To put it simply, web hosting allows companies and individuals to post a website or a web page on the Internet. A web hosting provider is a business that provides the technologies and services needed to provide for a website to be viewed on the Internet.
They are hosted or stored on servers. To host websites companies need to have their domain. Pretty much all businesses have their website. The best thing about a hosting service provider is that it also have their technicians employed to keep their website up and running 24/7.
Since every major company has its website small businesses should have websites too. The main reason is convenience. Local services like commercial cleaning, building materials supply or electrical services should be available online.
Most reviews are written online nowadays so you can immediately check if a service provider is worth it. If you’re the owner of a small business and you’re looking for a hosting provider, here are 5 hosting providers you should consider:
A2 Hosting
It’s no wonder all A2 Hosting reviews praise this hosting provider for its speed. The provider is currently the fastest shared hosting provider and offers VPS, shared, cloud, reseller and dedicated hosting. It has solid server performance with a 99.98% uptime and TTFB < 550ms, live chat, phone support, 4 server locations available (1 in EU and Asia, and 2 in the US) as well as offsite and server rewind backups. The only downside of this provider is that the prices go up after the first term.
InMotion Hosting
This web hosting provider has been providing its services for the past 15 years and its ideal for small businesses. Besides the hosting prices increasing after the first term, their server is, sadly, located in the US. Furthermore, InMotion Hosting has a 90-day money-back guarantee, an uptime of over 99.95% and TTFB < 450ms, full SSD storage, live chat support, auto-SSL, a daily automated site backup, and other useful features.
Hostinger
As this list’s most globally spread web-hosting providers, Hostinger is the reason why over 29 million websites are running today. It offers advanced VPS cloud infrastructure as well as basic shared hosting plans. What makes this hosting provider so popular are its cheap prices beginning as low as $0.80 a month. They provide a free domain name, have Curl and Curl SSL available, a free SSL lifetime certificate, weekly and daily backups, a server uptime of 99.9% and above, and a fast server load time of <440ms. Like the previous entries on this list, Hostinger’s hosting prices increase after the first term.
SiteGround
SiteGround has been hosting websites since 2004. Their range of features is balanced by the high prices they have on them. SiteGround offer their clients free daily audio backups and free SSL encryption, their servers are located in Europe, North America and Asia, a server uptime of 100%, hand-to-hand customer support, well-tuned for CMS like Joomla and WordPress, and many more services. After looking at those features, it’s no wonder SiteGround has hosted over 1 000 000 websites over the years.
Shopify
Despite being an eCommerce platform, this Canadian based company offers web hosting services as well. Shopify keeps it simple when setting up a website, offers excellent eCommerce support tools, its own POS system, has mobile responsive sites, multiple sales channel support and unlimited products for all hosting plans. However, the prices for these services might make you consider a second or third website builder that suits your budget better. Moreover, it’s difficult to export websites and Shopify cuts a percentage from all online sales payments.