Exploring Small Business Domain Hosting Options

If you're running a small business, you're likely to have a few specific concerns about your web and domain hosting requirements - and one of those things is doubtless going to be about money. You need a hosting plan that's affordable, but ideally one that also still gives you everything you need from it. So how can you make those mythical plans work out?

Choosing Quality Domain Hosts For Small Businesses

It pretty much goes without saying that you're definitely going to need a website - no matter how small your business is and what it's for. Without a web presence, modern-day shoppers won't want to trust you or rely on you - and you'll miss out on all the benefits of virtual business and ecommerce, as well. There are, however, a variety of things you're going to need to think about if you want to do this right - and we've outlined some of them for you below.

  • You need to be sure that the web hosting you're buying has all the specs you need. It will need to provide you with enough bandwidth to cope with everyone who might visit, enough disk space to store all the files you want to put online, and decent enough security measures that you can be trusted to look after everyone's personal details and account information.
  • It's important that your website reflects you as a company, no matter how much it is in its infancy. This means that you should either learn how to create websites yourself to a high standard, or hire a professional web designer who will consult you closely as they put something together.
  • The domain name - the URL or address of your website - needs to be customised for your venture, chosen carefully and owned exclusively by you rather than rented from the company who deals with your web hosting requirements.
  • Finally, you should give some thought to what kind of server you want your website to be kept on. This can seem confusing at first to the uninitiated, but there are plenty of articles elsewhere on this site that will help you understand it.

Exploring Small Business Domain Hosting Options

Ultimately, there are two key questions you should ask yourself that will help you to determine what you need from a small business web host: which kind of hardware you're going to need, and which kind of software you're going to need. We'll look at each of those questions in turn below.

  • The Question Of Hardware
    Websites need to be hosted on a physical computer set up in a particular way, and those computers are called 'servers'. You're going to need to decide whether you want a shared server, a virtual server, a dedicated server or a cloud server - and on whether you want that server to run Windows or Linux. If you're not sure what all those things mean, it's worth reading through some of the other articles on this site as they'll help you get to grips with them.
  • The Question Of Software
    Different web hosts use different kinds of software - usually but not always some form of content management system - and you're likely to have needs and preferences that make some better than others, so it's important to give that some thought before you choose. Other software-related questions include deciding which programming langauges to use, how much Flash to include, and how you'd like your domain email to be handed. A good web host can advise you on all those things, and make tailored recommendations.