If you are wondering what is the best website hosting for small business, then a major factor in that decision will be based on the type of hosting you decide to go for. In this post we’ll run through the different types of hosting options in general terms. A part of your decision will depend on budget, as well as whether your site is likely to get a lot of traffic.
Shared Hosting
This is the cheapest and most common form of hosting there is. The majority of sites you see on the internet will be hosted on generic shared servers. The obvious advantage to this type of hosting is the price, and there are literally loads of companies to choose from for fairly decent quality hosting in this environment.
The downside to shared hosting on this kind of scale is site performance, security and stability. Essentially you get what you pay for. It may be cheaper, but the service is also cheaper. It’s a good starting point for small business, but you will likely want to upgrade to something better in fairly quick time.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting offers the benefits of faster page loading speeds and the ability for increased site uptime should a server issues arise. The reason for this is that cloud hosting is mirrored across two or more servers, so if one happens to suffer a problem, your site is still up and running regardless. Cloud hosting is marginally more expensive than shared hosting, but still highly affordable even for businesses just starting out.
Managed WordPress Hosting
This is specifically for businesses and people running WordPress websites; one of the most common platforms there is to build websites. Managed WordPress hosting costs more than generic hosting, but the benefits are worth the extra expense to small business, as the page loading speed is like lightning. Managed hosting also offers much higher levels of site security, tailor made to known vulnerabilities in the WordPress platform, as well as exceptional site stability and uptime.
VPS Hosting
VPS hosting is still technically shared hosting, except that each website hosted on a VPS platform has its own operating system. What this means for you the business owner is a lot more stability and hack-proof security, faster loading, as well as much more control over the parameters and resources your website uses. You site also gets guaranteed resources that are not shared with other sites.
It really is a step up from generic shared hosting and well worth paying a bit more for. Plus, if your site experiences a lot of traffic or is heavy on resources, you will need to upgrade to at least VPS hosting at a minimum, as shared hosting won’t handle this and you’ll be asked to step up or have your site go offline.
Dedicated Hosting
This is like the bees knees of website hosting. With dedicated hosting you get your very own physical server. This server is yours and yours alone. You pay the price for this privilege, but it can certainly be worth it for businesses that generate good income from their websites.
You could set up and run your own dedicated server, but why bother when your hosting company can provide you with one and they do all the maintenance and take all the responsibility for it running correctly. You don’t need the headache. You just want to be able to focus on business and making money. Let your hosting company deal with the technicalities.
The Wrap
So there we have 5 of the most common forms of website hosting. Remember, you can always upgrade to any of these types of hosting at any time, so nothing is set in stone or locking you in to a particular type of hosting package. It only gets a little trickier when you switch hosting companies mid plan.
All have their advantages, but any sort of hosting above shared hosting is a good step up and will lead to a much better hosting experience all round.
Darren Burton
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It’s interesting to note on how many hosting companies there are in the world. This goes to show that website building is main focus of business building nowadays, because everything literally goes online. All these hosting companies look good, but I would love to know their pricing, because let’s face it, it has to be affordable. If it goes beyond my budget before I make any income then I will be in trouble.
The idea of this particular post was to highlight the various types of hosting rather than what hosting companies are out there. As an idea on price, you can get the basic hosting plan on Bluehost for just $2.95 a month at the moment, so pretty damn cheap.