The 8 Best Web Hosting Software For Small Businesses

 

The 8 Best Web Hosting Software For Small Businesses

With so many hosting options available, choosing one company to host your website can become a stressful task. We put together a comprehensive list of web hosting services to help you narrow down your search.

The search for the best web hosting services can feel overwhelming, especially since there are so many to choose from. But by taking a look at distinct qualifiers, such as ease of use, pricing, and features, we can categorically narrow down the best hosting sites to meet almost any small or growing business's needs. 

All website hosting services should (and do) provide the very basics of getting your site online. But that shouldn’t be the only hurdle they clear. You want an option that doesn’t complicate your setup and doesn’t stunt your company’s ability to scale. 

You want reliable uptime and fast page loading. From testing for an easy installation and setup to looking at key features and crunching some budgetary numbers, we did the trial-and-error work for you and found our top picks for the best website hosting services out there.

What The Ascent looks for in a great web hosting software

As we take a look at different web hosting services, there are a few essential qualifications that each entry must meet to be considered one of our picks for the best. Not only should they have some key features (security and SSL, file storage, etc.), but they should also have strong showings in the following three categories.

Easy to use

Of course, you want every tool in your business arsenal to be relatively hassle-free, but that is especially true for your website host. As a small business, you likely won’t be doing too many crazy customizations on your server, so you don’t need anything super complex.

You also know that keeping your website up and running is paramount, so getting that basic function done should be as straightforward as possible.

Seamless integration

You will likely be migrating an already fully formed website that you created elsewhere onto this hosting service, so you will want the process to be as quick and painless as possible.

Migrating domains and syncing servers with content management systems may sound complicated, but the best hosting services take care of the migration for you in as little as one or two clicks.

Excellent uptime

What good is your website if it’s never up and running? Or if it crashes when web traffic increases?

The best hosting providers will have multiple physical servers in various locations and round-the-clock maintenance to ensure everything stays up and running as close to 100% of the time as possible, so your audience never encounters problems or obstacles when visiting your domain.

How your business can benefit from using web hosting software

Hosting your website through a reputable provider will not only be good for your site but also for your whole brand and company image as well.

Professional maintenance

Look, you’re probably not a developer, right? And you have enough going on that you need to take care of, so you don’t need the extra hassle of making sure your server is continuously configured, secure, and running. Let the professionals handle that for mere dollars a month.

Traffic insights

With data reporting and insights into your server usage, you can better understand your website traffic, how your reach is growing, busy times, most-visited pages, etc. This data can help you as you scale your site.

Data and site backups

Without worrying about losing previous site content or important data, you are granted rare peace of mind that even as your business updates and grows, you aren’t beholden to a possible mistake or a direction you don’t like.

Websites and traffic data take up a lot of space, too, but with it all managed remotely by your web host, you have less clutter in your own operations life.

How (and Why) To Use Shared Hosting For Your Business Site

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Shared hosting is an affordable and manageable hosting option for many sites. Here’s why it might be the best choice for your small business.

After you have completed the first important step of building your website, it is time to take it live via a hosting service. For many people, exploring shared web hosting might be a favorable option. When looking at pricing, functionality, etc., shared server hosting can easily be a small business’ best friend.

Overview: What is shared hosting?

Simply put, a shared hosting plan is when multiple websites use (or share) a single server as their host. This is an anonymous sharing, generally, as you don’t know who your site neighbor is, nor will they know who you are.

You simply share the resources of one server to go live online. Because several sites are hosted on one server, there are typically limitations on the total amount of resources a single site can use, such as traffic and bandwidth caps.

For most small businesses and smaller sites, those limitations are well within reason, and the economic benefits of a shared plan make it well worth it as part of your site management strategy.

Advantages of using shared hosting

Shared hosting providers are a favorite option for many business owners -- for good reason since these plans offer many advantages (like a lower price point) for small businesses and their web needs.

Budget-friendly

Shared domain hosting is by far the cheapest hosting option, running anywhere from under a dollar per month to usually no more than $9.99/month, thanks to it taking fewer resources.

Easy to upgrade

You’re not locked into a plan or shared hosting forever, as most servers have multiple levels of hosting available. You can start with shared hosting and upgrade as needed.

Great place to start learning

If you are brand new to the site creation and hosting world, shared hosting is an accessible way to dip your toe into the waters to learn more without being responsible for coding and other site management tasks yourself.

Easy to use

Shared hosting plans usually come readymade with built-in cPanels (control panels), making site management more intuitive.

Maintenance-free

There is typically no technical maintenance or knowledge required on your end, as that is part of the shared hosting package.

Good uptime

Because many sites are depending on a single server staying online, shared hosting servers tend to have excellent uptime track records.

Disadvantages of using shared hosting

Of course, while there are many benefits to shared hosting, it does have its own set of disadvantages to take into consideration.

Performance caps

As your site receives more traffic or demands higher functionality, you may see performance and speed impacted because the host must regulate resources to stay equitable.

Slower load times

Since the server’s resources are spread across multiple sites, shared hosting will typically have slower load times than dedicated plans.

The unknown shared sites

Although most neighbor sites will be on the up and up, the fact that you never know who your neighbors are may mean you could be adjacent to some potentially risky websites.

Customization limits

You simply won’t get the same amount of customization options as you do with dedicated hosting, meaning you’ll always be capped in website optimization.

4 tips for deciding if shared hosting is right for your business

Weighing out the various advantages and disadvantages, is shared hosting the right choice for your needs? As you explore your options, keep these concerns in mind.

1. Figure out your budget

A lot of times, the first concern is going to be your business budget and what you can afford.

As mentioned earlier, shared hosting is almost always going to be far less expensive than other options (especially virtual private servers and dedicated servers), since you are using less space and resources, which keeps your costs low.

Determining a max spend you can afford will be important in knowing if you can even spare the cash to opt for anything other than a shared plan.

2. Determine what features and resources you need

Of course, the capabilities and functions you need your site to have is an important consideration.

While shared plans are definitely cheaper, they also have more limited functionalities than dedicated plans. If your site is smaller in size and needs, you likely won’t need to worry about performance limitations.

But if you anticipate large loads of traffic or custom abilities, shared hosting might not be the best choice, as restrictions are placed on shared sites so that the allocated resources (bandwidth, memory, data, etc.) are not all used by one client.

Because of malware fears, some shared plans have restrictions on the types of files that can be uploaded. If you have unique needs, check to make sure there are no applicable file restrictions.

The same security precautions extend to certain plugins and other site functions, so always comb through the available and prohibited features carefully.

3. Take into account the size of your website

Since shared hosting websites are hosted on a single server, there are physical size restrictions inherent.

If your website is too large, it either merely will not fit or will encounter massive caps on its ability to load and perform. Simply put, consider the amount of storage space allowed on a shared plan; if your website is larger than that or you anticipate higher amounts of traffic, then shared hosting won’t be a good fit.

The same line of thinking applies to other websites’ traffic levels, too. Their particular sizes and traffic levels can negatively impact your performance if they outgrow shared parameters.

4. Take into account your tech skills

One of the biggest concerns for small business owners creating a website centers around technical skills.

While a lot of the back end of site-building and hosting can become highly convoluted and require a developer's knowledge, shared hosting plans do keep it simple for you; typically, the hosting service will handle maintenance and managing.

If you don't have coding experience, are a tech newbie, or simply don't have the time to devote to maintaining a server, shared hosting may be all the more attractive.

Shared hosting is often a good choice for small business sites

Though it is certainly not for everyone, the advantages and abilities of shared hosting commonly make it an excellent choice for small business websites, portfolios, personal sites, and blogs.

Because of its low costs, in both time and money, shared hosting keeps things simple so you can devote your resources elsewhere.

Though there are certain caps and limits, most smaller sites won’t be affected by those restrictions for a long time, making shared hosting a great launching pad.

At the end of the day, sharing can be caring, even in the site and server small business world.

Global Market Of Web Hosting: Reports And Analysis

The global market of web hosting is becoming highly competitive day by day. Gone are the days when this market was operated by only a few names. Today, there are hundreds of companies working in the industry offering top-quality web hosting services to clients. This market is expected to increase further in the upcoming years, as some new players are also entering the market with each passing year.

The advancement of hosting infrastructure has also played a key role in elevating the dynamics of this industry. Nowadays, you can find different types of web hosting available on demand. It has certainly eased various user problems, such as scaling, migration, cloning, and more others. All of these features are introduced in the latest up-to-date web hosting services. This illustrates how long the market of web hosting has come in the last few years. It has emerged from just being a conventional hosting service to a complete platform where users have the authority to manage and run their websites easily.

In this blog, we will take a detailed look into the dynamics of the global web hosting market. This will let our readers know how big the modern web hosting market has become in the last few years. Let’s first understand why people prefer quality web hosting services to host their websites. This will let you know their importance on the web, and why they are growing so rapidly than ever.

The Need of a Quality Web Hosting Service

Every company wants to host its website on a platform where it can function properly. They know that these websites hold an important value in their market stakes. Any lack of speed or downtime can disrupt its performance, which will eventually hit hard on the reputation of the company.

To avoid this, companies always prefer to go for those hosting services that are reputed in the market. They look into various measures to confirm this fact, such as the number of hosted websites, years of market experience, and more others. The reviews of existing hosting users also play a vital role in knowing about the services of the company. Combining all of these factors, they can select a quality platform that can handle their websites efficiently.

It is said that hosting offers a major value in increasing the performance of any website on the internet. Nowadays, no one can wait for a website to load after a minute. People want fast loading time while they are browsing on the internet. This is where the responsibility of hosting comes into play in elevating the response time of a website. It is indeed an important launching platform where everything is managed to make the performance of the website better.

Key Market Insights

The global market of web hosting is showcasing very encouraging signs for the future. The reason is that the number of websites on the internet is regularly increasing day by day. It shows that more and more businesses are coming on the web taking services from various web hosting companies. They know that the internet carries tons of opportunities for them if they will properly utilize its benefits. Web hosting plays a major role here in helping them to achieve that feat with a stunning presence on the internet.

As per the survey, the global market of web hosting in 2019 was approximately around $57.46 billion. But after the start of the pandemic, it took a big surge and moved to $84 billion in 2021. The reason is that the pandemic has forced companies to shut down their businesses physically for a large amount of time. They alternatively moved towards the web to offer their services online, which eventually paved the way for a surge in demand for quality web hosting services.

This trend is still expected to continue, as it is forecasted that the global market of web hosting will become even bigger reaching $183.05 billion by 2027. That is indeed a staggering number, showcasing how profitable and successful this industry will be in the coming future. It also depends on the web hosting companies how they optimize themselves according to futuristic demands. This will eventually play a big role in making them successful and achieving the required sales goals in the market.

The Impact of Pandemic

It is quite clear that the pandemic has impacted every industry in the world. Some have seen negative results, while some have moved higher due to the emergence of online engagement. The web hosting industry is certainly the beneficiary of this whole pandemic case. In the last couple of years, companies from different backgrounds have realized why they must operate digitally to keep in touch with the market. This has given web hosting companies an unprecedented boost that they haven’t seen prior to the start of the pandemic.

The reason behind this great rise is very simple and straightforward. Those businesses that were forced to stop offering their services physically due to increasing lockdowns, found a new way to interact with the customers. For instance, many fitness centers were ordered to close their doors due to the rise of covid cases. To handle this situation, they started to launch their own fitness websites to conduct online classes.

This trend was also followed by other businesses, as it looked feasible for everyone to go online instantly. They opted for the digital medium by launching their websites on the internet. This increased the demand for web hosting in all regions of the world. Not just startups, but established businesses also opted to launch their websites to take advantage of this rising trend. This allowed web hosting services to expand and get more customers from different parts of the world.

During this whole period, the web hosting companies also utilized different techniques to get further benefits from the rising demand. Some of the common strategies to get more customers include:

Offering discounts on web hosting for a 3 or 6 months period. This attracted a large sum of audience from the market who were looking to get started with cheap hosting plans.

Distribution of free swags/giveaways to every new registered user. It gave people a very positive and engaging message about the commitment of the web hosting companies.

Offering additional tools stack with the conventional hosting package that can enhance the development of the website.

These tactics worked really well for the web hosting companies, as it allowed them to gain more customers’ trust regularly. It not only increased their reputation, but also helped them to get more sales and achieve their targeted results in the market.

Key Regions of Influence

Though web hosting market has seen a great rise all over the world, but its most significant players are still headquartered in one key region i.E. North America. Some of the top web hosting companies like GoDaddy, Amazon Web Services, AT&T and more belong from this region. Besides these, numerous cloud data centers are also located in countries like the US, Brazil, Canada and more others. This showcases the great dominance of this region in the global web hosting market.

All of the companies operating from North America continuously look towards the advancement of web hosting services. They are committed to make their hosting platforms less complicated but highly advanced in terms of offering modernistic features.

Meanwhile, Asia Pacific comes second in the line because of its great customer base. Companies from this region are continuously joining the digital medium by taking hosting services from the top global companies. The internet traffic from Asian Pacific countries always remains high, which is why these companies also pay special attention to optimize their services for the customers living in this region.

The European region also plays a major role in multiplying the overall revenue of the web hosting market. Many renowned businesses and SMEs operate in this region, which is what also makes them an important part of the global web hosting industry.

Segment Analysis

The web hosting industry has taken a huge leap in the last few years. Today, companies have built a state of art infrastructure to offer quality hosting services to customers. They have also segmented the hosting services to make things better understandable for the users. Based on particular specs, people can now choose their required hosting services according to the given requirements.

Many web hosting companies have done this segmentation on the basis of hosting type, deployment process, bandwidth speed, storage, and other related features. The hosting type basically refers to the common categories which are shared hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, etc. Each of them differs due to varying features as well as vast contrast in performance.

Meanwhile, the deployment model is classified on the basis of private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud. All of them offer different types of deployment processes needed to fulfill the requirements of relevant websites.

Based on this segmentation, hosting companies create different types of pricing plans. The hosting specs offered in them play a vital role in determining the price. As a business owner, you need to look at these specs before finalizing any plan. It will help you to pick the best one among them based on your deployment requirements, as well as the available budget.

The Impact of SMEs on Global Web Hosting Market

The surge of SMEs in the market has also played a positive role in the development of the global web hosting industry. These businesses heavily rely on the internet to get leads from the market. To do that, they pay heavy attention to the web hosting services that can help their websites function better on the web. A lot of these web hosting services also facilitate them by offering discounts, so that they can get attracted to them.

As per recent studies, 97% of people search for local businesses through search engines like Google, Bing, etc. This shows the rising demand and popularity of SMEs among the people. The search engines are therefore termed very important for increasing the traffic of these SMEs. To answer that, they look to take services from those web hosting platforms that can manage this stunning rising traffic. This automatically increases the demand for hosting services, allowing them to get more sales from the market.

The Growing Demand of Managed Web Hosting Services

The industry of web hosting is continuously getting advanced with each passing year. Their primary focus is to make everything automated for the users, so that they could not get stuck at any point while running their websites on the internet. To do that, many companies have introduced managed web hosting services to facilitate their customers. It offers an advanced way of managing the technicalities of the server by the hosting administrators. This reduces the tension of many users who think that managing a hosting platform is a difficult job.

A managed web hosting platform allows users to focus more on their website rather than paying heed to the management processes. It makes sure to give hosted websites enthralling fast performance with zero downtime issues. These managed services also come up with several advanced security features to safeguard the critical data of the users. This precisely gives them an edge over the conventional hosting platforms that do not come up with these unique features.

The pricing of these managed hosting services is also a bit high as compared to the normal ones. But, these additional charges look totally fine when you see a huge number of automated features on the platform. It makes sure to not involve users in any management process, no matter how complex or critical they are.

Final Words

That concludes our whole article in which we have discussed some important points related to the global market of web hosting. It is indeed growing very fast, offering businesses a great way to host their websites on the internet. The role of SMEs in the rising web hosting market is certainly very huge. Most of the local businesses heavily rely on these hosting platforms to run and manage their websites. That is the reason why many hosting companies also focus on facilitating these startups and small businesses, so that they can spread the word in the market and become their long-term clients.

We hope this article would have helped you to understand the changing dynamics of the web hosting industry in the world. If you have any questions to ask, please feel free to write them below in the comments section. We would certainly be very happy to answer your queries as quickly as we can.