subject: Which Web Hosting For Your Business? [print this page] Almost all businesses have a website these days and therefore require web hosting. Which hosting to choose is an important decision, though, with not all business sites requiring the same type of hosting. This article looks at the type of hosting that may be suitable for new, growing, small and large businesses as well as e-commerce websites.
New Businesses
If you are starting a new business you may be wondering if stating off with inexpensive hosting makes sense. This may be an attractive option as you are unlikely to have a large turnover to begin with. This isnt necessarily a bad idea, although you shouldnt go as low budget as free hosting. Free hosting is usually very limited and in most cases you wont even be able to choose your own domain name but will have a subdomain of the hosting company. Relatively cheap shared hosting might be suitable to begin with though. Traffic levels to the website can be low in the early stages of a business so it may be wise to save on hosting costs while possible. It is important, though, to upgrade hosting when required.
Growing Businesses
For growing businesses deciding on hosting can be difficult as predicting the exact amount of growth isnt easy. You may be wondering if dedicated hosting is a good option as you will have the available bandwidth if traffic increases significantly. While this isnt necessarily a bad choice, if traffic doesnt increase as much as you expect you will be paying for capacity that you are not reaching. Cloud hosting might be the best option. With cloud hosting you only pay for the hosting resource you are using at any particular time. Scalability is one of the main benefits of cloud hosting; when traffic is low you will not be paying for extra capacity while it is still available should you require it. When it is needed the additional resource is automatically dedicated to your site and you pay accordingly.
Small Businesses
This does depend on how small a business is and the requirements of the website itself, but for many small businesses shared hosting will suffice. If traffic is consistently low then there is little point in paying for more advanced hosting and shared hosting is the best option. Should traffic later increase you can switch your hosting as necessary.
Large Businesses
For large businesses that attract a large number of visitors to their website shared hosting will not be sufficient. Shared hosting means sharing a web server with the hosting companys other clients, in other words, only having a proportion of the server available for your website. For large businesses dedicated hosting, whereby an entire server is dedicated to your website, is likely to be the best option.
E-commerce Sites
The key thing with e-commerce websites is that security is crucial. Financial transactions will be taking place over the website so this is the main consideration when deciding on hosting. You need to ensure customers can purchase products in a safe and secure way and make sure you, as a business, are secure. If anyone hacks into your payment system it would be a disaster, not just financially but for your businesss reputation.
There are many hosting options with different ones suiting different businesses. The one thing that isnt recommended for businesses is free hosting due to the lack of flexibility. While dedicated hosting is considered the most advanced form of web hosting is isnt necessary for all businesses. Websites of different sizes and of different types can benefit from different hosting plans.
