With the growth of technology, more and more businesses are taking the digital approach to building a strong and user-friendly online presence, i.e., a website. Your website is the most important thing that promotes your company and helps you gain more customers.
However, simply purchasing a domain name for your site doesn’t make your site active and accessible. To power up your site and make it visible to the people, you should either have a web hosting account or may want to get in touch with a web hosting company to host your website on a website server!
But, what exactly does it mean to host a website? Read on further to find out.
What Is Web Hosting?
Web hosting service lets you rent server space for your website to reside. Without it, your site would be hidden from the world.
Every website needs to be hosted somewhere. You’ll need access to a web hosting plan to get your site online. With a reliable hosting plan, you rent space on a web server and allow your site to be accessed by internet users.
Why Is Web Hosting Important?
Web hosting is the first step in building a website accessible 24/7. Many businesses make the mistake of underestimating just how important a website is. If done right, having a website in today’s world is the equivalent of opening a second location for your business.
You can create a website from start to finish and purchase a domain for your business, but it can’t be accessed by anyone online until you put the site on a server. Therefore, if you want anyone to see your site, a website hosting package is necessary for your website launch.
Having discussed the importance of web hosting for businesses, let’s now look at some of the key reasons for using the right Web Hosting Service for your website.
Web Hosting For Small Businesses: 6 Key Reasons
When you’re creating a website for the first time, choosing a host may be one of the last things. However, failing to pick the correct host may have serious consequences for your website, not to mention your business.
Having the right hosting means higher traffic. Let’s look at several reasons why web hosting is so important:
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Web Security
Choosing a reliable web host company is necessary if you want a safe server to host your website on. A site with weak security might result in privacy and data loss. This stands particularly true for sites dealing with payments and other sensitive information. Without having a safe, well-maintained website, your site is at risk of being hacked. Your site will be marked as ‘distrusted,’ lowering its SEO rankings if this happens.
A high-quality host will have website backups, firewalls, and other methods to fight online threats or hacks. They’ll be able to keep your site’s and your client’s data safe.
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Builds Your Business’s Credibility
As a small business, having a website makes your business more credible than companies that only have social media profiles. Customers can’t find you without a website, let alone trust you.
Websites also help firms appear more authentic. Visitors may look around and get a sense of the type of business you run and possibly, become your customers. You can add various on-site elements, such as showcasing your products and services or creating a contact form to make your brand look credible.
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Site Speed
People don’t like waiting. Keeping this in mind, you want your website to be fast, so customers do not get frustrated with slow loading times. To put things into perspective, 40% of visitors leave a website if it doesn’t load in as little as 3 seconds.
After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on a sale or new client because your website took too long to load.
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Data Storage
To keep your website running smoothly, you must ensure that a hosting service’s data limits can manage traffic. If this limit gets exceeded, too many users visiting simultaneously may shut the site down.
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Better SEO Ranking
Your site’s loading speeds and overall performance are important in your rankings. If your site takes way too long to load, you’ll have a high bounce rate, and your users will have a terrible user experience.
Sometimes, there might be issues with your site. For instance, you might be using unoptimized images or have installed too many plugins. But, other times, it may be your web host’s fault.
If you’ve optimized your site and find no error on your behalf and still find your site running slow, it’s probably time to switch hosts. Sure, it may be that your site could be getting too much traffic for your current hosting package; you would get an e-mail from your host about an upgrade.
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24/7 Customer Service Support
Lastly, a web host should offer you more than just a server to help you troubleshoot issues, making your website run smoothly. Whenever you face any technical problem like this, your mind will be at ease knowing you have a dedicated support team behind you.
If you require the services of need a web hosting services, below are some traits of a good hosting provider in general:
- Server Speed: The speed with which your website runs might directly influence its search engine rankings.
- Customer Service Support: You may face technical site issues now and then. Ensure the support team of your web hosting company is responsive and knowledgeable.
- Reputation: Every company has its fair share of unhappy customers. But by in large, you will find that good web hosting companies have their customers giving positive reviews about them.
To Conclude
You’ve surely noticed that the question isn’t “do I need a website,” but “can I afford not to have one.” The world has nearly shifted to the online era, and your company needs to have an online presence backed up by the knowledge of which web hosting is best for a small business. Only then can you ensure that your website runs smoothly and you never miss a customer.
If you run a small business and looking for the best web-hosting services, consider contacting platforms like Red Eye Sports USA. They’ll be able to link you with potential web hosting companies based on your needs.
