5 Major Essential Elements
- Shared Hosting – This type of hosting plan is used by the vast majority of people online today and is more than adequate for a small business now starting out in web hosting – it is also an inexpensive option. Be sure that the plan includes database programs you will need and any scripting languages that you site will use.
- Hosting Platform – If your site will be built using ASP/ASP.NET, or if you are using Microsoft SQL server database, then you will need to choose a plan that provides a Windows hosting platform. Otherwise, and this applies to most small businesses, you will choose a Linux platform based hosting plan.
- The great advantage of the Linux platform is that it is cheaper since the software is open source and so no royalty fees have to be paid.
- Special Tools – Web analytic tools are essential to the successful management of a website and these are often included in the more competitive hosting plans available.
- With these tools you will be able to track the source and the pattern of your web traffic so as to properly judge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, and you will know how to perfect you approach.
- Secured Connection – Should the business have need of a secured connection, then the plan should include a shared SSL.
- Marketing Credits – Many hosting companies make available marketing credits for new clients as a way to get them started with online advertising of the new site. Credits may be given for FaceBook, Yahoo, Google AdWords, and Miva. They may make all the difference and bring in those first few customers to the new site.
There are some very basic features that should be included in every hosting plan, whether for a small business or not – these are the standards in the hosting industry. What follows is a basic listing of them.
Basic Elements that should be Included in Plans
- Uptime Guarantee – 99.9% server uptime guarantee. Server uptime is critical for customer access to your website else a loss of customer support and revenue may result.
- Adequate Disk Space – Unlimited disk apace is made available by most quality hosting companies, so this will not be a problem for the business for a while on shared hosting.
- Adequate Bandwidth – Unlimited bandwidth is also usually provided by most hosts, and when the business grows enough to justify more, then an upgrade in hosting plans will be called for.
- 24/7/365 Customer Support – This has become the standard in the hosting industry, with the support reachable by phone, and email.
- Control Panel – The control panel which is the most sought after by webmasters is the cpanel. This is a graphical user interface that allows website maintenance by simple clicks of the icons in the interface.
- This panel allows complex website maintenance such as creation and monitoring of databases, creation of email addresses, creation of sub-domains and folders, and many other functions.
- Pricing – Pricing of shared hosting will run as cheaply as $10 per month but will still provide the necessary and basic features required by a small business.
Those are the necessary elements to obtain in a shared hosting plan for business. Depending on the growth of the business, an upgrade may be needed later and that upgrade can be done to a dedicated server or to Cloud hosting, depending on the need of the business.
However, it may be a good suggestion to select a host that has those upgrade options available to you should the need arise later.
These are the essential elements that should be included in small business hosting plans. There are many excellent resources available to guide your selection and you may also browse our webpages here for our top picks in web hosts and hosting plans.
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