Website Hosting Review
Your website visitors need your site to be responsive. The only way to do that is when you choose a reliable hosting.
Thing is, you don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes with each hosting provider. And yet, you have to trust one of them with your business.
It can all be overwhelming, especially if it’s your first website.
As a business owner, you need to know how each hosting fares in terms of speed, uptime, and security. It takes time and energy (and money!) to figure it all out for yourself.
To save you time, we tested all providers who claim to have the best web hosting for small business sites. We tracked their uptime and performance, tested their support, examined their plans and terms of service, billing practices, and business-specific solutions.
Keep reading to find out which hosting providers will make your business boom.
1. BlueHost
Overview
BlueHost is one of the largest hosting providers and probably the most popular Website Hosting Review/blog/best-wordpress-hosting/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>WordPress host. It has more than a few plans geared towards businesses.
Here’s what it offers.
Ease of use
The website layout is clean, and you can navigate it easily.
BlueHost accepts credit cards and PayPal. You can even mail them a check if you’re prepaying for a year of hosting or more.
You also get standard cPanel hosting, so managing your website is a breeze.
On the flip side, BlueHost will also migrate an existing website for $149.99. Many web hosting companies, good for small business sites, throw in migrations for free. You can find a better deal if you already have a website.
Features
BlueHost has a variety of plans, many of them business-optimized.
All plans come with a free SSL certificate. This is a must-have for businesses, as it secures your website, makes you appear more legitimate, and even boosts your SEO.
You also get free ad credits with each plan, which helps promote your business. You have to buy $25 of credits to get the extra $100, but the investment can pan out pretty well.
The largest shared plan includes a dedicated IP address and extra resources—ideal small business hosting features. The resources make it easier to run a powerful website while the IP address adds legitimacy and ensures emails get delivered properly.
If you go with one of the other plans, a dedicated IP address costs $72/year, which is a bit pricey. For reference, HostPapa can sell you one for $48/year, while NameCheap charges $24/year.
WooCommerce-optimized plans are useful for those of you who planm to sell online. WooCommerce is probably the most popular ecommerce platform out there—it’s the go-to choice for many users who need business web hosting for ecommerce.
The largest WooCommerce plan also includes BlueHost’s custom SEO tools to help you promote your business.
The server configuration and security features will make your store fast and secure.
All hosting plans come with a small email inbox. The smallest plan limits you to 100MB of storage and 5 email accounts.
Other plans offer “unlimited” accounts/storage. BlueHost doesn’t state the actual limit on the plans.
If you really want the capacity to store several GB of emails, though, BlueHost offers a separate email hosting service.
Apart from small business hosting and email, BlueHost offers an array of other helpful services. Its team can do an SEO overhaul of your website or create full marketing campaigns for you. These are incredibly useful if you want to expand your business, and the prices are negotiable.
All in all, BlueHost has a fantastic offer for business owners.
Support
BlueHost has a knowledgeable, courteous, and, most importantly, effective support team. The agents take their time to understand your needs and give you the most appropriate solutions.
If you go for the ecommerce-optimized plan, you’ll get a two-hour setup call with one of the agents. They will explain the basics of managing a WooCommerce website.
BlueHost’s knowledge base is respectable. You’ll find a variety of tutorials about using web hosting for business and fixing common issues.
Performance
Although the support assured us BlueHost provides great uptime, there is no official policy to back this up. It’s strange, since most hosts offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
According to our monitoring tools, the actual uptime averages around 99.95%, though, which is decent.
The average server response time of 0.37s is impressive. 0.96 seconds to fully load a basic page puts BlueHost into the top five fastest hosting providers.
Despite the lack of an uptime guarantee, BlueHost has respectable performance overall.
Verdict
BlueHost has fantastic solutions for all types of business owners. You get more marketing features than with any host, and it offers relatively affordable web hosting for small business.
If you want to sell products online, the WooCommerce plans are definitely worth a try.
2.
HostPapa
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Overview
When you open its website, the first thing you see is a banner saying how great HostPapa is for small businesses. It’s obvious who the plans are geared for.
Let’s see how the facts back up HostPapa’s claims of having the best web hosting for small business websites.
Ease of Use
HostPapa’s interface is clean and simple. There are a few upsells to get around, but they’re less aggressive than that of many other hosts.
You use cPanel with all plans, which is standard and easy to get the hang of.
HostPapa offers Softaculous with 400+ 1-click installs for various platforms, shopping carts, and apps. You can get a decent website up and running, even without prior experience.
Features
HostPapa offers decent security, speed optimization, and free SSL certificates across the board.
Most users looking into small business web hosting services get the best results with the Business plan. It lets you take advantage of additional processing power and RAM availability. It also removes annoying limitations on email accounts and subdomains.
The Business Pro plan is more expensive, but it adds even more resources, speed optimization, advanced security, and free domain privacy. It also comes with automated backups and a WildCard SSL certificate, which are ecommerce essentials.
You can also get managed hosting for many of the most popular shopping carts. If you want to sell products through software like AbanteCart or CubeCart, HostPapa is your best bet.
As for email features, the total storage per email inbox depends on your plan. The maximum is 1Gb. If you need more, you can purchase a 5Gb inbox for $2/month. The price is fair, but users looking for something even more powerful will need to find a third-party email hosting provider.
HostPapa’s larger VPS plans have more resources than many dedicated plans out there. This makes up for the lack of pure dedicated hosting. Some of the VPS plans are fairly pricey, though, so tread carefully if you have to upgrade.
You can also get AdGuru, which is a tool for designing marketing campaigns, and OnePlan Connect which helps with sales, marketing, and CRM. Both are useful for connecting with customers.
All in all, HostPapa is a solid web host for small business websites.
Support
HostPapa has a knowledgeable support team. The staff has plenty of experience helping business owners.
The knowledge base has 2,500+ articles. You’ll find all sorts of guides there, including detailed explanations key online business concepts (like PCI-compliance).
HostPapa has qualified and efficient support.
Performance
HostPapa states it has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, but doesn’t specify a refund. It says it “will use reasonable efforts” to ensure this availability. It’s hardly what you want to hear from web hosts for business websites.
HostPapa’s monthly uptime stays exactly at 99.9%. It did dip to 99.59% in February, though, which is concerning.
With a 0.2s response time and 0.9s to load a page, however, HostPapa performs excellently. Only a couple of providers can compete with it in terms of speed.
HostPapa’s infrastructure gets amazing speeds, but the availability of its small business web services needs improvement.
Verdict
HostPapa has a comprehensive offer. You can use it to establish your online presence, make a good impression on your visitors, and even sell them your products and/or services..
It definitely has among the best web hosting for small business in 2019.
3. InMotion Hosting
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Overview
InMotion Hosting is a prominent independent provider. Business Essential plans geared for small businesses are the highlight of its offer.
Let’s see how it matches up against the best web hosting sites for small business owners.
Ease of Use
The signup is straightforward, but InMotion Hosting’s account activation takes a while. You have to get on the phone with the support team to verify your identity. The support is US based, so it’s a bit of a pain if you’re outside of the States.
Apart from that, there are no surprises. InMotion Hosting uses cPanel, which is standard.
You can get WordPress, Joomla, or PrestaShop preinstalled, which saves you a couple of minutes. If you prefer a different software, InMotion offers 1-click installation for 400+ apps.
Features
InMotion Hosting offers free SSL, automated backups, and free marketing credits across the board—which is always a handy addition to small business website hosting.
Servers are also protected from malware and DDoS attacks.
You get free email hosting with each plan. The ToS doesn’t specify how much storage you actually get, and InMotion Hosting doesn’t offer separate email hosting. If you need a powerful email solution, you might need to purchase it separately.
The smallest shared plan is decent if you just need a static website for your business. If you need small business hosting for ecommerce, the medium and large shared plans offer more resources.
The two larger plans also come with a set of CRM tools. These come in handy for maximizing your profits.
The largest plan also gets you “pro-level” support. The term is pretty vague, but it essentially means the support dedicates more time to managing your server, leading to a more reliable service. The last thing you want with ecommerce is downtime, making this a helpful feature to have.
InMotion also offers ecommerce-optimized managed VPS and dedicated plans. You have plenty of room to grow your store. Just keep in mind the smallest VPS plan has about the same resources as the largest shared one—so it’s not really an upgrade.
You can also purchase additional services like custom web design. These tend to be costly, but you do get a year of free hosting to offset the steep price.
All in all, the pricing on the plans is fair for the resources you get—starting at just $3.99/month. It’s a solid offer if you need a cheap business website to begin with and then scale up toward the more advanced solution InMotion offers.
Support
Aside from the usual channels, support is available through Skype—useful if you’re outside the US.
The support team is excellent. InMotion’s agents obviously have plenty of experience with business website hosting and can make your experience smooth.
The support team is spread a bit thin, though. You might need to wait a while before you get matched with an agent.
InMotion Hosting’s knowledge base is extensive. You can find guides on all essential topics. If you think something is missing, you can even ask your own question, and a hosting professional will add the answer to the website.
Performance
InMotion hosting promises 99.9% uptime across the board. If you get the Pro shared plan, it increases the guarantee to 99.999% uptime. The provider only accepts its own logs as proof (which is only fair), so you need to contact the support to confirm eventual downtime and issue a refund.
Consistently getting 99.999% availability is pretty optimistic for shared hosting. According to our testing, the actual uptime of the Business Pro servers is around 99.95%. This is fine, and the support did reimburse me when uptime fell below the limit.
InMotion Hosting has created a custom technology called Max Speed zones. It’s designed to deliver content at top speeds all around the world. Instead of having data centers on various continents, InMotion uses just two, both located in the United States.
InMotion Hosting can tussle with the top web hosts for small business websites in North America. The speed in the rest of the world (mind, all sites we have and test are without any optimization) is just average, though.
InMotion Hosting’s performance is fantastic if your business targets the American market. Otherwise, a few other providers might be a better match.
Verdict
InMotion Hosting is a powerful provider for small businesses in the United States. It also offers a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is three times longer than the industry average. You have plenty of time to try it out and see if its web hosting for small business is the right fit for you.
4. HostGator
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Overview
HostGator started in a college dorm room and quickly became one of the largest names in hosting. It now houses over 10 million websites.
Its plans are optimized to help business owners, so let’s see what they offer.
Ease of Use
You do have to scroll past a few upsells to sign up. A few items (like SiteLock security) are pre-selected for purchase. Remember to uncheck the items you don’t need.
HostGator has instant account activation, but more than a few visitors reported this can be buggy. You might need to wait an hour or two to access your small business hosting account.
These are all minor issues, though. You will be using the standard cPanel, so it’s smooth sailing after you get your logins.
Features
All plans come with free Let’s Encrypt SSL, solid security, and ad credits.
Unfortunately, automated backups and SiteLock are only available as paid services.
The only email limitation is that you can send a max of 500 emails per hour. The saved emails do count towards your inode limit, but HostGator sets the limit fairly high. You should be fine unless you receive tens of thousands of emails.
Most business owners enjoy the Business Plan. It lets you take advantage of a free dedicated IP address and SEO tools—both fantastic features for business web hosting users.
HostGator offers a Positive SSL certificate for free as long as you use the business plan. Unlike the standard Let’s Encrypt, a Positive SSL comes with $10,000 insurance in case data gets stolen due to a fault with the certificate. It’s one of the best business web hosting freebies you can get, especially if you sell things online.
The plans are also optimized for running CMSs like Magento. If you want to use an ecommerce platform, HostGator has you covered.
HostGator also has solid VPS and dedicated plans, leaving your business has room to grow.
Support
The support team is knowledgeable. The agents know their way around small business web hosting and can easily fix most issues.
That said, the support team is kind of sluggish. Providing support for millions of users is tough, but a few other providers have a better grip on this.
The knowledge base is extensive and frequently updated. It’s a valuable resource if you’re just learning how to manage your website, though it only covers the basics of the business side of things.
Performance
HostGator has a 99.9% uptime guarantee and refunds you a full month of hosting if it breaches it.
Its uptime has been nearly perfect over the last year, though. None of the other small business web hosting services recorded fewer service interruptions.
The load time of 1.28 seconds pegs HostGator as about average. Your website will load fairly quickly, although a few hosts are even faster.
One thing to note is that the shared servers struggle with high traffic. You might need to move your business site to VPS hosting a bit sooner if you suffer significant traffic spikes.
Also, like InMotion Hosting, HostGator only has two data centers in the U.S. This makes it a solid choice for United States-based businesses, but subpar for European or Asian markets.
HostGator is reliable but a bit slower than the best small business website hosting providers.
Verdict
HostGator’s offer is a good one. You get a lot of features and freebies that help you run a business.
HostGator has reliable hosting if you need a business website for the North American market.
5. FastComet
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Overview
FastComet is young and small compared to the other providers on this list. Still, all huge companies initially started small, and this particular one has been raking in awards left and right.
Its offer is complete with a few features for small businesses, so let’s see what they are.
Ease of Use
FastComet does a good job of outlining all key facts about its plans—something many providers neglect to do. You have all the info to make an informed decision about the best business website hosting plan for you.
Signing up is easy enough—you just have to pick a plan and a domain name. Mind that FastComet automatically selects domain privacy for purchase. It’s only $3.95/year, though, and great value for those who like their privacy.
After you get your account details, you get to manage your website through a standard cPanel. FastComet offers 1-click installs for over 300 apps and a straightforward website builder, so setting up a website is easy.
Features
All plans come with thorough security measures, Let’s Encrypt SSL, and daily backups.
FastComet is also transparent about the actual resource limit on the “unlimited” plans—an advantage over many providers.
The allowed bandwidth usage is more than enough if you need website hosting for small business. The storage is enough if you need just one business website.
The email resources depend on the plan. The inbox works well for day-to-day activities, but FastCloud imposes limitations that make it unsuitable for marketing (as hosting providers usually do).
A dedicated IP address is free with the VPS plans. Shared plan users have to get by without a dedicated IP, though.
You get a GlobalSign Private SSL for free for one year with the medium plan. Afterward, it’s $69/year. You can get it free forever if you go with the largest plan, though.
The certificate provides an extra layer of security and gives your business credibility. It helps you inspire trust in your new customers.
FastComet also allocates much more resources with the largest plan. Combined with the SSL certificate, it’s perfect for running a more demanding ecommerce site.
FastComet also offers managed hosting for apps like Magento, WooCommerce, and OpenCart—all of which popular choices for small business hosting users. This comes with custom security, speed optimization, and resource monitoring.
If you outgrow the shared plans, you can easily transfer to cloud or dedicated hosting. The smallest cloud plan is 2.5 times more expensive than the largest shared one, though. It pays off to plan out the transfer in advance.
Support
In many cases, smaller companies often have much more efficient support than larger providers. FastComet illustrates this perfectly.
The support team is awesome at handling business websites and all related issues. The support is also one of the fastest out there, so you’re guaranteed timely help.
The knowledge base has plenty of tutorials on OpenCart, Magento, and WooCommerce. It’s an amazing resource if you want to sell products through those apps.
FastComet’s support is worthy of the best web hosting for small business.
Performance
FastComet guarantees 99.9% uptime and applies 10% of your monthly hosting fee for each hour of downtime.
FastComet had less than half an hour of total downtime since August 2018, which is fantastic availability.
Server speeds have been somewhat erratic over the past year. The load time for a basic page now averages at 1.52 seconds. The speed is fine, but FastComet is slower than at least a dozen hosts out there.
FastComet is reliable, but could be just a smidgen faster.
Verdict
FastComet is straightforward, transparent, and has a generous offer. The renewal prices are significantly steeper than the introductory ones, but this is the reality with most hosting providers.
As long as you plan out your expenses, FastComet has powerful website hosting for small businesses.
6. A2 Hosting
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Overview
A2 Hosting started out as one man’s hobby. Despite being small compared to some hosting giants, it has gained a lot of traction over the years and is loved by many users.
Here’s how its small business web hosting performs.
Ease of Use
Signing up for A2 Hosting’s services is simple. You do need to get around a few upsells, but it’s nothing too major.
One thing to point out is that A2 Hosting charges for its website builder. Few business owners rely on website builders, but many providers in these small business web hosting reviews still offer one for free.
You get cPanel as with the previous hosts.
A2 Hosting is a supporter of open source and offers many of the most popular platforms preinstalled. It is even an official partner for a few, like AbanteCart. Everything is well-optimized for running various CMSs, so you’ll have an easy time setting up a website.
Features
A2 Hosting has tight security, and all plans come with free SSL, ad credits, and effective speed optimization tools.
You can pay extra for a spam firewall. It’s surprising since other top web hosts for small business throw in spam protection with the regular security getup.
You can create as many email inboxes as you need with most plans except the smallest one. It is limited to 25 You can only 10Gb of space for email storage and send a maximum of 1,000 emails per day.
The support also informed me it’s forbidden to use the inbox for marketing. Most providers impose various restrictions instead of stating this explicitly—A2 Hosting is more transparent here than most website hosts for small business.
This is enough for day-to-day correspondence of most small businesses. If you need to create accounts for dozens of employees—or you want to run email marketing campaigns—you’ll have to get email hosting from a provider that specializes in that.
A2 Hosting’s plans are all ecommerce-optimized. They are meant for running open source software like WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, or OpenCart—which makes everything a lot easier if you want to sell products online.
The smallest plan is sufficient for smaller static websites. The two larger shared plans let you take advantage of automated backups, generous resource allocation, and even more speed optimization (like RailGun and an advanced server configuration). This makes larger plans perfect for eCommerce or high-traffic websites
Of course, you can also scale up into managed or unmanaged VPS or dedicated servers. You have options if your website outgrows shared hosting.
If you’re looking for the top web hosting for small business, A2 has a solid offer.
Support
The support team is fast and efficient. The agents are wonderfully knowledgeable about web hosting, especially running CMS apps. They are a helpful asset for any business owner.
The knowledge base is also helpful and frequently updated with fresh info. It’s incredibly useful, especially if you’re just starting out.
The knowledge base navigation also works well. It might seem like a minor thing, but you’d be surprised how many hosts combine a clunky interface with an essentially useless search tool. A2, luckily, gets this right.
Performance
A2 Hosting gives a 99.9% uptime guarantee and refunds you 5% for each hour of downtime.
The actual uptime has been nearly flawless over the last year. A2 Hosting brings you close to perfect availability.
A2 Hosting toots its own horn about speed a lot. It does have powerful speed optimization features to back it up.
When I first turned off the speed optimization, the server speed was decent, but A2 lagged behind the fastest hosts. It has made improvements since, though, and now the server takes 1.07 seconds to fully load a basic page. This pegs it as one of the fastest out there, though a couple of small business hosting providers still have faster servers.
A2 Hosting’s servers are both fast and reliable.
Verdict
A2 Hosting is terrific for small businesses. It’s exceptionally well-optimized if you want to run a shopping cart software.
All in all, A2 Hosting qualifies as one of the providers with the best website hosting for small business in 2019.
7. Hostinger
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Overview
Hostinger is an independent hosting provider from Lithuania. With nearly 30 million users, it is beyond massive. It is probably the most influential entity in hosting aside from EIG and GoDaddy.
Let’s see what its business-optimized hosting is all about.
Ease of Use
Signing up is straightforward. The interface is clean, and navigation is intuitive. Hostinger accepts PayPal and a variety of credit cards, so it should be easy to make your payment.
Hostinger is a bit different from other small business web hosting services here—it offers a custom control panel called hPanel. It’s easier to use than cPanel, so beginners will be able to hit the ground running.
The tradeoff is that it is missing some of cPanel’s advanced features. This won’t matter to you, unless you decide to add custom coded functions down the road.
All in all, Hostinger is among the easier hosts but lacks a couple of advanced functions.
Features
The smallest $0.99/month plan is insanely affordable, but it’s fairly limited if you’re in the market for web hosting for business.
Most business owners might even go for the largest shared plan right away. It lets you take advantage of more resources, free SSL, daily backups, and much more. It’s perfect for ecommerce websites.
All plans include a six-month trial for the Business Email plan. This comes with 10Gb of storage and its own antivirus. After the trial period, automatically renews for one year and costs $2.99/month.
This is a bit of a marketing trick. The email inbox comes at a 50% discount for the first year if you get it without hosting—you might actually end up paying more if you renew it after the trial.
If you need a larger inbox, Hostinger sells the Enterprise email plan with 30Gb of storage for $5.99/month.
Hostinger also has decent cloud hosting plans. They also come with a free dedicated IP address and are ecommerce-optimized. The cloud plans are perfect if your store outgrows shared hosting or if you want to run a more demanding platform like Magento.
While the starter plan is limited, the larger plans are the go-to solutions for getting a cheap business website.
Support
The support team is fast and competent. They can handle even more complicated problems without much trouble, and they’ll be able to assist you with your business.
Hostinger opts out of phone support, however. This is becoming the case with more and more hosting providers.
The reason is that frontline support has adequate technology to go basic troubleshooting over chat. Plus, maintaining phone support is pricey.
The problem is that Hostinger’s live chat tends to malfunction. It’s only available on some pages, and it doesn’t work on all browsers.
The agents work hard to provide excellent support, but availability leaves something to be desired.
Performance
You get 5% of your monthly hosting fee back if uptime falls below 99.9%.
The actual uptime averages exactly at the promised 99.9%.
Unfortunately, monthly uptime does fall below this percentage occasionally. While you might get a few days of free hosting out of this, it’s less than perfect for running a business website.
On the other hand, the servers are fast. With all the speed optimization tools turned off, a basic page loads in 0.81 seconds. This ranks Hostinger as the fastest hosting provider out there.
Among the best hosting companies for small business, Hostinger is the fastest. Availability could be a little higher, though.
Verdict
Business owners who are just starting out don’t usually have much of a budget. You can make good use of the initial discounts and get your business website up and running at an affordable price.
Hostinger offers top web hosting for business at a bargain.
8. Methodology
The issue with hosting is that what you see on the provider’s website is not always what you get. When the success of your business hinges on the quality of your website, you can take no chances—the only viable option is to pick the best web hosting service for small business from the get-go.
Here’s what I did to ensure the hosting services were up to par.
1. Examine the background—Knowing what’s in a hosting provider’s arsenal is essential. Examining a host’s offer and its legal documentation is a crucial step. It helps find the providers who potentially have the best hosting and disqualify the ones that certainly don’t.
2. Check reputation—Interviewing users and going through reviews can indicate what to pay particular attention to. Experienced users can often best point out where the provider excels and where it struggles. Reddit, user review sites, professional hosting reviews all contribute to the fuller picture.
3. Study the platform—I examine carefully the offer each host has geared toward small business owners. SSL, convenient tools, PCI compliance, dedicated IP addresses, hidden ToS, etc. matter a lot.
4. Test the platform—Nothing is more reliable than a good, old-fashioned field test. We created a website with the provider and tested all its functionality to see if it can really be called the best hosting company for small business.
5. Talk to support—Whenever something goes wrong, the support should resolve the issue nearly instantly. If the support team took long to respond or was clueless about business hosting, it was a red flag.
6. Take pricing into account—With hosting, you usually get what you pay for. Still, there are overpriced services out there. We compared the pricing to the quality of the service and the features you get—to decide if that’s a service worth paying attention to.
All of the above and more went into these web hosting reviews for small business hosting.
9. What Is Small Business Hosting?
A website can be a valuable asset to your business. In fact, some experts argue that a strong online presence is more important for small businesses than large corporations. Not having one also gives an advantage to your competition who probably do.
You can use the website to represent your company, generate leads, or even sell products.
Whatever you choose, the quality of your website reflects on the reputation of your company. A good website can bring in customers, while one that looks buggy and suspicious is likely to drive them away.
Your choice of hosting plays a big part here. Since your website directly affects your bottom line, it’s crucial to find the best website hosting for your small business.
Here’s what the right provider should offer:
- Uptime—Uptime is a percentage of time the hosting service. If the server goes down, so does your website. Nothing makes you look less professional than a website that’s not there half of the time. Your hosting provider should offer at least 99.9% monthly uptime.
- Speed—A slow server can be even worse than one that’s occasionally unavailable. Research shows Website Hosting Review/blog/how-speed-affects-website/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>each second of page load time makes customer satisfaction drop by 16%—that’s how much users hate waiting. The best web host for small business website hosting has to be fast.
- Ease of use—The work you need to put in mostly depends on your website. Still, the hosting provider can simplify everything with an easy to use control panel, proper server management, and easy website navigation.
- Security—Security is always a major concern, but it’s the most important aspect if you store any kind of customer data. Your hosting provider should have near-impenetrable security, or it might irreparably damage your business.
- Responsive support—Support is easy to overlook. If you stay with the same provider for years, though, you’ll likely have an emergency that the support team has to fix. Businesses regularly lose thousands of dollars because of neglectful support.
- Business-specific tools—Web hosts optimized for business websites offer tools that help with running your business and promoting it. One example are SSL certificates that both add a layer of security and boost SEO. Things like SEO and marketing tools are also common features.
- Email hosting—A personalized email address makes you look professional and adds credibility to your business. While many users prefer services like G Suite, various hosting providers throw in email hosting for free or offer it as a separate service.
- Scaling—Unless you already have an established online presence, you’ll probably start with shared hosting. Business websites can quickly outgrow shared plans, though. In such cases, the hosting provider should have quality VPS and dedicated hosting plans waiting for you.
- Affordability—Let’s face it—being a successful business owner means making a few tough calls. Enterprise-level hosting comes with a ton of resources and fantastic features, but it will cost you an arm and a leg. You need to find the best web hosting for your small business and your budget.
Those are the key points to look out for when looking to host a small business website. If you’re not sure where to start, all the hosting providers above reasonably fit those parameters. Feel free to check them out and see if one might be the right fit for your business.
10. Wrap Up
That covers the best website hosting for small business. You now know who the top names to look for are and what a quality hosting provider should offer. If one or two providers from the reviews look like they fit the bill, hop on over to their website and check out their offer more thoroughly.
11. FAQ
Q: What is the best hosting for small business?
A: There’s plenty of quality providers for small businesses.
InMotion Hosting and HostGator have excellent features if your business operates in North America. If you need a provider with global reach, FastComet and BlueHost are both excellent choices. If you’re on a tight budget right now, Hostinger offers terrific initial discounts if you sign up for four years of hosting.
There’s something for everyone. Feel free to check out the reviews above and find the best provider for you.
Q: Is BlueHost good for small business?
A: BlueHost is a solid provider. It has all the essentials for small business hosting.
It also offers free ad credits, which is useful for drawing some attention to your business. You also get a few useful freebies—like a dedicated IP address and an SSL certificate—that ensure the integrity of your website.
Its plans are optimized for WooCommerce, which is ideal if you want an online store. You can even get a 2-hour phone call with a WooCommerce expert who can help you set everything up.
You can check more details about it above or in our dedicated BlueHost review, but it’s an overall fantastic provider.
Q: What is the best email host for small businesses?
A: Email and web hosting for small business sort of go hand in hand. Most providers in the reviews above offer decent email hosting.
BlueHost, for instance, offers a small inbox with each plan. If you need more storage capacity or a few advanced features, it’s premium email hosting plans are also decent.
Such hosting providers tend to have some measures in place to prevent you from sending out hundreds of thousands of emails at once. If you need to do serious email marketing, you should go for a professional service like MailChimp.
Q: What is business web hosting?
A: It is as the name suggests—business website hosting is hosting that’s specifically optimized for business websites.
If you want to host a business website, you typically place more importance on security, speed, and reliability than the average user. Plus, a hosting provider can offer special tools that help you with CRM or marketing.
It essentially helps you attract new customers and stay in good standing with existing ones.
That’s what the top website hosting for small business sites should provide. If you think this could benefit your business, the top providers are outlined above.
Q: What is the best free website builder for small businesses?
A: If you want something very simple—like a business card website—WiX is a decent solution.
That said, both free solutions and website builders tend to be very limiting, as opposed to paid hosting. This is rarely ideal for business websites.
If you want a simple static website, a paid website builder can be a viable option. You can check out our Website Hosting Review/blog/best-website-builder/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>website builder reviews if you’re not sure where to start.
However, if you want something more complicated, like ecommerce functionality, your best bet is to go with traditional hosting. You can check out providers with the best web hosting for small business websites just above.
Q: What does shared hosting mean?
A: To have hosting, you must have a server. It is merely a computer whose job is to stay connected to the internet and run your applications.
The problem is that the average website only needs a small portion of the typical server’s resources.
That’s why hosting providers often let hundreds, or even thousands, of users share one physical server. This way, you can get all the benefits of quality hosting for a few bucks a month.
Of course, there are various measures in place to ensure users don’t interfere with one another (at least with quality hosting).
Suffice it to say shared hosting is the most cost-effective way to get a website off the ground. Users looking for small business hosting will usually start with it.
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