Web Hosting for Small Businesses

The four things a small business site genuinely needs

Strip a small business website back to what customers actually use and the list is short. They want to know what you do, whether you cover their area, what it is likely to cost, and how to reach you. Then they want to reach you and get an answer.

That translates into four things your hosting has to get right. Everything else on a hosting invoice is either supporting one of these four or it is decoration.

One. A domain you control

The address is the asset. Sites get rebuilt, hosts get changed, the phone number on the footer changes twice. The domain outlives all of it, along with every business card, van sign and invoice that carries it. It should be registered in your name, in an account you can log into, with a renewal date you know.

Two. A site that stays up and loads quickly

For a brochure site this is close to a solved problem. Shared hosting handles it, and the entry tier usually handles it comfortably. Slowness on a small business site is nearly always the site's own fault, not the plan's.

Three. Email at your own domain

A quote sent from a free webmail address gets read differently to one from your own domain, and on a bad day it gets filtered. This is the cheapest credibility you will ever buy. It is also the part people get wrong when they move hosts.

Four. A way to change the site without ringing anyone

Not a full rebuild, just the ability to fix a price, change your hours, add a service. Businesses that cannot do this end up with a website that quietly describes the company they were three years ago.

If you can name who holds the domain, who holds the email, and who can edit a page today, you are ahead of most small businesses we take over.

The domain and the mailbox outlast every other decision

Of everything on this page, this is the part that causes real damage when it goes wrong, and it goes wrong quietly.

The common version: the site was built years ago by somebody who registered the domain on their own account to be helpful. They have since moved on, changed email address, or simply stopped answering. The business still works fine until the renewal notice goes to an address nobody reads, and then the site and the email both stop on the same morning.

1. Find out whose name the domain is in

   Log into the registrar account yourself. If you cannot, that is the answer. Getting it moved into your own account while everyone is on good terms is straightforward. Getting it moved after a falling out is not.

2. Point the renewal at a mailbox that outlives staff

   Use a role address like admin@ or accounts@ at your own domain rather than one person's inbox. People leave. The renewal notice keeps arriving. Domain expiration covers what actually happens when one lapses.

3. Write down where the DNS lives

   The registrar and the host are often two different companies, and the settings that route your website and your email can sit at either. Knowing which is which turns a stressful afternoon into a five minute change. DNS management explains the pieces.

4. Treat the email as the fragile part of any move

   Websites can go down for an hour and almost nobody notices. Email going down for an hour means lost enquiries you never learn about. Plan a host change around the mailboxes first.

If somebody else currently holds all of this and you are not sure what you own, taking over a website is the page written for exactly that situation.

Who should not take the advice on this page

This page is deliberately written for the ordinary case, and the ordinary case is a small firm with a site that describes what it does. If that is not you, some of what is above is wrong for you.

If you sell online, or take bookings at any real volume, you are past this advice. Your site is a piece of operating equipment rather than a brochure, and the questions change: what happens during a checkout when the server is busy, who is responsible when a payment plugin breaks, how quickly you can restore after a bad update. Those decisions deserve the page written for your specific trade rather than the general one.

• If the site takes money, the cost of an hour of downtime is a number you can calculate. That changes what a plan is worth.
• If you hold customer records, security stops being optional and website security is worth reading properly.
• If your trade has rules about client information, ask your own adviser what applies to you before deciding where anything is stored. General advice on a hosting page is not a substitute for that.

There is also a smaller group who should spend less than they think, not more, and stop before they start. If you have no site at all and are not sure you want one, a domain and a professional email address, pointed at nothing yet, is a legitimate first purchase. It protects the name while you decide. The launch checklist is there for when you are ready.