Wednesday 20 February 2013

Business Hosting : Your Ultimate Guide

By Eldridge Rothell


For many businesses whatever the scale, having a website is almost imperative and of paramount importance simply because it gives you the opportunity to increase the "reach" of your business. Business hosting for a website opens a world of opportunities to your company and gives you the much needed leverage to propel your business to new heights by taking advantage of a DNS, or domain name system which will allow your website to be seen by the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This system will draw in new clientele which will eventually lead to a more profitable business venture.

Choosing your business hosting company is crucial and should be given serious attention and study. There are many different factors to be considered prior to committing yourself to a website hosting service.

Bandwidth and disk space are particularly crucial so you have to know how much your webhost can provide. The disk space is the amount of storage that your hosting plan comes with. This typically includes space allotted for databases and emails. In general, it is advisable to have ample room for expansion as your business grows and to deviate from the traditional web design. Bandwidth is also called data transfer/month, it is linked to the volume of traffic that your website gets, the busier your website, the more bandwidth you need. In most cases, servers offer unlimited bandwidth to entice clients to sign up for their service. However, in as much as unlimited bandwidth sounds appealing, it has a major drawback. It is possible for your website to crash when someone else on the same server and the same policy suddenly gets cudgeled with traffic.

Another factor that you need to consider when choosing the appropriate webhosting for your business is the availability of the tools that would suit your business needs. Business hosting services typically integrate features such as multiple website hosting, website management, shopping carts, multimedia support, unlimited databases, server side scripts, unlimited email accounts and mailing lists, among others. In fact, such tools have become the standards for a good business hosting service. You just have to make sure that the tools that go with the hosting plan of your choice are compatible with the ones that you have been using in running your business.

The next thing that you have to look into is the kind and quality of technical support being offered by the web host. Your web host should provide top-notch technical support that is readily accessible when you need them and they should create regular back ups of their servers to ensure that your website is safe and that data recovery will not post a problem in the event of technical failure. Any good business hosting company should have twenty-four hour technical support service seven days per week, so that you can decrease the time that your website is unavailable to your clients.

Once you have made up your mind and have chosen to avail the services of a business hosting company, you still have two basic options to consider:

Do you want your business hosting company to do it all from designing your website to maintaining it, or you want to build it from the ground-up by yourself? If you opt for the former, you still have the responsibility for uploading your website onto the server from your computer. However, your business hosting company will guide you in this aspect and provide you with the essentials in maintaining your website. You would most likely be offered a domain name and an e-mail program specifically designed to give you a professional edge. On the other hand, if you go for the latter, you may need the services of a website designer before choosing your business hosting company. By having your website design first, you will be able to identify your needs from your business hosting plan.

There is a multitude of business hosting companies available to get your website on the internet. You just have to take some time and consider what you are actually looking for and what service will best accommodate your needs.




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