five-tips-for-small-business-owners-and-cheap-web-hostingA website is an essential part of any small business. Whether you run a restaurant, a retail store or another type of small business, you need a website and a presence online.

The first step you must take when putting up a website is finding the right cheap web hosting for your small business. Even a well-designed website can struggle to gain traction without the right hosting company. Here are five tips to help you find an excellent hosting company for an affordable price.

Speed Matters

Your hosting company will make a difference when it comes to speed. If you choose the cheapest website hosting you can find, it may not be very fast. However, if you take the time to find a hosting company offering an affordable package and a great reputation, you will likely get the type of speed you really need.

Without a fast loading website, about half your visitors will abandon your site before they see what you have to offer. You get about three seconds to capture their attention before you lose them for good. The right hosting company can ensure your site loads fast.

Technical Support

Finding a website hosting company with great support may seem easy, but it’s not always that easy. Many companies will claim they have great support, but you will be surprised at how horrible the support is when you really need it. Reading online reviews or even testing the support can help you get a better idea of how fast and reliable the hosting company’s technical support will be when you need them.

Reliable Servers

When you start looking for the right small business hosting, you need a reliable server. You don’t have to buy a dedicated server or even a VPS hosting package to get plenty of reliability. Many top quality hosting companies offer very reliable shared hosting accounts because they use up-to-date servers. Make sure your hosting company is using only the best servers possible.

Plan for Growth

If your business grows enough and you start to gain a large amount of online traffic, you may need to upgrade your account. Choosing a hosting company with more than one shared hosting package, along with Cloud VPS hosting will allow you to grow, as needed. This gives you the ability to move from a cheap shared hosting account through the different levels of shared and VPS hosting, as you grow.

Price isn’t the Most Important Factor

You may not need to pay $20 a month for a good shared hosting account, but you also don’t want to be stuck with a bad company only charging a dollar or two for shared hosting. Any company offering hosting for less than $4 per month may not be very reliable.

Reasonably, you can expect to pay between $5 and $12 for a good shared hosting account. You can start with a smaller package for just one domain or pay a little bit more each month for a larger package with unlimited domain names. You may also want a dedicated IP address, which will cost a little bit more each month.

When it comes to taking your small business online, you need the right website hosting. Without an excellent hosting company, you might as well be building your online house on a foundation of sand. You need a strong foundation and a great hosting company will provide everything you need to build an amazing website without any worries of technical issues or downtime.