The value of having a website, cannot be undermined, particularly if you are starting your own business simply because of how a website can function as a bridge between you and your audience.

There are so many platforms to create a website easily these days, without having to know HTML or coding.

As website owners, the onus is on us to think about the other end of the spectrum – our website audience and how they take to our website.

Apart from relevant, useful content, I believe one of the most important issues in having a website is to think about where to host it.

Not every website owner gives due consideration to hosting as much as the creation or design of the website itself.

However, more ‘technical’ issues such loading speed of the website need to be given equal consideration as slow loading time would put off your audience and ultimately push them somewhere else.

While design and content of a website would gradually evolve as you add or make changes, issues such as speed should be nipped in the bud with a reliable hosting plan that serves your online purpose well.

What is the Best Website Hosting for a Small Business?

It’s certainly not easy to pinpoint the ‘best’ hosting platform owing to the fact that each business or website owner has various needs. However, here I’ll share the criteria that I use before deciding on an appropriate hosting that suits my goals :

• Server Uptime/Loading Time
  You should look for server uptime of at least 99 percent. No hosting company would guarantee a 100 percent uptime. A good server uptime provided by a hosting company ensures that there’s very little to no possibility of ‘disruption’ to your website.
  I also look for hosting that provides a fast loading time because, while patience is a virtue, it is not present in every of our audience. Agree?
• WordPress-compatibility
  This is certainly a must for those who work with WordPress. My websites are run by WordPress for reasons I explain in this post.
• Bandwidth and Storage
  Generally, higher bandwidth and storage means you have a larger space for your website. There are hosting options that offer unlimited bandwidth and storage. These would be good if you are thinking to build an ‘authority’ type of website
• Customer Support
  Most of the hosting companies that I use have a turnaround time of 24 hours. Apart from speedy replies, relevancy to the queries that I sent is always a boon!

 

 

Siteground Web Hosting Reviews

I had heard of Siteground hosting from fellow website owners and went ahead to research on users’  reviews before I decide if it’s the hosting I want.

Armed with the above criteria as guide, I wanted to try it for one of my websites.

Firstly, I’m impressed with the customer support that I received.

I wanted to transfer my website from another hosting company to Siteground. I must declare that I’m not a techie and that it would be a challenge for me to have to do it myself.

So I went ahead to contact Siteground’s customer support and I was pleasantly surprised that within a few hours, I got a reply saying that they could help me transfer my website … without charge.

I didn’t hesitate and provided my website details so that they could proceed with the neccessary.

My Take

Pros

Website Migration – FOC

I know that I’ve stated this above but I just want to emphasize here that should you already have a website hosted somewhere else but comtemplating to have that hosting changed to Siteground, then you can have the website transferred for free.

So you don’t have to think about creating a brand new website to take advantage of Siteground’s hosting.

Free Primary Domain

But if you are starting a totally new website, then there’s also benefit in that you don’t have to worry about paying for domain renewal. The free primary domain applies as long as you have your website hosted with Siteground.

Loading Time

I find the loading time for my website is definitely faster compared to the previous hosting. And I later learned that this is attributed to Siteground’s in-house Supercacher technology.

The Supercacher technology is NOT included in the ‘Startup’ plan.

This is how the loading time for websites hosted in Siteground compare with those hosted by other top hosting companies, such as Bluehost, Dreamhost, Flywheel :

 

Cons

Honestly, I can’t think of any at this point because since I started using Siteground for one of my websites a couple of months ago, I have no complaints on any issue from customer service to migration to the bandwidth that’s provided with my GrowBig plan.

I understand that some website owners feel that the 20-30GB provided with the GrowBig and GoGeek plans may not be adequate, but it’s really more than enough for me with a website that’s about a year old (it’s not an authority yet).