Web Hosting Guide

There are many small businesses, and even micro-businesses, that are not on the web. From single person, part time businesses that border on hobbies, to family owned businesses, there are still many businesses that simply have not joined the 21st century.

For these companies, basic web hosting would boost business and raise profits, yet due to either a fear of technology or simply being unaware of what web hosting and a basic web page could do for their bottom line they remain without a web presence.

Benefits of having web hosting for a small or micro-business

Registering a domain today is easy, as is managing a website through cPanel, which comes standard with most hosting companies. However, some small businesses may still contract a web developer to manage their websites, starting from the design of the website to its regular monthly hosting needs. While this is convenient, many problems may arise from contracting a third party to manage your website and hosting. Common problems with paying your web developer for web hosting are:

• If the developer does not pay their hosting bills, the business is negatively affected. Developers come and go and while most have solid business models, there are some that are not as good at managing their businesses. If a web developer does not pay for their hosting, all of the sites will be shut down by the hosting company. It could be weeks before a business becomes aware that they no longer have a website that is functioning. If a small or micro business has a slow month or unexpected expenses and chooses to not pay for their hosting they would at least be aware that their website was down.
• The developer could end up owning your trademarked business domain name. Without a specific contract that states otherwise, the developer will be the one registering the domain name or names that the business they are working with is going to use. There have been numerous cases of the developer refusing to give up the domain name should the business arrangement go sour.
• Overpaying - With good quality and affordable hosting options available, it makes little sense to pay a web developer more per month for hosting space than the company would pay to have their own web hosting account. Web Developers can purchase reseller accounts or simply big, unlimited hosting packages at discounted rates. The typical model for a web developer is to be able to pay their web hosting bills with the fees charged to only two or three clients, making the fee from all the other clients they have pure profit.

Building a web presence is effective and affordable

With the advancements that the web hosting companies have made to become more customer focused, as well as third party software packages that are either free or very affordable, building a web presence for a business is very easy.

Web hosting companies have worked hard over the past few years to make the process of getting one's web presence going as easy as possible. For example, most web hosting companies have created a web-based control panel to allow the user to change and modify most of the settings for the hosting service, from the mail server to what is displayed when someone tries to go to their domain name.

These web-based control panels are straightforward and work just like any other website, making even the novice to web hosting easily able to change settings and get their web pages up and visible.

The typical web hosting package also has various ways to assist with creating the web content. Templates and template editors are becoming more and more common and the quality of the templates and how deeply they can be edited make them a viable option for many small and micro-businesses needs. What used to be a default page that needed to be replaced with a custom page a few years ago can now be easily modified to look like a custom page in just a few minutes.

There are also software packages that not only allow for the creation of web pages but can upload the web page to the web hosting account. Some do cost money but there are others that are bundled with both Windows and Apple computers and they are free.

Final thoughts

Between the templates available and the free software which is incredibly easy to use, anyone with basic computing skills can create a web presence in short amount of time. With the cost savings of doing the work without an outside consultant, as well as the money saved from using a good budget hosting company, any business can have a web presence quickly and have another way of driving customers to their business.