Few business owners can resist the siren song of online commerce these days. Huge profits and vast flocks of customers are waiting on the Internet. You shouldn’t let a lack of technical expertise be a wall that keeps you out of the digital marketplace. To get your business online, you’ll need a website and a host for that website. Read on to learn about hosting and discover just what it takes to get your business website up and running.

For starters, you will want to know some of the technical details involved in getting your business website onto the Internet so potential customers can find you. The data which makes up your website is stored on a server, a network host computer that forms the skeleton of the Internet. Some businesses own and operate their own dedicated servers, but this is probably not cost-effective for the small business owner. Instead, you will want to let a web hosting company handle the hardware involved.

You might have noted that your Internet service provider (ISP) offers complimentary web hosting services (most of them do). You’ll want to resist the temptation to use these services and get your website hosted for free. While this kind of bare-bones hosting is adequate for putting up a personal website, it is rarely sufficient to meet the needs of a commercial endeavor. If your website is successful and generates a lot of traffic, you can expect a call from your ISP and a bill for further hosting services. You’ll find it’s a better idea to work with a dedicated hosting service from the outset.

Dealing with a local web hosting company has its benefits and drawbacks. If you’re the type of business owner who puts a lot of stock in face-to-face interaction, this is definitely the web hosting solution for you. With a local hosting company, you have a greater connection to the people who handle your website. They are also usually superior to more distant alternatives when it comes to customer service and response time. The downside to dealing with a local company is increased price. There is simply no way for a small, local company to match the economies of scale that large national and international hosts can provide.

If you’re looking for cheaper web hosting, you’ll want to investigate the offerings of those big companies. Dealing with a high-volume hosting service will likely call for greater technical know-how on your part. While customer service is available from these companies, you can expect to pay a premium for all except the most basic assistance. Still, a little self-education will equip you with the knowledge you require to get your money’s worth out of a hosting contract with these providers.

When you’ve picked your hosting service, you’ll need to select a service package. Besides the customer service issues already discussed, the primary factors that affect cost are traffic and reliability. In web hosting, “reliability” is all about “uptime” and “downtime.” A reliable host is one that is almost always online. To meet the needs of a small business, you’ll want to choose a package that offers plenty of uptime, but your bandwidth needs will probably be rather modest. It will be easy for you to shift to a higher-traffic service later if your website starts booming.

Although web hosting is an extremely complex and technical field, as a business owner, you don’t need to become a networking guru. A little common sense and some quick research are all it takes to learn what you need to know about hosting. Hopefully, this article has helped you along the way to that goal.