It can’t be stressed strongly enough that if you have a business but it is without a website then you are at a major disadvantage. It’s going to be the case that most of your competitors will have one, and their website is providing a visibility for their business that yours will be lacking. Of course the reality of the situation is that hardly anyone is going to be in this situation because nearly every business is online nowadays. And all of them that are in the market for reliable hosting for Canadian businesses will know the immense value in it. That’s because it is the web hosting that makes their site open and available along the information superhighway at all times.
And the key word there is ALL, because that’s what is so great about internet connectivity. Prospective customers can find your site, enter, and learn more about your business and what it is that might interest them at any time 24 hours a day. It may be 2am where you are and your physical store or service front is long since closed but a potential new customer can still be bringing you their business even if you and your employees are sound asleep. Those of you who are seeing ever-greater interest in your business may find that Canadian VPS hosting is the better fit for you.
That’s because with a VPS your site in much better set up to handle traffic spikes, which is the term for when larger numbers of visitors arrive at your website at the same time. That can be problematic if you’re on a shared hosting plan, but generally speaking having traffic spikes is a good problem to have. You want to have that level of interest in your business, and it will be preferable if all of them can make their way into the site and see what it is you have to offer. Indeed, switching to VPS hosting is something we see many small and medium-sized businesses doing here.
Some businesses may only have the need for a basic site, and it is unlikely that traffic spikes or other realities caused by high inflow of visitors is going to be an issue. Many of these small and basic websites are built on WordPress infrastructure, and for these sites it is usually quite sufficient to have WordPress hosting Canada. However, it’s always going to be up to the decision-maker whether or not they need to go with a higher level of web hosting and much of the time it ends up being a decision that’s made for them if their business is growing exponentially and they see the need to get more out of their online presence.
What we can still do for anyone who’s evaluating this for themselves is discuss some web hosting solutions for small and medium-sized businesses in Canada with this week’s blog entry. Much of this stuff will be among what we’ve gone over here before, but it’s always good to come back to it as this is the sort of stuff that’s really relevant for anyone who’s seeing the need to maximize the return their getting from their business website.
Weigh Web Host First
It’s best to start with having an understanding of the purpose of your site, as it can be different from one business to another based on the nature of the business. And then estimate the potential website traffic you’ll have and if that looks to be a larger amount right from the get-go then a VPS may be best. Check the overall bandwidth and storage necessary to run your website as well as what level of scalability you’ll have based on the web hosting package you’re considering. These are initial considerations that all will have when deciding on reliable hosting for Canadian businesses.
Security is important too, and you need to know what level of security is required for your site. If it’s going to be serving e-commerce means then you will need maximized security. Online. stores always need secure servers to protect customers’ credit card information. When researching and comparing different Canadian VPS hosting providers there are some standard steps you can take to ensure they’re a reputable and reliable provider. Check for positive reviews online along with if there are any money-back guarantees or free trial options.
You should also see that it’s easy to contact customer support if that’s what is needed. Check if they have responsive customer support that can address users’ issues quickly.
Determine the best provider for WordPress hosting Canada by using an online tool like Amazing Algorithms where all you need to do is copy and paste the domain of a website you like and the tool will then provide the identity of hosting provider.
Technology & Features
From here it’s time to compare their technology and features. Not every host’s servers will be the same and the better ones will have an in-house web application firewall to strengthen security. These types of Canadian web hosting providers will also have multiple server locations worldwide and determine that a host has a data center near you is also important to ensure low latency. Some businesses may also have their site already up via another host but may want to migrate a website because of a better deal to be had or getting a better fit for Canadian VPS hosting.
Here at 4GoodHosting we are like most good web hosts in that we have free and seamless website migration service and you can transfer domain names or register them equally easily when you choose us as your provider. Check to see if your web host offers domain name registration with their hosting to simplify the website-building process and choose the right domain for your website.
You’re also going to want to have dedicated support. Another fixture of any good host is having a reliable support team that’s ready to help 24/7 to fix any website-related issues immediately. The better ones will offer multiple support options and this is something you will nearly always see with reliable hosting for Canadian businesses. Additional considerations will be price, storage, bandwidth, and features. If they have managed WordPress hosting Canada that may be something you want to keep in mind too if your site is a WordPress site and you like that idea of having absolutely everything taken care of for you.
Cloud Hosting Pros
Most businesses with websites will tell you that a website uptime guarantee is a priority for them, and here at 4GoodHosting our 99% uptime guarantee has always been a big part of what’s made us one the best web hosting providers in Canada. Cloud hosting is the best web hosting service for consistent uptime due to greater resource availability. With cloud hosting technology the load of running a website is delegated to a virtual network of cloud servers. If one server is down, another picks up the slack to keep the website up and running and available to server requests.
Cloud web hosting really is best for any site that is starting to see high website traffic. This option also works well for medium to large businesses looking to improve their websites’ speed and user experience. For those who have larger sites and consistently higher traffic flows into the site it may be that dedicated web hosting is the best choice. Going with this option is the most expensive choice, but with it users can control the entire server and decide how many resources to allocate and what software is to be installed.
Large-scale projects and enterprise-level companies like online streaming service or e-commerce stores will often choose to go with their own dedicate server. It’s also best if you can have someone on your staff who is capable with scaling websites and reallocating resources if you want to go this route with your business website too. It may also be an idea to inquire about the availability of a CMS (content management system) if your site is going to be using a lot of content to boost SEO and establish yourself as a local subject matter expert.
A CMS can help you build websites from the ground up but there tends to be quite a steep learning curve for people who choose to do this. Handled properly a CMS can be very beneficial for optimizing speed and security and platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are the most popular ones. If you have a specific CMS in mind because you’ve already started to work with it then you can usually find reliable hosting for Canadian businesses that is catered to that platform. Some web hosts also offer an auto-installer to quickly activate your chosen CMS.
Storage & Bandwidth
Understanding what you’ll have at your disposal with regards to storage and bandwidth is of primary importance when you’re looking for the best web hosting solution for small or medium-sized businesses. Storage will be the space in the server where the site’s files and data like images and videos are stored. The amount of storage you’ll need will be based on the type of website and content you have, and you’re always going to have more of it when you go with Canadian VPS hosting or SSD web hosting for database-driven applications.
Bandwidth availability is important too, and it refers to the website’s data transfer limit within a given period, and typically every month. You’ll have either metered or unmetered bandwidth Metered sets a monthly limit on how much traffic the website can handle, and if incoming website traffic exceeds that threshold then visitors might be unable to access your website. The difference with unmetered is that the web host won’t limit the amount of data transferred monthly and will only set the server’s capacity.
A good operating guidelines is to choose a web hosting plan where you’ll have 50% more resources than the amount your website currently needs to ensure optimal performance. Check the average of the following website factors to estimate the necessary amount of resources:
Take note of monthly visitor counts and page views to start to have an understanding of this, and generally those who have WordPress hosting Canada won’t have the same level of flexibility with this as compared to those who have VPS or dedicated web hosting.
Speed and Optimization
Ideally the web host you choose will also offer excellent speed and optimization features to help improve your site performance. Nearly all will have fast web servers these days, and the best ones will boast an advanced cache engine that compresses cache files in order to speed up websites and not have to create new server requests for every instance of them. As we touched on earlier it is also a fact that server locations will factor into how quickly website pages load for visitors to your site.
It also might be an idea to be on the lookout for a hosting service that integrates well with a content delivery network (CDN). These networks of data centres located worldwide quicken content delivery for users and not matter where they are located. Then there are plugins that can increase website loading speeds. It is increasingly common for webmaster to be able to
run page speed tests directly from their cPanel to track the performance of their site. The standard measurement for this with reliable hosting for Canadian businesses is the TTFB speed, which stands for Time To First byte.
This is the time needed for a browser to send a request and receive the first byte of the page. You want this to be 200 milliseconds or less, and then evaluate your component loading time too. This is a measurement of how long a server loads cached content, and it should not be more than a few milliseconds to render the content.
This concludes our look at the best web hosting solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, but of course there’s so much more the topic that can be covered in just one blog entry. If you’re about to bring a website online and are weighing which host and plan is best for you and there’s something that hasn’t been answered here then please reach out to our customer support reps and they will be able to provide the information you need.
