These days, in order to achieve success as a small business owner, it is necessary to create a website and to establish a stable online presence for your business. This is not so hard to accomplish even for non-technical individuals since hundreds of website templates are available to help small business owners create professional looking business sites. Business owners have another option: hire a professional web designer to create a customized website for them. But small business owners can’t have an online presence unless they find a good web host company for their business website.
As a small business owner, you need to consider several things when choosing a web hosting company. Three important things you need to consider are the fees involved, reliability of the company, and the quality of customer support provided.
Cost
Cost is the number one consideration for most small business owners because most of them don’t really have a huge financial capital to work with. Fortunately, small business hosting services are not too expensive. You can find a few free hosting services, although it is not a good idea to use these for business purposes. Free web hosts tend to have poor customer support and frequent downtimes, which will make you look very unprofessional in the eyes of your customers. Many paid web hosting services are inexpensive. You shouldn’t have to pay more than $100 a year for an excellent web hosting service, and many decent web hosting companies charge as low as $5 a month for hosting.
Reliability
Another important element that you should consider is the web host’s reliability. Frequent downtimes are unacceptable, and this is particularly crucial if you are expecting a heavy flow of traffic to your website. No matter how many people visit your site, they should be able to navigate through your pages with ease and speed.
Customer Support
A good web hosting company must have a reliable customer support system. Before you sign up for a web hosting service, make sure the company offers 24-hour customer support service and that the company’s representatives are fully competent to address customer inquiries. Also ask how long it usually takes customer support to respond to technical issues. Ideally, a good web hosting company should have a customer support team that is able to respond within 24 hours. Anything longer than that is a sign of poor service, and you should seriously consider looking elsewhere. The better web hosting companies have people who are able to respond in an hour or less.
