Choosing the right website hosting service for your small business is an important first step. As a graphic designer I provide a lot of website services and have seen clients using all sorts of hosting plans, some of which include useful and some not-so-useful features.
Purchasing a plan that lacks important features limits your ability to grow and can cost you additional development time and money down the line. This seems to be especially true with plans purchased with companies like GoDaddy. I see too many clients purchasing add-on features they simply don’t need in shopping carts that end up totalling crazy amounts.
HostGator is by far my favourite website hosting company, one that I’ve used for many years. They offer a few plans to choose from, but I find the most bank-for-your-buck is the Business Plan. It includes must have features like cPanel, SSL certificates, unlimited file storage and unlimited email to name a few.
Don’t let the sound of these features scare you, HostGator has tons of helpful tutorials to assist you in setting up your website. You can also contact or follow me on Facebook, I’m happy to help fellow entrepreneurs. I’ve also provided a brief description of some of the features below.
HostGator Discount Codes & Current Sales
HostGator is very competitively priced, is packed with features and often has great sales. Don’t miss the opportunity to snap up these plans when they happen.
You can check out HostGator’s current sale pricing and available discount codes by clicking here.
Disclosure: This review receives compensation from the affiliate links provided. The opinions expressed here are our own.
What is cPanel and why do I need that for my small business website?
cPanel is a server and site management platform with a graphic user interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a website.
Think of it like an iPhone’s home screen with icons to different apps. Each of these “apps” give you access to different features of your website.
Having cPanel will allow you to do things like installing WordPress, a popular website CMS (content management system), create email accounts, control your websites domain name as well as have access to all your files stored on the server.
SSL Certificates
Having a SSL certificate installed was only really required on websites that had online carts or ones that transferred sensitive information like passwords, credit card details and things of that nature. In recent years it has become standard practice to secure all sites. A major push for this change happened when Google altered their search algorithm to give preference to sites with this feature. The reasoning behind this was to give site visitors a sense of security against malicious hackers and virus attacks.
SSL installs can be a bit of a pain, typically having complicated and costly setups that happen ever year. HostGator includes SSL’s and allows you to manage certificates easily with unlimited protection for all your domains and subdomains.
Access to Your Stored Server Files – FTP Access
cPanel gives you back-end access to all of your files stored on your server using File Manager. There are other applications you can use to access your FTP (File Transfer Protocol) my favourite being open source software by FileZilla. Using these types of applications require more advanced computer skills, but for simple tasks like uploading and downloading files the File Manager in cPanel is sufficient.
Unlimited Email Accounts
Create your own professional email accounts that helps keep your business branding consistent.
Another great feature of cPanel is the ability to create, access and modify email accounts. Having a Gmail or Yahoo email account just does not send the right message.
It’s really easy to setup and manage accounts, redirects and auto reply messages. Having this control will allow you to use powerful marketing strategies for newsletter freebie giveaways and sales funnels.
Whichever hosting company you decide on for your small business website, spending some initial time planing out the features you are wanting now and in the future, will ultimately save you valuable time and money. Avoiding hosting plans that restrict your growth potential, and looking for ones that include the essential features I’ve outlined here are just some of the things to keep in mind when making your decision.
Vivid Design can help your small business navigate the complexities of building your website with our website design packages, the design and development of marketing and promotional materials that target your customer demographics, as well as all of your printing needs.
Contact us for more details and to discuss your small business needs.
Designed, developed & printed.
A one-stop shop.
Create professional-looking graphics, presentations, posters, documents, websites and print marketing materials.
Contact Graphic Designer Paris Sturgeon to discuss your project.
