Small businesses need websites and those websites need reliable 
web hosting providers. Without the two, businesses would really find it difficult to stay afloat, let alone turn a profit. As a matter of fact, one of the first strategies a new business implements is one regarding its online presence. This has become an integral part of the business process, and in turn, makes it critical for small businesses to know which web hosts are best for them.
To be the best, web hosts must make sure that they meet certain requirements or have a number of important features that will help small businesses succeed in both promoting their online presence and ensuring that their sites perform as well as they should. Hence, let us have a look at three of the world’s leading hosting providers for small businesses and what they have to offer their clients. The providers are: Yahoo! Small Businesses, GoDaddy and BlueHost.
Yahoo! Small Businesses – Maximum Exposure
Yahoo! Small Businesses has been behind transactions that have amounted to $50 billion in sales. That alone should prove a point to small businesses that are looking for a web hosting provider that can help them make money. It boasts one of the largest server farms in the world which have the capacity of serving 240 million visitors a month. Looking at these impressive figures, business owners are bound to ask, “Yes, but what will it cost me?” Well, not much. Clients can have their business websites hosted at Yahoo! for as little as $13 a month.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that Yahoo! is a search engine service provider. It offers its clients a service that is rarely made available by other providers – exposure for their sites. Businesses can advertise their sites using the company’s own programs like Yahoo Localworks and Yahoo Local Enhanced Listings. But that’s not it – when clients signup for Yahoo Commerce Central they can further enhance their businesses or stores using apps that help find customers which in turn helps your business to increase sales.
GoDaddy – Easy Creation of Professional Websites
GoDaddy is probably better known for its domain name sales. But, small businesses that signup for their webhosting get to have their sites taken care of by a company that has proven itself to be business-friendly. New clients can have their sites up and running within a matter of minutes without the need of hiring a programmer. GoDaddy’s Website Builder lets clients create sites that are on par with some of the world’s leading businesses. The tool comes with hundreds of templates and designs that can easily be customized and re-configured by the clients themselves. Once the basic structure is completed, users can then go on to add apps that further improve the performance of the site itself or help with staying in contact with clients. Social media marketing apps can also be added by simply drag-and-dropping shortcuts onto the pages.
Once the site is complete, all that remains is to add a store to it and start earning money. GoDaddy makes it easy for its clients to open shop by using its Quick Shopping Cart. Businesses can start selling their products in a store that offers real-time shipping quotes, have integrated fraud management tools and are optimized for users doing their shopping on mobile devices. The stores have been proven to be popular and reliable, so much so that there are currently over 500,000 stores online that have been designed using GoDaddy’s Quick Shopping Cart.
Again, people might think that all these bells and whistles must come at a steep price; but for a paltry $25 a month, clients can have an ecommerce website with everything they could possibly think of thrown in: dealing in currencies from 18 countries, allowing clients to pay in many ways and being able to ship to over 100 countries worldwide!
BlueHost – Large Number of Tools
One thing that makes BlueHost one of the best web hosts for small businesses is that the company believes in the principle of providing its clients all the tools that they might require to build their sites and then help them whenever they run into trouble. But before looking into what tools and features are up for grabs, we must take note of pricing. A small business can have its site up for just $13.49 a month.
Going back to the features BlueHost offers, we find that clients don’t have to worry about limits. Everything – including disk space, bandwidth, number of email accounts and websites – is unlimited. Companies that are growing and need the resources will simply have them at their fingertips. And then there’s more: businesses can promote their sites using the marketing offers worth $200 that are made available to them. With options like search engine submission on offer, even new sites can hit the ground running. Free website scripts that help add message forums, social networking, blogging, galleries and many more functionalities make selling the website to the world a breeze.
And there you have it – three of the best web hosts for small businesses and why they top the list: low prices, help with marketing and social media and availability of tools and features to enhance your website the way your business has always envisioned.
