Choosing the Right Web Host for Your Small Business Website
Having a well-designed, fast loading website is crucial for any small business looking to build their brand and attract customers online. However, the success of your website highly depends on choosing the right web hosting provider to host it. The wrong web host can lead to slow load times, frequent downtime, security issues and poor support—all things that can negatively impact your business.
When evaluating web hosting providers for your small business website, there are several key technical and performance factors you need to analyze:
Key Criteria for Evaluating Web Hosts
Uptime and Reliability
Uptime refers to the percentage of time your website remains accessible online without any service interruptions. Industry standards dictate an acceptable threshold of 99.9% uptime on a monthly basis from hosting providers. Anything less will result in a poor user experience riddled with error messages for site visitors.
To assess true reliability, examine the uptime history over a 12-month period for each host using independent monitoring sites like Pingdom or UptimeRobot. Give preference to web hosts with an average uptime meeting 99.95% or greater monthly.
Page Load Speeds
With higher page load speeds, your website will render faster for visitors, leading to better engagement and conversion rates. Industry benchmarks expect load times under 2 seconds per page—the faster the better.
Optimized web hosts will hit speeds of 200-500 ms for cached content by integrating CDNs and caching layers. Evaluate hosts by running page speed tests on Bitcatcha originating from multiple geographic regions to the servers.
Customer Support
You need 24/7 customer support available via phone, tickets, live chat and knowledge bases in case website errors ever occur. Measure the response times by contacting each host’s support team to gauge their average resolution speed based on priority level.
Ideally, choose a host with several methods of contact and agents that can resolve over 80% of inquiries within the initial interaction for the best customer care experience.
Scalability Potential
As your website traffic grows over time, you need to scale hosting resources like storage space, monthly data transfers (bandwidth), compute capacity to meet increasing loads.
Examine which plans from each provider enable flexibility to upgrade server specs, databases, and memory allocations to accommodate rapid growth phases over the next 3 years of business projections.
Security Protections
Hackers and cyber attacks pose a constant threat, making security protections vital for any web host you select.
Scrutinize the types of technologies they integrate such as firewalls, VPN access controls, patch updates and malware detection to secure infrastructure and websites from compromise. Additional measures like DDoS mitigation, disaster recovery protections, password managers further minimize risk.
Pricing Cost Factors
Balance your budget needs with the performance efficiencies and reliability factors above when comparing plans. Calculate total cost based on storage needs, traffic volumes, and advanced features over a 12-24 month period.
Watch for hidden fees, renewal hikes, and unusual billing policies that tack on charges unrelated to site delivery. For the best ROI, calculate the true cost of ownership for each host.
Top Web Hosts for Small Business Websites
Keeping the above performance and technical criteria in mind, here is an in-depth feature comparison of the top web hosting providers for small business websites:
1. Bluehost
Bluehost is renowned for offering seamless integration with WordPress. It provides users with:
- Easy one-click WordPress installation
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- Free SSL certificate
- cPanel dashboard for convenient site management
The unlimited resources make Bluehost ideal for sites anticipating rapid growth and traffic spikes. However, its relatively high renewal price is a notable drawback.
Bluehost Plan Allowances
| Feature | Basic | Plus | Choice Plus | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Websites Allowed | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage Space | 50GB | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Bandwidth Per Month | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free Domain | 1 Year | 1 Year | 1 Year | 1 Year |
| CPUs | 4 | 8 | 8 | 16 |
| RAM | 2GB | 4GB | 4GB | 6GB |
| SSD Storage | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Bluehost Technical Specs
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Data Center Infrastructure | Tier 3 |
| CDN Integration | Yes |
| PHP Version | 7.4 |
| MySQL Version | 5.6 |
| Free SSL Certificate | Yes |
| Content Delivery Network | Cloudflare |
| Daily Backups | No |
judged along the following criteria:
Uptime & Reliability
Bluehost servers are powered by cutting-edge tier 3 data centers featuring robust UPS protection, diesel generators, and temperature/humidity control for maximum reliability. However, lack of daily backups is concerning for potential recovery scenarios.
Independent 12-month uptimes averaged 99.94% across monitoring services, meeting industry standards.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Page Load Speed
Leveraging Anycast DNS and dual 20Gbps connectivity, Bluehost provides decently quick page loads averaging 660ms globally. Integrating Cloudflare CDN and PHP 7.4 stack enhance frontend performance well.
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Support
Bluehost chat support technicians can resolve more basic queries but lack effective escalation management for complex issues which require repeated follow up.
⭐⭐☆☆☆
Scalability
Unlimited resources allow seamless scaling, but upgrading to dedicated IP or managed servers requires migrating to pricier VPS/dedicated plans which have high rates long term.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Security
Bluehost integrates Sitelock malware detection, CodeGuard backups, SpamExperts protection for adequate WordPress site security. However, lack of 2FA authentication heightens vulnerability from outdated cPanel access.
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Pricing
Starting at $2.75/month first term makes Bluehost affordable initially, but renewal pricing spikes significantly to $7.99+/month unless locked into 36 month prepay.
⭐⭐☆☆☆
2. InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting provides optimized servers fine-tuned for WordPress along with max speed solid state drives. It offers:
- 90 day money back guarantee
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Free site migration assistance
- 24/7 live chat support
InMotion is perfect for the beginner WordPress user. It has affordable prices with helpful tools for launching your first small business site.
InMotion Hosting Plan Allowances
| Feature | Launch | Power | Pro |
|-|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|
| Websites Allowed | 2 | 6 | 8 |
| SSD Storage | 6GB | 120GB | 240GB |
| Bandwidth Per Month | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free Domain | 1 Year | 1 Year | 1 Year |
| Databases Allowed | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
InMotion Technical Specs
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Control Panel | cPanel |
| PHP | 7.3, 7.4 |
| MySQL | 5.6 |
| Server OS | Linux |
| FREE SSL Certificate | Yes |
| CDN | MaxCDN |
| Backups | Daily |
Uptime & Reliability
InMotion guarantees effective uptime of 99.9% on their servers backed by enterprise-grade hardware, route optimization and backup power generators for consistency.
⭐⭐⭐⭐★
Page Load Speed
Hosting accounts benefit from dedicated resources guaranteeing page loads under 500ms for cached content. Integration of MaxCDN and SSD drives enhance performance further.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Support
Exceptional US-based customer support available 24/7/365 via chat, phone, tickets with 99% satisfaction ratings for knowledge, speed and resolution quality.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Scalability
Seamlessly upgrade server resources like RAM, CPU cores to handle 125% of traffic spikes and storage needs up to 240GB on flexible plans.
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Security
InMotion leverages enterprise-grade hardware with automated malware detection, dual firewalls, patch management and DDoS mitigation to protect website infrastructure security via Imperva Silverline, a WordPress firewall and application rules engine.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Pricing
Very affordable entry-level shared hosting starting at $6.39/month makes InMotion a budget-friendly option for small business owners with renewal only slightly higher at $15/month with annual terms.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
