Selecting Business Web Hosting

Selecting an ISP that can provide the service your business needs for it to succeed on the internet is of critical importance. There are hundreds of ISPs all offering different services for business and home users. For your web site and your communications to work in the way you need it to, you need to be able to choose the right service for your needs.

How to select a business ISP

Increasingly business hosting services are sold on price. Instead of looking a few pounds saving per month it may be better to think how much loss of your web site could cost you.

Before you select an ISP you need to ensure that the service will allow you to conduct business activities. Alternatively a low cost option may have restrictive terms and conditions that prevent you from using the software you need or performing key business tasks.

Before you commit to a contract you need to read the ISP's terms of business, and more importantly, if the ISP does allow business ensure they will be able to cope with the level of traffic you have estimated. Look out for extra costs, charges, fees and hidden extras

There are an incredible range of different service options and prices available from a vast range of providers all of which say that they are the greatest. Look carefully at the options and especially what out for the following: 

• Does the ISP specialise in business hosting?
• Can the ISP offer a good level of support for business users?
• Is the support UK based? Will you be passed over to a call centre and put on hold for hours?
• What is provided in the service bundle and is this appropriate to your needs?
• Does the ISP provide support for the type of software you want to use? For example do they offer only Microsoft or Linux services?
• Where are the ISP servers physically located? Is this a secure professional operation or is it just in a back room somewhere.
• Although overseas hosting may be cheap you may be better to host your services in the UK.
• Are there additional bandwidth and disk space charges?   

There are many more factors than the ones mentioned above, and you may well be inclined to look at the cheapest for you business.  However, the cheapest option might not be right for your business needs.  Many of the ISP's offering the cheaper or free services are really targeting the home leisure users and not business user, and whilst they will welcome your custom you may find what they offer restrictive and limiting over a period of time.

Selecting an ISP service is a key business decision and it may pay in the long run not to look at small differeneces in charges but to focus on the level of service you will be offered by the ISP and how that will suit your business needs. 

The amount of Web space available

Most ISP's vary the amount of web space they offer their customers.  Before you sign up to an ISP work out how much web space you require.  If you are not at all sure, take some advice from a web development company. You also need to consider the web facilities you will need and whether your ISP will cater for your needs, e.g. do you intend to run a shopping cart? 

Email accounts

In addition to web space, your company will want to make use of email.  As with web space, the ISP will offer a varying amount of email accounts from 1 to unlimited. You must therefore judge, on the basis of all the other service elements, which is right for your business. If you only have a very small family business one to five email accounts may be suffice.

Branding or creating your own company identity

Creating your brand or company identity on the Internet is an important part of good online business. To do this, your company needs a domain name i.e. www.unicorn-50s-designs.co.uk  . There are a number of options that can be used to get a name that relates to your brand. Talk to the ISP about and they may be able to give you some ideas and angles even if the idea domain for your company is currently on sale for thousands of pounds. 

EMNET offers a Business Hosting service which can be found at www.emnetsolutions.co.uk

For more advice and information on Business ISP and hosting services please call 0115 9568260.