5 tips for choosing the right web hosting company for small businesses

Once you’ve decided to take your business online, perhaps the single most important decision you have to make is to choose the right web hosting company.

And unless you are fairy familiar with this area or have access to advice in the way of your own web developer or webmaster, choosing the right web host is not as easy it might sound.

Given that your website is likely to be the first port of call for your customers / target market, you need to make sure you ask the right questions before signing up with any hosting company.

Here are our 5 top tips when choosing your web hosting company.

1. Customer service and support

Can you get hold of your web hosting company when you need help? And what options do you have  – telephone, web chat, ticket or all three?

Let’s face it, most small businesses don’t have an ‘IT department’. So any issue with your website or email service is likely to prompt a call to your web hosting company. And unless you can get hold of them immediately, your business is likely to suffer.

Therefore, before signing up to any contract, look for prominent contact numbers for customer services and technical support on their website. If a contact number is not prominent, look for another hosting company

In short, satisfy yourself that you can get hold of the company when you need to, day or night.

2. Uptime

Just how reliable is the web hosting company’s service? What’s their uptime? (99.9% uptime is pretty common.) Ask about their data centre. Quiz them about whether they own their hardware or are they providing service through a third party. Enquire about their contingency plans in case of any fatal hardware or data centre failures.

3. Price

While you should never consider web hosting as a commodity and focus on price alone, nevertheless, the cost of hosting a typical small business website should not be much. You can get a perfectly decent web hosting package for as little as £20 per year including a free domain name.

4. Features

Don’t get distracted by features you might never need. Focus on the core items: storage space, bandwidth, mailboxes, databases, easy-to-use control panel (such as Plesk) and free tools (such as Sitebuilder) to create a professional looking website. Most other things are likely to be nice to have but not really necessary.

Blogs and forum facilities are becoming increasingly important. So look for these and also look for available guidance to help you integrate these into your website.

5. Platform

The choice here is fairly straight forward and driven by how your website might have been created. Most websites work under Linux platform. However, if you want to run Windows specific applications such as ASP.NET or MS SQL, you’ll need a Windows platform. If you are at all unsure, a simple chat with your hosting company should provide you with the answer.

Further information – if you have any questions regarding hosting, contact Freezone Internet on 0845 117 0366 or visit www.freezone.co.uk.

choosing a web host · Hosting · web host · Web Hosting · web hosting company · website hosting