The Web Host Advisor

How do you choose the best web host for a small business?

First you must decide what features and qualities are important to your small business needs. In order to do this you must know what you are going to use the website for. This web host review will help you make the right choice for your business.

What is the purpose of your small business website?

Will you be selling your products online? Will you be trying to build a community of loyal customers? Are you looking for a different way to advertise to bring more customers into your small business? Do you want to offer unique savings to your customers who find you online? The answer to these question can help you to determine your small business web hosting needs.

What is the best web hosting solution for small businesses?

 There are many options and the cost ranges from free to hundreds of dollars a month. So which one is right for you? There literally hundreds of web hosting companies. Many of them do not provide good service. They also do not provide the features most people want. I have included the best of the best on these pages.I have done extensive research and hope you can benefit from my mistakes. You will find I have included only the best of the best in my web host review.

For a small business web host you need to look for a web host that provides reliability, usability, excellent support and the features you need to create, update and maintain your website. I suggest looking for a web host that you can use WordPress as your content management system. Most of the recommended solutions on this site are able to host WordPress as the content management system. A WordPress website gives you the best of all worlds, usability, reliability and features.

For more discussion on WordPress you can see the FAQ

 What should you look for in small business web hosting?

A WordPress  website is very resource intensive, which means it uses a lot of server CPU and database bandwidth. The larger and more popular your site becomes, the more important it is for your to have reliable web host with plenty of resources.

A WordPress website  is constructed in PHP language and runs on a MySQL database. So your hosting account should support both PHP and MySQL. The web  hosting review only includes providers meet the requirements for hosting a WordPress blog.

It's important to keep your WordPress website updated, as there are frequent security fixes and updates. A script installer like SimpleScripts that comes with Bluehost will notify you of WordPress updates, so all you need to do is click a button and your blog will be automatically updated with the freshest, most secure version.

As great as WordPress is, you can experience occasional issues with your site that can be the result of a poorly coded plugin or theme. It's important to have good support with your hosting plan so you have somewhere to turn to if your site suddenly shuts down or you get the dreaded "white screen of death" or a 500 server error. Make sure you web host has multiple methods of contacting support included email, chat, support tickets and phone support.

You must be able to get support 24/7 and in as many ways possible. Your website must be up and available 100% of the time. You need to be able to use the web host to put your website up with the skills that you have now.

Three types of solutions for small business web hosting.

Web hosting solutions fall into one of these type. They are either shared web hosting, dedicated server hosting or VPS web hosting. For more detail on what these are look at the glossary here. Most of the small business web hosts listed below are shared web hosts.

Small Business Web Host Review

Detailed Web Host Review

InMotion Hosting has been in business since 2001. They offer a complete suite of plug-in applications as do most of the paid website hosting companies. One thing that sets InMotion apart is that they have 2 data centers; one on the east coast and one on the west. They limit the number of domains that you can host. For most people this is not an issue. They also limit the number of FTP accounts depending on the plan you choose. They have excellent service and have won 3 stars out of 3 for CNET certified service provider. InMotion Hosting is branching off to add higher levels of support and dedicated IP addresses and servers. They offer both shared and dedicated servers.  To find out more about InMotion Hosting click here.

Bluehost has been in business since 1996 and now has over 1 million sites/domains hosted. They offer the best combination of features, service and reliability. They include cPanel as the main interface. They guarantee 99.9% up time with unlimited storage and unlimited transfers per month. You might be able to find a less expensive website hosting company if you shop around, but you won’t get a better value for your money. They also have one of the best support departments in the industry. Setting up an eCommerce site is easy with their credit card processing services and free shopping carts. Bluehost is branching off to add higher levels of support and dedicated IP addresses and servers. They offer mostly shared servers. I would not have hosted my website with any other hosting service. For more information on Bluehost and why I chose them you can go to the detail page. To to find out more about Bluehost click here.

Host Gator was formed in 2002 and has over 2 million domains hosted. They have a complete complement of features including cPanel, and and eCommerce features. They guarantee 99% up time and deliver. Host Gator is expanding into dedicated server options which will cost more per month. They are fast growing and some people have reported they are showing growing pains. Too many new customers for their current systems to serve. I do not think you will not be unhappy if you go with Host Gator,  just keep your eyes open. To find out more about HostGator click here.

APlus costs more than other hosting services and they do not supply as many features. I have included them so that you can see some cross section of the industry, what they charge and what that includes. Many people are very happy with APlus, but I have found there are just as many that are unhappy. It does not seem to be worth the extra cost.

Multacom has been in business since 1998. They formed the company because there was no company providing the extremely high level of service and support that they wanted to provide. They are one of the top rated website hosting companies around, They offer some of the highest connect speeds and most reliable dedicated servers. This mean the hardware is your hardware. You are not sharing resources between other customers. InMotion and Bluehost share resources between customers to keep costs down. If you don’t need dedicated hardware then Multacom is not for you. The cost gets to be too much for small to medium sized businesses.

SingleHop, Inc., is a full-service managed dedicated hosting provider that was founded on the principal of providing reliable, cost-effective, dedicated servers, complex hosting & Infrastructure-as-a-Service. The company was founded by Zak Boca and Dan Ushman in 2006, and currently hosts thousands of websites from around the world from its two Chicago-area data centers. The cornerstone of SingleHop's managed hosting is its á la carte Server Management Program, a full array of transparent management services designed and tested to allow business customers to tailor their level of support to their needs or expertise. If you are looking for the best hardware, bandwidth and and performance available then SingleHop is the place to go. They are well respected by industry authorities such as Inc. 500, Netcraft and the Better Business Bureau. The expense of their services is worth it if you are a medium sized business or better. For more in depth description of Singhop go to the detail page. To to find out more about SingleHop hosting click here.

What is the best small business web hosting service?

That depends on your needs and finances. I chose Bluehost to be my web hosting services. Their cost is not too high, $6.95 per month, they provide excellent services, are extremely reliable, they have all the features I need and more and have excellent technical skills. I have been very satisfied. When I was creating one of my web sites I posted from Word into WordPress and my whole website seemed to have disappeared. I called Bluehost and they answered right away. Within a few short minutes they were able to help me. I was back and running in about 15 minutes. They were available, knowledgeable and professional. When you are in a bind you really need someone like Bluehost to be your web hosting provider. To find out more about Bluehost click here.