Best Web Hosting for Businesses

To conduct business online, you need the right kind of web hosting. There are thousands of web hosting companies out there, but some of them are more business friendly than others. When choosing web hosting, some of the factors you must take into consideration include online commerce capabilities, security, cost of hosting and the company's reputation.

Business Friendly Features:

There are several qualities that an online business needs for good web hosting. These include:

• Disk space and bandwidth - some web hosts provide unlimited disk space and bandwidth.
• Shopping Carts - Online shopping carts make it simple to sell your products and process payments.
• Uptime - A commercial website needs to have very good uptime, or the amount of time the site is actually available. This should be close to 100%.
• Domains - If you want to set up multiple domains with your account, look for a web host that allows unlimited domains, sub-domains and add-on domains.
• Security - This is extremely important if you're going to be conducting business online. Some web hosting plans come with an SSL Certificate, which encrypts information on your site.
• Reputation - Look up reviews by customers and industry professionals to find out the overall reputation of the web host on issues such as customer service, reliability and uptime.
• Cost - You have to consider the cost of web hosting. This varies from one company to another. Many web hosts offer special promotions where you can get a web hosting plan for a very good price. This may require you to sign up for two or three years, however.
• Customer Support - Does the web host offer support 24/7 by email, chat and phone? You never know when you might need help.

Advanced Web Hosting Plans:

Most websites use shared hosting, which is the cheapest option. If, however, you have a large site or multiple sites, you may want to consider a more advanced web hosting plan. These include VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, cloud hosting or a dedicated server.

A dedicated server is a type of web hosting where you have your own server, which allows for greater security and customization. VPS is a type of shared hosting where each customer is allotted a portion of the server that functions like a private server. Cloud hosting, which is fairly new but getting more popular, provides users access to the resources they need at any given moment.

Such types of web hosting provide more resources and security than shared hosting. For larger sites, they are worth researching. Most web hosts offer several different plans for VPS, dedicated server and sometimes cloud hosting. For most small to medium sized businesses, however, shared hosting is sufficient.

Choosing the Right Web Hosting for Your Business:

Web hosting is a very important choice when you have an online business. You want hosting that's secure, reliable and that provides you with good value. Take some time to research different web hosting companies and see what kind of plans they offer. You could also look at business websites that you admire and see what type of web hosting they have.