It is the dream of most business owners and entrepreneurs that their business will grow over time and become a success. In the growth process, your business and web hosting needs may change. These changes can be a challenge to manage. Often expanding operations or venturing into new avenues of business is a matter of taking advantage of opportunities. Sometimes you can plan carefully and structure the timing; however, more often business find themselves thrown headlong into a situation where they suddenly have a rush of business and have to figure out a way of handling it. Planning the structure of your website and hosting package can help you cope with the changes as they happen.

Start with the Basics

As a start-up business, one of your priorities is keeping efficiency up and costs low. Your best option is to select a shared hosting package with a reputable service provider. Do an online search for different hosting providers. Read the customer reviews and find out what type of products they have to offer. It is not recommended that you select a free hosting package. Often these have limited customer service and support and they don't allow you upgrade when needed. A good hosting provider should have entry-level packages as well as more advanced packages that you can migrate to when needed.

Key Things to Look for in a Hosting Package

One of the most important aspects of a hosting package is the customer support that is offered. A quick phone call to the support desk will quickly show how knowledgeable the support staff are. They should be able to provide you with technical information and advice regarding your web hosting package. You should then consider upgrade options. How easy is it for you to migrate from a basic starter package to a more advanced hosting option? Are there penalties involved? Are there different hosting requirements that you will need to incorporate into the design of your website? Do you have to use specific scripts? The last consideration is website security. Even on a basic hosting package, you will want to know that a level of security is maintained on the server.

When Do You Consider Upgrading?

One of the factors that determines what type of hosting package you choose is the amount of data or bandwidth that you require. Starting out, your website will probably be quite small. Unless you are going straight into e-commerce, it will probably be just a corporate or marketing-type website that profiles your company. As your business grows, you may want to add features such as a blog, forum, chat facility or various article posts. These features usually add quite significantly to the data requirements of your website. You may then need to upgrade to a larger package that can accommodate these features. If you decide to launch a full scale e-commerce site, you will probably have specific hosting requirements. Many web hosting providers have detailed e-commerce hosting packages available for businesses. If your business gets to the size where you want to have a dedicated server then you want to be with a hosting provider that can facilitate the transition without there being too much disruption to the uptime of your website.  You may consider a dedicated server when you have specific hosting requirements. When you want greater control over your website and server or want to use specific scripts, a dedicated server is a good choice. You may also decide that you want improved security for your website that you can only get from a dedicated server. You can then upgrade your hosting package as needed.

Must Have Features for All Levels of Hosting

A website is only effective if it can be accessed by customers. This means that it needs to enjoy a 99 percent uptime on the server. Generally, a dedicated server will be more stable as it only hosts one client; however, many shared hosting providers pride themselves on quality site maintenance ensuring maximum server uptime. Security is another important consideration. Once again, a dedicated server is more secure than a shared server and this is one of the reasons that businesses often choose to upgrade. Even at a basic level though, your hosting provider should have anti-virus software in place on the website to protect the websites that it hosts. Security is one of the most important aspects of website hosting. A third feature is adequate customer support.  If there is a problem with your website, you want to be able to find a solution quickly and easily.