<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Web-Hosting-for-Business.jpg" alt="Web Hosting for Business" width="285" height="177" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9630" />When it comes time to choose a web host, you may feel overwhelmed by the multitude of options. Your business depends on your ability to access the internet and to keep your website up and running. With the wrong web host, you could experience downtime leading to missed traffic and lost customers. Selecting the perfect web hosting plan is vital to your business website because website’s have become one of the most important parts of a business’s success. 

Your website acts as your online identity which means that you can’t put it in danger of being unavailable to customers, running too slowly to use, or not performing at its best. How do you ensure your website’s quality and performance? 

Your web host choice will be one of the biggest factors affect your website, so business owners have to take this decision very seriously. Since this decision will have such an impact on business and potentially income, business owners are starting to look at their options more carefully than ever. Here is a look at the various hosting plans so that you can decide the right one for your business and your budget. 

<h2>Where to begin</h2>

When you start researching web host plans, you’ll want to first being by evaluating your needs. Ask yourself a few questions that will highly impact what type of web host you’ll need. Once you know the answers to these questions, it’ll be much easier to narrow down your decisions and match the best web host plan to your needs. 

Ask yourself where your customers are and what type of traffic volume you expect. If you plan to have an e-commerce site, this will affect your web host due to the need for something that supports sales and customers’ sensitive information’s security. 

If you need multiple domains hosted compared to just one, that will also affect the route you go. Some hosts provide all of the major hosting plans while others would force you to change providers if you decide to change plans, which is extremely complicated. 

<h2>Choosing a shared hosting plan</h2>

Many people will go the route of a shared hosting plan compared to something more independent. The major draw towards shared hosting plans is that it will save you a fortune on this part of your budget. Most people can’t afford to pay for premium hosting and a shared plan is the easiest way to save money. 

Since you’re sharing a server with many other companies, you’ll save a ton of money on your hosting and still get your internet needs handled. This is great for small and mid-sized businesses with limited budgets. 

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Business-Hosting.jpg" alt="Business Hosting" width="204" height="247" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9628" />Why don’t more people want a shared hosting plan if it’s so affordable? The drawback of shared hosting is that with so many websites on the same server, there is a higher chance of performance issues. Companies that rely on heavy traffic won’t be able to keep up with the demand on a shared server. 

While you’re saving money on hosting, you’ll have issues with the traffic spikes on any of the sites and you’ll end up suffering if any other website is having a software issue. You could even run into security issues which is dangerous for an e-commerce site handling sensitive information. Overall, the affordability comes at a price of restricted traffic volume, software support, and database support, as well as a lack of security and a higher chance of a slow loading site deterring visitors. 

<h2>When shared hosting won’t cut it</h2>

Many people realize that shared hosting isn’t for them and they’d rather get their own dedicated web hosting. Why wouldn’t everyone go this route if it’s going to perform much better? It’s really expensive to get dedicated web hosting. You’ll have a whole server dedicated to your website giving you tons of disk space and bandwidth. 

It’s great for companies with heavy traffic every day or for an e-commerce site or niche site that will need top-notch security for customers’ sensitive information. The problem is that this is going to come at a premium price that usually only the big brands can afford to run and maintain. 

In addition to the increased security, your website won’t have to worry about experience downtime due to other site’s having a spike in traffic. Your load times can remain quick ensuring your customers have a great experience visiting your site. 

Get your own customized software programs and operating systems on the server too. Larger sites with heavy traffic find this route the perfect way to go and it can come in a managed or non-managed option depending on what type of IT department you have. 

<h2>If neither of these options will work, there is another way</h2>

Some people find shared hosting and dedicated web hosting both unreasonable options for their company’s website. There is another option that falls in-between the two known as VPS Hosting, a virtual private server plan. 

VPS uses a shared server with other websites on the server but everyone has their own fixed proportion divided up. This means that you won’t have to worry about traffic spikes on other’s sites affecting your site’s performance. It can handle larger traffic volumes, it’s more secure, and it’s more affordable than dedicated web hosting. It’s the best of both worlds wrapped up into one. 

<h2>Cloud hosting</h2>

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Cloud-Hosting.png" alt="Cloud Hosting" width="294" height="180" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9629" />A fourth option you could consider is cloud hosting. It has many advantages over shared and dedicated hosting with benefits like having the option to customize server speed. If you tend to sell the most during the holidays, you could customize it for more processing power and RAM right before the holidays. 

You’ll have more security and reliability than most with cloud hosting and a software issue in the cloud wouldn’t hurt your servers.  Traffic surges on other sites won’t affect you either. They are the most reliable in relation to their cost and they offer the most benefits for cloud computing. It’s also pretty affordable and constantly adjustable to your needs. The only drawback to this option is that the storage location can cause for a slower load time on your pages. 

If you weren’t sure before which type of hosting plan made the most sense for your business, use this guide to narrow down what makes the most sense for you. This could mean the difference between a bad year or a good year when it comes to website performance, online sales, and customer satisfaction. 



