{"id":20872,"date":"2018-11-30T08:51:26","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T13:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/?p=20872"},"modified":"2018-11-26T12:03:22","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T17:03:22","slug":"web-hosting-for-small-businesses-a-helpful-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/web-hosting-for-small-businesses-a-helpful-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Web Hosting for Small Businesses: A Helpful Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone shops online. And for purchases people make offline, many do research online first. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of main ways people now learn about the small businesses they buy from is by doing searches online. If potential customers go looking for a small business online without finding it, they\u2019re likely to doubt whether the business is legitimate or still around.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way people shop today means that<\/span> every small business needs a website<\/span><\/a>. No matter what you sell, a website is simply a necessary part of doing business today. You can\u2019t put it off any longer. <\/span><\/p>\n

The good news is that once you have one, more customers will be able to find you and you\u2019ll have a new opportunity for making the case to them to choose you.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the first things you need to get your small business website up and running is<\/span> web hosting<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why Your Small Business Website Needs Web Hosting<\/span><\/h2>\n

We often think about the web as though it exists outside of physical space, but that\u2019s not exactly <\/span>how website hosting works<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0For every website online, all the different words, images, and other files that combine to create the website are taking up space on a physical server somewhere. In most cases, those servers are owned and maintained by web hosting companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Small businesses typically rent space on these servers in order to have a website that\u2019s accessible to anyone online. In some ways, it\u2019s a lot like the money you spend to rent space for a storefront or office, except <\/span>much<\/span><\/i> cheaper. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While, as someone surfing the web, you\u2019re not generally aware of web hosting, you can trust that every website you visit is hosted somewhere. It\u2019s a necessary, if often invisible, part of having a website.<\/span><\/p>\n

That makes choosing your web hosting provider and plan one of the first choices you need to make when you\u2019re working on launching a website for your small business.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Typical Cost of Small Business Web Hosting<\/span><\/h2>\n

The cost of web hosting for a small business varies a lot based on your particular needs and priorities. But for most small businesses just starting out-assuming you won\u2019t be selling products through your website-you can plan on a basic shared hosting plan that costs in the range of $2-6 a month.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re planning on <\/span>learning how to build an ecommerce website<\/span><\/a> (which means you\u2019ll sell products and take payments through the website) then you\u2019ll need some additional features that bump your starting rates up to around $5-$20 a month.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if your small business website starts to see a lot of traffic after you launch, you may end up needing to upgrade down the line to a cloud hosting plan, which generally costs in the range of $5-$50. In rare cases, if your site gets extremely popular, you may even need to go for a VPS hosting plan, which costs $20-$100 per month or a dedicated server which starts at around $80 a month.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if your audience is fairly small, then you don\u2019t need to worry much now about potential upgrade costs. The main thing is to find an affordable web hosting plan that does what you need so you can have your website up sooner rather than later.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Top 10 Things to Look for in Web Hosting for Small Business<\/span><\/h2>\n

While each small business is different, in most cases there are ten main things you need in a web hosting plan for small business.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Security<\/span><\/h3>\n

As a business owner, you already know how important security is. You have to take responsibility for any sensitive information a customer provides-especially their payment information. That responsibility extends to the web.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, hackers and scammers abound online. You have to be careful to protect your website and any information you collect from your visitors from people who would take advantage of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Security For Small Business Websites without eCommerce Features<\/span><\/h4>\n

If your small business website won\u2019t be accepting payments, you still have some work to do here. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hackers can potentially hijack your website to put it toward their own purposes. They can start redirecting your traffic to their own spammy websites. They can load malware to your website that infects your visitors\u2019 computers. Or they can slip links into your pages that lead visitors to spammy or malicious pages. And in extreme cases, they might try to hijack your website, replace it with something else, and demand money to give it back to you.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of that would obviously be bad! There are a number of steps you can take to cover your bases for<\/span> website security<\/span><\/a>, but the first step to protect yourself is choosing a web hosting provider that has a good reputation for security. They should offer <\/span>SSL certification <\/span><\/a>as part of their web hosting plans and be compatible with a security software like<\/span> Sitelock<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Security for eCommerce Websites<\/span><\/h4>\n

For small business websites that will be collecting customer information and payment through the site itself, the stakes are even higher. Your customers are trusting you to keep their payment information safe from hackers so they don\u2019t fall prey to identity theft.<\/span><\/p>\n

To do that, you need to take the same steps as other small business website owners-use a web hosting company with a solid reputation, get an SSL certification, and implement a security software like Sitelock. <\/span><\/p>\n

But you also need a merchant account with a reputable site like PayPal or BluePay to ensure you can safely process credit card payments. Make sure when choosing your hosting provider that they\u2019re compatible with the payment processing company you have in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Uptime<\/span><\/h3>\n

When your website is up, you can finally be confident that everyone who goes looking for your brand online will find you. That is, unless, they get a screen saying that your website is unavailable and to come back later.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every web hosting provider will occasionally need to do maintenance on its servers. And some will go offline from time to time due to other issues, such as hacker attacks, hardware issues, or even weather problems. Web hosting companies call the time that servers are working properly and websites are available uptime, and it\u2019s an important factor to consider in your search.<\/span><\/p>\n

When someone tries to visit your website and can\u2019t reach it, they may not bother coming back. An unreliable web hosting company could lose you customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Look for a web hosting company that promises at least 99% uptime. And check their claims against what third-party sources say about how well they pull it off. An overly ambitious claim won\u2019t be worth much if you learn too late that it\u2019s not accurate.<\/span><\/p>\n

HostGator promises 99.9% uptime for all our web hosting plans-a claim that\u2019s been independently confirmed by<\/i><\/b> third-party reviewers<\/i><\/b><\/a> as well. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

3. Speed<\/span><\/h3>\n

Speed matters online. If your website takes longer than a couple of seconds to load, a lot of visitors will bounce. And<\/span> website speed<\/span><\/a> is one of the ranking factors Google uses to determine where sites should show up in search engine rankings.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you want people to find your website and stick around once they do, then your pages need to load fast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Choosing the right web hosting provider and plan is one of the most important decisions you can make when it comes to website speed. For your website to load quickly, your servers need to be functioning well and they can\u2019t be overloaded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Make sure you select the right web hosting provider and plan (more on that part later) to ensure speedy loading times for your visitors. Test out your website speed regularly so you\u2019ll know right away when it\u2019s time to upgrade.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Ease of use<\/span><\/h3>\n

You\u2019re probably not a technical expert and that\u2019s okay. Small business owners have enough to do without trying to <\/span>learn how to code<\/span><\/a> or use complicated pieces of software. But that does mean that you need to make sure to choose a web hosting plan that doesn\u2019t require an extensive amount of learning to figure out.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never dealt with web hosting, you will need to learn some of the basics, like how to use your web hosting platform\u2019s<\/span> cPanel<\/span><\/a> and<\/span> \u00a0load your files with FTP<\/span><\/a>. And you\u2019ll want to get familiar with the particular features your web hosting plan provides-at least any of them that will be useful to you. But ideally, the learning process should be quick and the platform should be pretty intuitive.<\/span><\/p>\n

A good web hosting company for small business will be easy to use and have ample resources to help you learn all the information you need to get started. Look at the customer reviews for a web hosting provider to get an idea of how well they do on ease of use, and look into the kind of resources they provide for new customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Customer service<\/span><\/h3>\n

Even if a web hosting platform is easy to use and the service functions well, there\u2019s always the chance that at some point you\u2019ll need to get in touch with customer service. A bad customer service experience can completely ruin your relationship with a company, so it\u2019s worth doing your research before committing to a web hosting provider.<\/span><\/p>\n

Check that your web hosting provider offers 24\/7 customer support, so you can trust you\u2019ll always reach someone when you need them. <\/span><\/p>\n

Check the reviews to see if the company has a decent reputation for being helpful when people do reach out. If other customers are generally satisfied, there\u2019s a good chance you will be too.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. eCommerce options<\/span><\/h3>\n

Even if you aren\u2019t planning to start selling products through your website right away, if you think you may want to down the line, it\u2019s a good idea to look now for a web hosting provider that offers ecommerce features or is compatible with ecommerce software.<\/span><\/p>\n

Any<\/span> ecommerce website<\/span><\/a> will need the functionality to include product listings, a shopping cart, and a checkout process. Make sure any web hosting plan you choose has those options now, or will make adding them easy and intuitive when the time comes.<\/span><\/p>\n

7. <\/span> Backup features<\/span><\/h3>\n

If you\u2019ve ever lost valuable documents when your computer crashed then you know how important it is to keep backups. That\u2019s just as true for your website. You can always try to make a point of creating manual <\/span>backups of your website<\/span><\/a> on a consistent basis, or you can make things a lot easier by choosing a web hosting provider that provides an automated backup option.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many web hosting companies offer this as an <\/span>inexpensive add-on to your plan<\/span><\/a>, so you can focus on running your small business and trust that the backups are there if you ever need them. <\/span><\/p>\n

8. SEO tools<\/span><\/h3>\n

Creating a small business website is a big step toward getting found by more customers online, but you can make your website even easier to find by using<\/span> SEO best practices<\/span><\/a>. Some web hosting providers offer SEO features that make implementing SEO basics a little easier.<\/span><\/p>\n

Look for a web hosting plan with features that make it easy for you to submit your website to search engines, customize your URLs, and add unique meta descriptions to all your pages. <\/span><\/p>\n

As a bonus, any hosting company that offers <\/span>SEO services<\/span><\/a> or reporting features as an add-on to your web hosting solutions \u00a0can bring more of what you need into one place.<\/span><\/p>\n

9. Website builder<\/span><\/h3>\n

For small business owners, you don\u2019t need to learn HTML to build a website, you just need a good website builder. You can invest in a website builder separate from your web hosting, but you can accomplish two goals at once by choosing a web hosting provider that also sells a<\/span> website builder<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

A good website builder:<\/span><\/p>\n