If you are looking for a new home for your existing business site, or if you are just delving into online business, it is important to have a business hosting plan that fits your needs and can continue to do so in the future. There are many advantages to purchasing a business hosting plan, even if you do not particularly need all of the features associated with one.
First, business hosting plans typically offer a great deal of features that are necessary to doing business online. These features range from free shopping carts, applications for business use, mailing list software, SSL certificates, and unlimited databases. Even if you don’t have an ecommerce site, your site may still benefit from a secure area, or mailing list software.
Site promotion tools are usually included in business hosting plans, which can be very useful in getting your site listed on popular search engines. Instead of having to pay extra for these tools, you can simply find a host that bundles them in with a site package, saving you money.
Companies that cater to businesses typically offer more support options. This is usually because these companies know that in order to keep high profile business clients they need to provide a level of service that is above and beyond a usual hosting company. If you need more technical support options, or a host that offers 24-hour support, you can usually find several that offer business hosting plans that fit this description.
If you need sub-domains for your site, business hosting plans will normally include this feature. A sub-domain is a great way to organize your site’s content and content areas, making your job easier to keep track of all of the aspects of your site. A sub-domain will typically look something like this: If you plan on having an online store or a catalog, this is a very useful way to separate your content area from your store’s catalog.
Domain aliases are another feature is typically included. This means that you can have several domain names or variations of your domain name that all point to one location. Instead of having to park multiple domains, you can have them all point to the same location, saving you money.
If you want to keep track of your site statistics, business hosting plans usually offer more site analysis tools that can give you a very good idea of your site’s popularity. This is very important for sites that need to track promotional campaigns, click-throughs and other aspects of traffic that need to be analyzed.
There are also some disadvantages that are inherent with business hosting. Let’s take a look at some of these disadvantages to see if they will affect your decision.
