Edmonton is referred to as the city of Champions because of the impressive successes of both the Oilers and Eskimos (now Elks) with claiming sports championships in the 80s. Not everyone is a sports fan, and some think it’s absurd that anyone gets millions of dollars in salary a year to play a game. The accurate response to anyone who feels that way is to say that pro sports is a business, and the simple reality is that it is the fans who choose to pay those ticket prices they do that are behind the athletes’ salaries.
Those looking into small business hosting for Edmonton likely don’t have season’s tickets to either club, and so that’s the last we’re going to talk about sports in any way with this blog entry. Edmonton is the northernmost big city in North America, and it has one of the highest rates of population growth in the country for Edmonton and surrounding areas. Business bristles here just as much as it does anywhere else and nine of out 10 small businesses are going to be making themselves visible to prospective customers with a website.
Those sites are nowhere without web hosting, and the best Edmonton hosting for small business is going to be the one that is the ideal mix of reliability and reasonable rates. Most small businesses will do just fine with shared web hosting, and especially if their site isn’t going to have large numbers of visitors arriving at any time. Those that do will know that’s a good thing if you want to grow your business online, and in those instances you can always move to VPS hosting. We can discuss business hosting services for Edmonton with you and that may be a good idea if you’re launching your website for the first time.
With this week’s blog entry we’re going to look at what you can do to find the perfect hosting for Edmonton businesses and taking everything we think small business owners will be taking into consideration with it. The first of that is usually that operating budgets are already stretched but they still see the absolute need for reliable web hosting so that their site is up and open along the information superhighway 24/7.
Elbows Up
The great thing about the internet is in the way it’s a great equalizer for businesses as they jostle with each other for positioning in being visible to customers. All that’s required is meeting a need and claiming a domain name and from there you can build a website and reach an audience of millions. But in order for that website to be accessible to your audience it must be hosted on a server. This is what we meant when we talked about being up and open on the information superhighway. Your site won’t be on the web without hosting.
The need with small business hosting Edmonton not just any server, but one that's reliable, secure, and fast. It may be best to start at the start here and for some people it will be helpful to explain what is web hosting. You can it as something of the landlord of the Internet. The service provides space to store your website's files and data, and makes it so that those with an internet connection can access it. Which is pretty much everyone anywhere and all the time nowadays.
In the same you wouldn’t choose to rent a rundown apartment, you don't want to choose the wrong web hosting plan for your business website. If you’re willing to take on the higher price then you can’t go wrong with VPS hosting or dedicated hosting, but for a lot of people they’re going to see the lower cost for shared web hosting as plenty appealing and probably all they’ll need.
What we’re going to provide here is a guide that is designed to help you navigate the complex world of web hosting and provide you with the tools needed to choose the right plan for your business and why choosing the right web hosting plan is so important. Some of the factors you will consider when making your decision are weightier than others, and we should keep in mind as well that not all websites are created equal, and the same can be said for the hosting plans behind them.
Your Considerations
The first one of them as it relates to the best Edmonton hosting for small business is they type of website and its requirements. What you have is going to be different based on the size and nature of the website that’s been built for you. Is it a single-page portfolio or a complex web application? The size and complexity of your website will determine the resources it needs to function properly, and for most webmasters this dictates the type of web hosting plan they will choose.
Size and complexity of the website will also be a consideration, as some people will have an ultra-basic WordPress website for their business. This is common for small businesses who are in more niche markets in Edmonton’s local economy. Websites that are small and don’t have a lot of media files will be fine with a basic shared web hosting plan and those are easily found for less than $30 a month. Oppositely, if a website has a lot of multimedia content or requires a lot of server resources then often there’s no choice but to go with the greater storage space and bandwidth you get with a VPS.
Next you’ll be evaluating your traffic volume and expected growth, and the amount of requests your site receives from people via web browsers is going to be very influential in choosing a type of web hosting. Those who expect a high traffic volume or anticipate future growth will need a plan to handle the increased load. Often this will lead to upgrading to a more robust hosting plan or choosing dedicated hosting for a website.
It’s increasingly common for sites to have specific functionalities these days, and this can be a part of Business hosting services in Edmonton. If that’s you then you also need to consider the specific features and functionality that your website requires. Needing e-commerce functionality, a content management system, or access to a specific programming language are examples of needs that might cause people to go in a different direction.
Technical Specs
Knowing what resource needs your website is going to have is beyond the scope of understanding for most people. But meeting your technical specs can be connected to finding the perfect hosting for Edmonton businesses too, and it's time to dive into the technical specifications as now that you have a better understanding of the type of web hosting plan you need based on your website's requirements.
One thing that will apply to all of them is that the site’s performance is directly affected by the server specifications and configurations of the web hosting server, and the type of web hosting OS will factor into this too. Important numbers are going to CPU and RAM, and server location is going to be important too. Consider that if your website targets a specific region then a server located in that region that will reduce latency and improve site speed is going to be preferable.
Nearly every site master is going to want to take note of the storage and bandwidth limits that will exist for them based on their web hosting plan. The amount of both that are allotted to you will be affecting the performance of the site and the type of content you have on it will be affected too. If you’re not sure of what you’ll need then you can talk to a Canadian web hosting provider and determine what storage and bandwidth your website will need. This really applies to small business hosting in Edmonton.
Security & Backup
The way it works is that usually the more inexpensive you go with web hosting plans, the less you’ll have with website security and regularly scheduled backups so that there’s little chance of breaches or data loss. This is another angle that you’ll want to look at your hosting plan from, as safety and longevity are always priorities too. Examples of what you need but may / may not be available are SSL certificates, firewalls, and automatic backups. Many people will tell you not to underestimate the value of security features and that’s because they’ve experienced how a security breach can be devastating for their business.
It's understandable if technical specifications are daunting, but most web hosting providers offer plans tailored to specific website types and requirements and for those who need next to nothing for their site there is the option of going with even find free web hosting plans that meet some of these requirements. Next up will be reliability and performance, and these two join technical specifications of a web hosting plan as equally important factors that can be a part of the decision-making process. Front and center with this is always going to be the type of website uptime guarantee a host can provide.
If you’re not familiar with the term, uptime is the amount of time your website is live and accessible to users. Hosting provider that can’t rely defend against downtime tend to not be around very long, but here at 4GoodHosting we are a Canadian web hosting provider with a 99+% uptime guarantee, meanings it’s as unlikely as possible that a website is ever down. However, no uptime guarantee is every going to be 100% set in stone. Website downtime may still happen, but you will go with the hosting provider that can make it most unlikely.
You can check on this as you evaluate small business hosting in Edmonton, and to do so it’s possible to use 3rd-party monitoring services that track website uptime. Often customer reviews for web hosting will also indicate if any recurring uptime issues have been reported. Do what it takes to have a better understanding of how reliable the hosting provider is and what kind of similar reliability you can expect.
Speed & Latency
User experience and search engine rankings are the two primary interests you’re going to have that will be very much connected to The speed and latency of your website are also crucial factors that impact user experience and search engine rankings. Find a Canadian web hosting provider with fast server speeds and lower latency and you will have a website with pages that load faster and perform better. That goes a very long way with finding the best Edmonton hosting for small business, and in no small part because faster loading page directly correlate to better SEO.
To go into more detail about that, it’s well understood with good SEO that Google considers page speed as a ranking factor in its algorithm. Long story short, fast-loading websites are at an advantage with search engine rankings. This gain can be furthered even more if site owners / managers used a CDN (content delivery network) software that stores the website's files and delivers them from the server closest to the user. This works out to a reduction in load time for the website.
At this point we’ve gone over all the most important considerations for choosing a web hosting plan, but there are a few secondary ones it will be good to look at too. Customer support and service level agreements may have some sway in that decision as well, as having reliable support can help quickly resolve any issues that come up unexpectedly, which is going to happen at some point.
We do also recommend checking on the availability and responsiveness of customer support options. If it’s possible to have support options including live chat, phone support, and email available to you through your web host then that is going to be beneficial. Even better if you can additionally have a comprehensive help center with FAQs, guides, and video tutorials that will make it simpler for you to find solutions to common issues.
Web Hosting Plan Options
Now that we've covered what should go into any decision on business hosting services Edmonton when choosing a plan let's go over the different ones that are regularly available. Here are the five main types of web hosting plans:
- Shared Hosting : Shared hosting is going to the one for most businesses and their websites. It is the most basic type of hosting plan and involves multiple websites being located on the same single server. It is going to be far and away the most cost-effective option, but the potential drawbacks are slower website performance and limited resources.
- VPS Hosting : The alternative to shared hosting for those who have more needs as they look at the Perfect hosting for Edmonton businesses is VPS hosting. Virtual Private Server hosting involves multiple websites sharing a server, but with dedicated resources being allocated to each website exclusively. They’re for your site, and your website only. This type of hosting results in better performance but it will cost more compared to shared hosting.
- Dedicated Hosting : With dedicated hosting you have a server dedicated entirely to your website only. This provides users with the ultimate in maximum control and customization. Dedicated hosting is going to cost you a good bit more, but with you’ll also obtain the highest level of performance and security.
- Cloud Hosting : With cloud hosting there are going to be multiple servers hosting a website, and because of that the site gains with better reliability and scalability. It’s a flexible option that can accommodate website growth, but can also tends to be pricier compared to other types of hosting.
- Managed Hosting : Managed hosting is for those who are willing to pay for an all-in-one solution to having their website hosted AND optimized. With managed web hosting it is the hosting provider that handles technical maintenance and management of the server, leaving website owners to focus on their business and whatever else it is they’re pre-occupied with on a daily basis. Managed hosting is a convenient option, but can also be more expensive than self-managed hosting plans.
Based on Needs
We’re going to wrap up this look at small business hosting in Edmonton by putting forth a few final considerations with choosing a type of web hosting. And all of them have been collected based on the understanding that you’ve come to some understanding of what needs you have for your website. Make sure you’re crystal clear on the factors we discussed earlier in this reference blog, including technical specifications, reliability, and performance, plus the features and pricing of each plan.
And make sure that you don’t lose track of the fact that choosing the right web hosting plan for the business’ website is almost certainly going to factor into the long-term success of it and the extent to which it contributes to the success of the business. This can be connected to everything from website requirements and technical specifications to reliability and performance of plus all the other many factors to consider when making your decision on the perfect hosting for Edmonton businesses. But yours specifically.
