Why You Need Hosting Services in Your Company

If you are running a company, chances are you’re operating a business website as well. There is an extensive list of benefits of having a website for your business.

Firstly, it helps establish your digital presence. With the advent of online shopping and eCommerce, online visibility is not just ideal, it is imperative. A large portion of global consumers now prefers to purchase online rather than visiting an actual store.

According to Statista, there are approximately 1.92 billion people who bought goods from websites and online stores in 2018. Experts say that figure is going to increase as mobile devices become more prevalent with the number of owners and users expected to rise as well. Imagine the business opportunities you will be missing if your company doesn’t have a website to attract potential online customers.

Secondly, a website helps build legitimacy and credibility among your consumers and target customers. The lack of a website will hurt your business’ ability to impress customers and gain their confidence. It will seriously limit your potential to reach them and convince them to do business with you.

But investing in a website is not enough. You need to find a good web hosting service provider too. Here’s why:

1. On-Premise Hosting is Expensive

On-premise hosting presents a throng of advantages as opposed to other types of web hosting options. Many view it as a safe and secure choice in terms of data processing and storage because the user has the sole and absolute control over the hardware. That means you have the choice of what equipment and software to use and deploy.

But hosting your website on your own servers can be quite costly. You need to invest in hardware and software, not to mention the professional expertise required to set up, manage, and maintain your hosting infrastructure. On top of that, you need to add on hardware and update your software as your hosting requirements grow bigger and more complex.

On the other hand, you can opt for cloud hosting solutions that are affordable and easy to work with. A number of hosting companies offer cloud-based professional hosting at more affordable rates. Most website hosting services providers have custom hosting packages that can be tailored to meet your specific and unique hosting needs.

Best of all, for a few dollars, you can purchase add-ons and upgrades for your hosting hardware and software to further improve performance. These add-ons range from grammar checkers to additional storage. Speaking of grammar checkers, you may want to get Finances Online list of top grammar checker software solutions if you are looking for one.

Hosting companies manage and maintain their own data centers, allowing you to fully focus on your business and not mind yourself with the administrative side of hosting sites.

Sherweb did an “on-premise vs. IaaS” web hosting comparison in terms of costs and the savings one can get with IaaS hosting is astronomical. In the first year alone, the total cost of on-premise hosting including upfront investment amounted to $39,347.18. Opting for IaaS hosting package would set you back $3,766.80 a year. That’s $35,580.38 or roughly 90% in savings.

2. Avoid Downtimes

Downtimes are bad for business. Really bad. Recent hosting statistics gathered by IT now reveal that unplanned downtimes can set you back between $926 to $17,244 per minute. For small and medium-sized enterprises, that’s a huge amount of money.

However, the real cost of downtime lies not only in the loss of money, but missed opportunities, loss of potential revenue, and loss of customers’ trust, which can cause significant damage to the brand’s image. People will view your business as unreliable and unprofessional.

Fortunately, the majority of web hosting services providers offer uptime guarantees of 99.95% and above. That means your website hosting company pledges to keep your website online all the time. At the instant your site’s performance crashes due to a variety of reasons like loss of power, a hardware malfunction, or a security breach, your hosting partner may pay a stipulated amount to cover for the downtime.

That said, modern data centers are now extremely sophisticated. Many are built on the latest equipment, hardware, and software. Strict protocols are implemented to ensure secure, smooth, and seamless operations and management. Contingency measures are also in place to make sure websites run problem-free in the event of a power outage, huge spike in incoming traffic, and potential attack or breach.

3. Faster Loading Speed

Working with a website hosting company ensures that your website performs at an optimum level. Modern customers are very demanding when it comes to website loading speeds. Whenever a website is not fast enough, they will deem it as a waste of their time, which then puts your business in a precarious situation.

In a 2019 Business News Daily article on slow retail websites, 90% of today’s online customers expect business websites and online stores to load all the content, graphics, and images within two to five seconds. If it takes any second longer, one-fourth of the respondents reported that they would abandon the store with no hint of ever returning in the future. The same article reported that after encountering a slow website, 57% will head to the competition while 40% will go directly to Amazon.

To put it simply, slow loading speeds push your customers away to your competitors. That said, your website hosting partner will gladly work with you to make sure your site’s loading speeds remain fast.  They will work behind the scenes to determine what causes the speed to lag and provide you with reports and suggestions like adding more storage or optimizing resources or scaling to a dedicated server solution to further improve loading speeds (as well as add more sites).

4. Go Mobile

There are now over 3.8 billion mobile users across the world according to Statista. That figure is likely to grow by hundreds of millions within the next few years.

On average, they spend five hours a day on their smartphones, performing a variety of activities like reading emails, watching videos, and shopping online. And this is a crucial piece of information if you have a business website. You need to optimize your business website for mobile devices and users.

Why so? Because 77% of mobile users will likely buy from certain brands if the buying and checkout process via mobile sites and apps is responsive and fast. Quite simply, you need to make sure that the customer’s browsing and buying experience in your main website remains consistent when they switch to their mobile device. Their experience should be seamless. There should be no disconnect once they make the transition from PC to smartphone.

A reliable hosting services company will help you transform your business website into a mobile gem that features the same responsiveness and delightful experience.

Treat Your Provider As a Partner

Picking a website hosting services provider is a tricky prospect, especially when there are so many options available, all of them wowing you with their marketing gimmicks and attractive promotions. Choosing a single provider out of so many will throw you off. But you need to keep your focus on as ending with the wrong provider will cost you money, opportunities, and even your business.

When shopping for a website hosting services company, pick one as you would a business partner. Make a list of what you need on a website and see which one will be willing to communicate with you and address all your needs and other specifications. Constant communication is usually the best indicator when picking a provider.