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Top 7 Web Hosting Features You Need for Your First Business Site

When creating your first business website, selecting the right hosting is one of the essential decisions to make. However, this can be a challenging task, with many hosting companies offering various features.

This article focuses on six must-have hosting features for your first business website. These features help sort your options and choose the best one for you.

1. Excellent 24/7 customer support

Above all features, look for hosting companies with excellent 24/7 customer support. With an excellent reputation, the team is capable of helping you with any issues you encounter. In addition, the 24/7 availability means that they're ready at any moment, even in the most unlikely time.

Some of the benefits you get from excellent customer support are troubleshooting while installing your preferred platform, making upgrades, resolving errors or malfunctions, and other questions related to your website. Most importantly, they do it quickly because they understand that time is money.

Research different hosting companies and understand how their customer support works. Learn about response time and contact methods, either chat, email, phone call, or all three. You can go to their websites or go to Trustpilot.com to choose based on their customer reviews.

2. Guaranteed uptime

Your web hosting must guarantee a high uptime. Uptime is measured by the percentage that refers to whenever your website is available. Thus whenever your website is down and unavailable, it refers to downtime. For example, if a website has 98% uptime, then the downtime is 2%.

The 2% downtime might not seem much now, but when you experience it, you’ll see that the minimum acceptable uptime is 99%. The guaranteed uptime is essential because it greatly affects your website's performance. Websites with higher downtime rank poorly on search engines and create a bad user experience.

Choose and settle for web hosting with a 99% uptime or higher. You can compare the uptime between hosting providers within this chart. If you know which one you're choosing, regularly monitor the uptime or downtime of your website.

3. Security and backups

Security and backups are important for business websites, especially if you're running an online store. There are unpredictable scenarios that might happen and make your website vulnerable, like the exposure of sensitive data, malware, phishing attempts, or identity theft.

Getting web hosting with good security and backup features prevents web security issues that can happen. Understand the hosting provider's security measures, like if they offer an SSL certificate, malware scanning, and network monitoring for prevention.

Backups are also one of the key security measures. It's also a smart way to prevent data loss, resolve malware issues, and solve compatibility after new tool installation. Hosting plans offer different automated backup periods, either daily or weekly.

Image source: canva.com

Choose a hosting provider that provides both security and backup features in one plan. Try looking into Hostinger.com and their hosting plans that provide adequate security measures and various backup periods. I’d consider them a great entry-level option for pretty much any business website. You can start out with an affordable price tag and scale up as you go along.

4. Server speed (especially for online stores)

Server speed is another must-have hosting feature because it affects your SEO rankings and visitor satisfaction. It's reflected in ping time or load times. A fast-loading website lowers the bounce rate, increases page ranking and customer retention.

Among other business types, server speed is especially crucial for e-commerce or online stores. Fast page loading speed helps with the payment process and supports your website for a great conversion rate.

In general, the acceptable time for a website to load is 2 seconds or less. So ensure that your hosting provider has a reliable server speed. You can look into a VPS hosting plan that can handle larger data and provides better server reliability.

5. Business domain email

To add credibility to your business, having email accounts based on your business domain is an absolute must. Having them can also help with email marketing, create better communication between you and your customers, and help you stand out from competitors.

When looking for email features, check the storage size and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) that allows large data transfer. In addition, you can consider having multiple email accounts for long-term business growth.

Remember to adjust the email features with your business activities before making a decision.

6. Flexibility and scalability

The right hosting accommodates your business needs, including those that come as your business grows. This is why you also need to check the flexibility and scalability of your web hosting.

The flexibility comes when it can handle occasional traffic spikes or high traffic count from marketing campaigns, which is likely to happen. Flexible web hosting ensures that your website won't crash or experience as many errors.

Scalability allows your business to continue growing by adding more capabilities, like more bandwidth or additional storage space. It's helpful if you're running a fast-moving company with expansion plans.

Out of all hosting plans, VPS hosting is a safe option for flexibility compared to shared hosting. Thinking about the long-term objectives of your business can also help you adjust and choose better.

7. Reasonable pricing

With all the features mentioned, you cannot overlook the price of your hosting plan. It's smart to choose credible hosting with beneficial features, but one that doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.

Image source: canva.com

The prices of hosting plans depend on their features, so you'll always get what you pay for. They can be as low as $2.99 and as high as $25 and over, and it can still get higher if you plan to scale. So, it helps to plan ahead to avoid overpaying or not getting enough features that you need.

If you worry about investing in expensive hosting types, you can start small as long as you choose the one with easy upgrade processes. Learn about the different types of hosting and adjust them with your business strategies.

In conclusion

Deciding the right web hosting for your business is a tedious task that requires thorough research. However, taking the time to choose your web hosting is an excellent investment for your business.

This article mentioned seven hosting features to create seamless business operations, and so you can get the most from the price you're paying.

The decision is in your hands, but we hope this article will get you one step closer to choosing the right web hosting.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes

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