If you are planning on starting a small business establishment in 2023, then setting up a website for your business can be beneficial in a lot of ways.
Picking a web hosting is one among the most important tasks involved while building a website from scratch.
For those who aren’t much familiar with web hosting service providers, today we are here with a detailed article that will help you choose the best web hosting for small businesses in 2023.
Why is a Website Important for Small Businesses?
Most businesses nowadays are interested in establishing their presence online with a website.
Are you wondering how a website can be beneficial for your business and its growth?
Let us look at a few reasons why a website is considered essential for the working and growth of a business in today’s time.
1# Build Credibility
A study by the eCommerce foundation states that about 88 percent of customers will research a product or service online before they make a purchase.
If a prospective customer searches online about a product or service that you are offering and can find an official website with all the necessary information, it will improve the credibility of your business and build confidence among customers to purchase the product or services that you are selling.
2# Improve Sales
As per a report by Tidio, more than 2.30 billion people will be regularly buying goods and services online by 2023. In comparison, only about 1.66 billion people resorted to buying online in 2016.
As the importance of an online marketplace is growing each year, having a website will help in selling directly to the customers without having to rely on offline markets and third-party eCommerce platforms.
3# Advertise to Targeted Audience
Unlike traditional advertising methods, online advertisements will ensure that your marketing campaigns only reach people who are interested in the type of products or services that you are selling.
Having a website is crucial for SEO & social media marketing because it ensures customers that the marketing campaign is genuine and thus will improve conversions.
4# Better Organic Reach
Nowadays most of us merely make a Google search to find the best offline and online places to buy goods and services.
Having a business website that is SEO optimized will ensure that you organically reach more customers by appearing at the top of search results for queries that relate to your business and its location.
5# Collect Data About Customers
Retaining existing customers is as important as gaining new customers for every business.
With an official business website, it becomes easier to collect details about your customers such as their name, phone number, and email address to contact them with attractive offers or information on new launches.
How Influential is Web Hosting for a Website?
Now that we have explained the importance of a website for a business, let us also take you through some points that emphasizes the importance of availing web hosting service from a trusted and experienced provider.
6# Website Security
We live in a day and age where cybersecurity threats are at its peak despite innovations in the field.
Website security is a top-priority concern for business websites as they mostly store sensitive customer information such as personal and credit card details.
Web hosting providers have the responsibility of implementing the latest web security techniques such as SSL verification to ensure the protection of its client websites.
7# Site Uptime
The hosting that supports a website directly influences the uptime of the site.
If the web hosting provider works with limited resources or is unable to scale as per demand, then websites under the hosting can become unavailable and face downtime when a sudden surge in traffic occurs.
Moreover, sites that often face downtime issues will also have a negative SEO impact.
8# Site Speed
Well, the speed of a website is majorly dependent on two factors: the web hosting and site design, and web hosting is the crucial factor out of both.
The resources and scalability of a web host directly influence the speed of websites that are hosted on it as in most cases there is more than one website demanding resources from a web server at any given moment.
How To Choose The Best Web Hosting For Small Business In 2023?
In this section, we will take a look at the key factors that can help you in picking the best web hosting for small businesses in 2023.
1. Determine the Requirements
Understanding the requirements is important before picking a web hosting service for a website.
For small businesses, shared web hosting is the best choice as it’s the most cost-effective and offers quite enough features to get started with a website.
As the website becomes popular and more traffic kicks in, you can later opt for a dedicated web hosting or a Virtual Private Server (VPS).
2. Compare the Pricing
There are lots of web hosting service providers out there, and as a result, there is fierce competition in terms of pricing to gain more number of customers.
To ensure that you get the best deal, compare the prices that are offered by the different service providers for the requirements that you need.
3. Check Out for Features and Extras
Hosting providers also offer several add-ons and features to attract more customers.
Free Adword coupons, free domain name, and free email address are some of the most commonly offered features.
Before picking a provider, make sure to check out the extras and features that they offer along with the service and choose the one that you can utilize the most.
3. Look Out for Reviews
Every hosting provider claims to be the best in service, and that is not the case.
Even though it is hard to judge providers without using their services, the best way to find out the reality is by checking for reviews by existing users.
There are several online sources where you can find genuine reviews about the various hosting providers there are. Apart from that, you can also ask people in your contacts about their experience with web hosting companies to understand the pros and cons of the different providers.
While researching reviews, do not forget to consider the customer support that is offered by the company.
Prompt customer service is among the top feature that should be offered by hosting companies as any troubles with the web host can take the website offline.
4. Scalability Options
Web hosting companies offer dead cheap pricing for new customers. However, you only become aware of the real pricing difference when you choose to upgrade or renew the service.
Contact the customer support and sales team to understand the various additional charges that will incur when you choose to upgrade or renew your existing hosting plan to get a clear idea of how much you will have to pay in the future.
What Else To Worry About While Creating A Website For Your Business?
Well, apart from the web hosting, below are some of the other essential aspects to consider while setting up a website for your business.
1. Website Design
The design is the first element that attracts any visitor to your website and its content.
Alongside featuring a modern design and look for the website, also make sure to implement a comfortable layout for the site so that visitors can access all features of the site quickly and with just a few clicks.
Must Read: How to Make a Website: Step by Step Guide
2. Loading Speed
A slow website annoys everyone and immediately creates a negative impression on a site.
While designing the website, make sure that the loading speed of your site isn’t compromised.
3. Content Quality
All the content featured on your business website, regardless of whether product/service descriptions or helpful articles, should be crafted to help the visitors on your site.
Content should be short, precise, and easy to understand. Always make sure to remove any grammatical and spelling errors from the content on the website. To do the same, you can make use of the various grammar and punctuation checker tools available online.
Read Also:
- 7 Essential Tips for Writing Social Media Content Your Audience Will Love
- 4 Crucial Pieces of Content Every Website Must Have to Increase Credibility
- How to Create Content that Works for Your Business
- 8 Types of Engaging Content to Boost Your Traffic
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO ensures that your website is accessible and optimized for search engines such as Google so that your site and its content are easily discoverable by search engine users.
Even though there are lots of SEO tips and guides available online, hiring a professional SEO agency is the best way to ensure that your website sits on top of search engine results.
5. Easy Checkout
For business websites selling products or services, it is must to have a secure and quick checkout process.
Online shoppers hate having to go through several cumbersome procedures and steps to make a purchase. Try to include as few procedures as possible while processing a checkout.
Conclusion
We have tried to cover all the essential aspects that customers should understand before picking a web hosting provider for their business website in 2023.
In case you have any doubts, please do feel free to get in touch and we’ll do the best to help you out.
Read Also:
- A to Z Beginner’s Guide to Web Hosting
- 10 Key Features of Web Hosting Services for Small Business
- Shared Vs VPS Hosting: What’s the Difference?
Author: Deep Wadhwa is the Founder of LinkOceans. He has been in Digital Marketing for the last 7 years. Apart from work, he is a lyricist, guitarist, singer and a sports freak.
