Web hosting is important for every small business website today.
A good web host will make your life so much easier. You won’t have to worry about whether your website will be running today or not. Your website will be secure from outside attacks. And you’ll have a lot less stress in your life with regards to your website.
But a bad web host can become a headache quite quickly. You’ll be constantly worried about whether the host will keep your website up today. There’s a chance that an attack can get inside your website no matter how secure you make your website. And good luck getting any “quality” custom support.
In short, you can make your life so much easier by picking a good host for your website.
So to help you make the right decision, here are the best web hosting companies for small business websites. You won’t make a bad decision with any of the companies listed below.
So let’s dive in!
Table of contents
Why web hosting matters
Web hosting is the most important decision you will make for your small business website. Hands down.
It’s so crucial to get this right.
As I mentioned before, a good web host will make everything run so smoothly. Your website will always be up. If you sell products through your website, you won’t have to worry about too many customers online at once crashing your website. And you won’t have much to worry about with the security of your site.
Plus, you might even get cool additional features, like automated daily backups (which come in handy when things do go wrong) and free SSL certificates.
But if you choose the wrong host, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.
You’ll spend a lot of your time wondering if your website is up or down. Too many customers might cause the website to crash. And then there are the security risks that you’ll be worried about.
So take some time to do your research and select the right web host for your small business website.
What to look for in a web host
So what should you look for when it comes to selecting a web host for your small business website?
Well first off, you’re going to figure out what your budget for web hosting can be. This will likely be the first way you can narrow down your choices as there are great options at all price levels.
Next, you’ll need to figure out what you need for your web host. Do you need something that will support WordPress or an online store? Or is something that needs to support another content management system? Or are you just looking for something really simple?
After that, you’ll want to take at the features for each of the web hosts that you’re interested in to see if what they offer lines up with what you need. Hopefully this really helps you narrow down your search to just a couple of hosts.
Finally, read the customer reviews for each web host you’re interested in. Look for the two-, three- and four-star review to get a good idea of what each one is good and bad at. Read enough to where you can make a decision of which one is the best for your new website.
There really isn’t one right answer for everyone, as you’re about to see. There’s only what’s best for your business.
Best WordPress web hosting for small business
Since WordPress powers over 40 percent of the internet, a number of web hosts have popped up specifically to power WordPress websites. Here are a few of the top ones that you might want to check out.
WP Engine
So full disclosure before continuing on: I use WP Engine for hosting my websites. I’ve been using them for almost seven years now, and haven’t had any issues with them at all. In fact, they’ve been extremely responsive when I do run into problems. I want to get that disclosure out there so you know the full story.
With that out of the way, I truly think that WP Engine is one of the best web hosts for WordPress on the market. I haven’t run into any uptime or performance issues with them during my time. Plus their customer service can’t be beat.
In terms of features, caching is built into the hosting, there are automated daily backups and each site gets a staging and development environment for you to play with. And they have a lot of great tools, like StudioPress’ line of themes.
On the flip side, it can be a bit expensive. One site hosting will run you about $25 a month and the next highest is $63 a month. Plus, depending on your site’s popularity, you might run over the 25,000 visits a month you’re allowed with the basic plan. So it’s not great for super simple sites.
Also, there’s no email included with the hosting, if that matters to you.
But if you’re looking to create an online store that can scale, WP Engine is worth a look. You won’t run into a lot of technical issues, and you can feel confident that your store is running at all times.
Pressable
Presable has become a really quality web host for anyone running a WordPress website in today’s environment.
I’ve used them for a couple of freelance projects this year, and I’ve got to say that I’ve enjoyed my experience with them. For starters, you get unlimited storage for all of your images, PDFs and other files for your website. I don’t think I’ve seen that anywhere else that wasn’t confined to a top-tier package. Plus, you get a free SSL certificate and CDN for each of your sites. And you get
All of this starts for $19 a month for the lowest plan and $25 a month for the best quality plan.
On the other hand, there are some questions about their customer support. I haven’t personally had to deal with their support, but in research for this post, a number of people pointed out their limited custom service. Also, you won’t get an email address with this host and you can’t choose your cloud platform.
But if you’re looking for a simple web host to get started on your WordPress website, you can’t go wrong with Pressable.
Kinsta
Next up we have Kinsta, which has grown to be one of the better WordPress hosts recently.
They have a lot of great options that make it really easy for you to just sign up and get going with creating a website for your business. In addition to great uptime and performance, you’ll also get a free SSL certificate for each of your websites (a must in today’s world), automatic database optimization as well as help with migrating your website from another hosting company if you need it.
Kinsta also has tremendous technical customer support that can help you with almost any issue, and you’ll get staging environments, automated backups and a lot more.
Unfortunately, because of that it can be a bit on the pricey side of things. The lowest plan starts at $30 a month and the best plan they offer starts at $100 a month. Also, email accounts are not included in the plan, if that’s something you need and don’t want to have to fuss with.
Still, for anyone looking to create an online store that can grow with their business, Kinsta is a good option to look at.
Siteground
Siteground checks in as one of the cheapest WordPress-specific web hosts in this list. Their lowest plan starts at $15 a month, and I’ve noticed that they tend to run a lot of specials too.
And that lowest plan isn’t bad at all. You won’t have a lot of uptime issues to deal with. You’ll also get a free SSL certificate. You’ll also be able to choose your server location. Plus, they have great customer service based off of the comments I was able to find online. Oh, and again, they will likely fit your budget too.
But on the flip side it doesn’t have a lot of dedicated servers available for you to use. And you might find yourself running out of the 10 GB of data space quickly.
Still if money is on your mind, it’s probably worth taking a look at Siteground and if it can help you and your website.
Best web hosting for small business for other platforms
If you’re just looking for a basic HTML website or need something not WordPress, here are some of your best options for web hosting.
Inmotion
So Inmotion has been really a surprise for me with their web hosting quality. My church’s website has been hosted on it for a while, and I’ve actually had a really good experience with it so far, which I did not expect.
It has really good uptime and performance. It, like the rest of the hosts in this group, can host WordPress or other websites. There’s also a one-click install for WordPress, which I found super easy (especially because it’s been a while since doing that). Also, you can get unlimited email accounts and overall it’s pretty easy to create a website.
On the other hand, I’ve had just a few performance issues here and there, but nothing major. And not all of the plans can be month-to-month, which might be a problem if you’re looking for that.
Still, for $9.99 a month for WordPress hosting, that’s not a bad deal if your main focus is pricing. Inmotion is something to take a look at.
Hostinger
Hostinger is another great option web hosting for your small business website.
The host has absolutely stellar performance stats, so you won’t have to worry about whether your website is up or down or if it’s taking too long to load.
Hostinger also has quality customer support, which can be critical when things go wrong on your website. You’ll also get a free SSL certificate for your website to add an extra layer of security for your visitors. And it has great pricing, especially for the beginner plan.
The one downside is that you are on shared hosting, and you’re limited with what you can do on the basic plans. And there’s only a weekly automated backup when daily backups are really recommended.
Still, Hostinger is a great web host for a beginner website and worth taking a look for your website.
A2 Hosting
Another really good host in this category is A2 Hosting. I haven’t used them before, but I have heard good things about them.
For starters, they have great uptime and performance. Also, from the comments I’ve seen in my research, their customer service seems to be very high quality. And they also offer a lot of great web hosting packages, especially for WordPress.
The one knock I can find against them is that their WordPress managed hosting can be a bit expensive, checking in at $23.99 a month. At that point, it might be better to go for one of the other hosts mentioned earlier in this post.
Still, I don’t think you can go too wrong with A2 Hosting.
HostGator
Next up we have HostGator, which seems to be pretty popular with the WordPress crowd. And it looks like they have a good reason for it too.
They offer a lot of different plans, which can work with almost any level of website, sans larger ecommerce operations. Although if you just want to start a small online store without committing too much money to it, HostGator might be your best bet.
You can get started for around $6 a month. And that gets you a free email address and SSL certificate. Plus, they have almost no uptime issues and performance is pretty good.
And to be quite honest, from my research I couldn’t find a whole lot of issues with their hosting. I have to say that HostGator is definitely the best of this category of web hosting. Can’t go wrong with them at all.
Cloudways
Cloudways has become a really player in the web hosting space the last couple of years. And for good reasons too.
Like almost every web hosting platform, every plan comes with a free SSL certificate. It’s also proactive in protecting your website and server from outside attack.s
Also, Cloudways has an excellent uptime record, so you’ll never need to worry about whether your website is currently online or if people can’t find you. And the high performance plus built-in caching will help your website load quickly for your customers and visitors.
On the downside, the CDN (content delivery network) is an add on that costs extra to include in your plan. And the user interface can be a bit confusing, especially if you’re already familiar with the CPanel.
The price for hosting with Cloudways starts at $12 a month, and it’s a great choice for beginners and small businesses.
Check out the WordPress Website Care Plans
Are you looking for managed hosting for your WordPress website that will take care of the technical aspects of your website? Look no further than the WordPress Website Care plans!
Each plan comes with managed WordPress core, plugin and theme updates, so you never have to stress about an update breaking your website. Plus, you’ll get quality web hosting on WP Engine, daily automated backups and if something goes wrong on your website, you won’t have to do anything.
Plus, some plans come with added security, SEO improvements, analytics reporting and more. It’s the perfect way to help your website grow online.
So check out the WordPress Website Care Plans today and start focusing less time on managing your website and more time on running and growing your business.
Get started on your new website today!
Are you looking to create a new or first website for your business today? Then you’ll want to check out the Small Business Website Starter Kit.
This starter kit will give you a WordPress website with a design to match what your business does. You’ll also get a great SEO foundation, training on how to use your website and a platform to help you grow your business online. And your website will be built on WP Engine, so you know that it will always be up.
Your website will also be online in under two weeks and for under $1,000, so it will fit just about any budget.
So get your business online with a great website using the Small Business Website Starter Kit today!
