To understand the need for finding the best web hosting for small business, think of it this way. It is essentially like buying a home for your website. As the owner, finding the right web hosting service is crucial. Without it, your company will inevitably suffer.
To pick out the best, we tracked a total of 15 popular hosting providers. These include the more popular ones like GreenGeeks, A2 Hosting, Bluehost, and SiteGround. Then, we took a look at the features, reliability, uptime, load time, support and price to decide on the best ones.
To make it easy to choose, let’s look at the 10 web hosting services for small business closely. We’ll also look at the key features of these services along with the pros and cons. Then, you can decide if it caters to your business needs.
GreenGeeks offers all the necessary hosting features a business needs. These include a website builder, a secured hosting environment, and excellent server speeds. They also provide site migrations and domain registrations for free.
The company is also the leading expert in providing environmental-friendly hosting services. It claims to be a hosting company backed up by 300% renewable energy commitment. GreenGeeks are suitable for various kinds of websites. Also, they boast excellent customer support times as well. Go to full review
Bluehost is a popular web hosting service that powers over 2 million websites globally. It is well-known for its low price and high reliability. Besides, the site is so user-friendly that even beginners will have no problems.
It is also known for its easy integration with WordPress and has a one-click installation. The web host uses cPanel for site management. BlueHost has done a great job of adding useful yet simple customizations to the layout. As a result, the section layout is clear, and the process is simple. Go to Full Review
SiteGround is known for its high customer satisfaction rates in the last few years. The primary reason behind high satisfaction is live chat support. The servers use HTTP/2 along with SuperCacher technology. Thus, it can maximize website speed.
The host can also help save up to 7% loss of conversion which can take place with 1-second load delay. All the host plans come with the one-click SSL installation. Meanwhile, the shared plans also have the Let’s Encrypt SSL free of cost. Go to Full Review
A2 Hosting is known for its high-performance. It is a speed-focused hosting company that offers excellent support. They offer a plethora of hosting solutions ranging from dedicated to Linux hosting.
The web host is lauded for providing high speed on their servers. The company also uses various features to improve the loading speed. These features include pre-configured server caching, SSD storage, and Railgun Optimizer. The company offers different web hosting services. These include reseller, dedicated, VPS, shared, and cloud hosting. Go to Full Review
Hostinger is known as an entrepreneur-friendly hosting service. It offers various comprehensive hosting services that range from basic to VPS hosting. You can start from as low as $0.80 for three months. Alternatively, you can opt for their 48-month plan which involves paying $1.80 per month thus helping you save 70%.
Hostinger offers a web hosting panel that is particularly beneficial for businesses. These include free features like daily website backups and Cloudflare protection. They also include lifetime SSL certificate and a domain name. It also offers a 24/7 dedicated team.
Another awarded WordPress & web hosting provider is DreamHost. With this service, you can get .store, .tech, .online, .life, and .xyz domain. What makes DreamHost popular is the Remixer. This is an intuitive website builder which allows you to make a fully functional site in minutes. All of this is possible without any third-party service!
DreamHost also allows managed WordPress hosting for an existing website. Similarly, email and shared hosting are also possible with fast SSD storage. It also guarantees 100% uptime.
FastComet is another web hosting company that has years of experience under its belt. It offers various high-quality hosting solutions ranging from shared hosting to dedicated hosting. It also offers domain management systems.
FastComet is known for its exceptional server performances. However, what makes it a suitable choice for business are the numerous features it offers. These include price lock for life, in-house website builder and free site migrations. Free domain registration is included as well. Due to its plethora of features and ease of use, beginners can greatly benefit from it.
America’s GoDaddy has been operating for 22 years. It now manages 77 million domains for 18 million customers around the world. It offers shared, business, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting services. It’s Economy shared plan costs $5.99 a month (3 year plan). It includes one website, 100GB storage, unmetered bandwidth, and a three-month trial of Office 365 business email.
Another service on our list of best web hosting for small business is HostPapa. It is an established provider which offers award-winning customer service. It also provides various features and a combination of low-cost and high-value services. The company thinks of itself as a one-stop shop for small businesses that want to grow their presence. It gives users a seamless experience with features like CRM tools.
All users also get an account manager that recommends products like email platforms. Users also get just one bill regardless of the services added.
iPage offers standard WordPress and cloud hosting services along with exclusive domains. It addresses the needs of those looking for placement and marketing services. For small businesses, iPage has an affordable alternative. It allows small businesses to shift operations over the web. As a result, they’re not deprived of exclusive features used by competitors.
iPage also features a code-free and intuitive website management process. Thus, it is ideal for a social brand, non-profit, and personal websites too. Overall, it is a feature-rich web host.
Web Host | Cost | Uptime | Load time | Rating |
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1. GreenGeeks | $2.95/mo | 99.98% | 361 MS |
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2. Bluehost | $2.95/mo | 99.99% | 425 MS |
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3. SiteGround | $3.95/mo | 99.99% | 546 MS |
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4. A2 Hosting | $3.92/mo | 99.97% | 347 MS |
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5. Hostinger | $0.80/mo | 99.97% | 384 MS |
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6. DreamHost | $2.59/mo | 99.98% | 539 MS |
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7. FastComet | $2.95/mo | 99.98% | 523 MS |
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8. GoDaddy | $2.99/mo | 99.98% | 448 MS |
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9. HostPapa | $3.95/mo | 99.98% | 598 MS |
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10. iPage | $1.99/mo | 99.97% | 571 MS |
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Running a website is not easy work. Choosing the right hosting service will ensure that your hard work doesn’t go to waste. For this reason, you need to list down a few features that a web host must-have.
Security should be on top of the list, particularly for those with an eCommerce website. An SSL certificate encrypts data between the web host and the customer’s browser to protect data. While a few companies give the certificate for free, others charge $100 for the extra security.
Other vital features include email, unlimited monthly data transfers, and 24/7 support. You should also look for the option to choose from a traditional hard drive or a solid-state drive.
Besides, the opportunity to select the operating system of the server is also significant. Windows-based servers provide an environment that runs scripts written in a Microsoft-centric framework. Similarly, Linux-based servers are also available.
As a small business owner, shared hosting is the best option. Once you outgrow the shared plan, you switch over to VPS or dedicated hosting. Note that dedicated hosting is surely not cheap and might even cost up to $100/month. However, your website is the only one present on the server so that it can benefit from all the resources.
Meanwhile, VPS hosting is a comparatively cheaper option. It is somewhat a mixture of dedicated and shared hosting. When opting for a VPS hosting, other sites are living on the same server. However, your site won’t share the same resources. Instead, your website lives in a separated server area. So, it has its monthly data transfers, RAM, storage, and operating system. As a result, you enjoy a smoother and more stable site performance. VPS hosting generally costs around $20-$30/month.
Both load time and uptime affect the traffic which ultimately has an impact on your total profit. The term uptime means the time for which your website runs without any issues. If your website is down, then customers won’t be able to access your services or products. Consequently, they’ll turn to another site; probably your competitor’s out of frustration. Similarly, new potential customers might not get to know about your business. Generally, the period for which your website doesn’t run, you lose money.
Meanwhile, having a slow load time affects the bounce rate. No one wants to wait for long for the web pages load. They won’t even wait for more than 3 seconds if they use a smartphone for browsing!
Ultimately, your uptime needs to be high and load time must be fast.
Generally, the higher the traffic there is, the better hosting plan you require. For small businesses, VPS and dedicated servers are ideal as they might receive more visits. Similarly, if you have a large marketing budget, then you can choose dedicated hosting.
Your business needs a server that can store as well as stream files such as text, video, and graphics. These files then make up your website’s content.
Depending on the expectations of web traffic, there are various web hosting services. These services differ in price rates as well as capacity. As a small business owner who is just getting started, a shared plan seems to be the ideal choice. This is primarily because it is comparatively cheaper. As the website grows, the owner can then switch over to VPS or dedicated hosting.
VPS (Virtual Private Servers) is also called cloud servers. It is a hybrid between dedicated and shared hosting. With this, you can scale the resources according to your needs.
So, you won’t have to give in to the limitations of the server. They draw from a pool of storage, memory, and processing power, depending on your needs.
The physical load for various websites is distributed across multiple physical computers. So, your website will get the server resources it needs without dedicated hardware.
VPS hosting involves paying for the resources you use. However, managing it requires more technical knowledge.
As understood by the name, dedicated hosting involves having separate computing hardware. This hardware will host your business website. A benefit of the dedicated host is that it ensures your server resources are not shared.
Dedicated hosting is most suitable for websites that expect a good influx of traffic. This is because a lower-end hosting plan is usually unable to handle a lot of traffic.
It is also highly secure since the server is not shared with anyone else. However, it is quite expensive and also requires technical knowledge and time.
A website is surely a significant investment, and small business web hosting is no easy task. Remember, the service you choose will be your website’s home for the years to come.
You need to be careful about the web service you pick since it will determine the profit your business makes. The ten we consider best have been listed above. Now, you must list down the features you require most. Then, go through the list again to see which service matches your needs.