Your small business website needs to be hosted on a web server or simply a server (another name for computer) that is connected to the World Wide Web so that anyone can access your website.
Choosing a web hosting company for your small business website is easy if you follow the guide I have layout for you. Depending on the scale of your business, the type of business you run and your level of technical competency, there will always be a right hosting provider just for your business.
The general rule of thumb in choosing a web hosting provider boils down to: Excellent Customer Support, Company Stability, Robust Datacenter, and Affordability
Excellent Customer Support If all things being equal, I would rate customer support as my number 1 determining factor in choosing a web hosting provider. Relying on testimonials found on the provider’s site is a common approach to assess a company’s level of customer excellence but it is also quite an outdated one. After all it’s not uncommon for some providers to fake the testimonials. Instead I suggest you follow my way of assessing their customer support.
Sizing its level of customer support is sometimes as easy as finding out whether they have enough employees to support their level of business growth. You should look at the Customer to Employee ratio, CE ratio, as a benchmark.
For example, according to our records SiteSell Inc has approximately 15,000 customers and employs about 30 support staff, it has a CE ratio of 500 (15,000/30 = 500), you can expect a much higher level of customer satisfaction and a faster response time when compared to another provider who is serving 100,000 customers but only have 75 support staff. Their CE ratio would stand at approximately 1,333. Basically you should look for a professional hosting provider with a low CE ratio.