The Best Web Hosting List

As a small business website (or even as a large one!) you have many options to consider for receiving payment online. You may think that starting an ecommerce website is going to be the toughest thing you have ever done, but it is actually becoming easier and easier, because there are so many companies willing to help.

For example, the best web hosting providers will offer you amazing web hosting freebies like ecommerce shopping carts, payment gateways, merchant accounts, dedicated IPs, SSL certificates, and more. In fact, out top web hosting providers are among these amazing hosting companies.

But what payment option is best for your business? Take a look at the following questions and answer each honestly for a summary of the best online payment methods for your business hosting account.

Will your customers be purchasing products through your website?

Yes -> You’ll need a merchant account, SSL certificate, and Dedicated IP.
No -> You can use PayPal or Google checkout.

Do you want to accept credit card payments?

Yes -> You can use a merchant account (with SSL and IP) or free services like PayPal and Google Checkout, both of which offer credit card payment options.
No -> Use PayPal, as it’s cheaper.

Do you want to incorporate advanced payment options for international customers?

Yes -> You will need a merchant account with SSL and IP to accept payments like echecks, checks, money orders, and international payment methods.
No -> PayPal or any merchant account will work.

You may not know this, but there are other choices besides internet web hosting to host your website. Of course, there are ups and down to hosting your website from place to place, so here’s a brief rundown of some pros and cons for hosting your website at home vs hosting it with a reliable web hosting provider.

Hosting at Home

Yep, you can host your website from your home computer if you want to! You can do this by using your home computer’s system resources, your DSL or high-speed internet connection, and web space. Using Microsoft Word or other free products, you can design a simple website and put it online.

Pros: It’s nearly free! You only have to pay for your internet connection, home computer, and any web design products you’ll use to get online.

Cons: There are…a lot of cons to this, unfortunately. I’ll just list three of the biggies. 1) You can’t use your home computer for both hosting a website and as a computer, unless your computer is MASSIVE. It takes a lot of resources to run a website. 2) Your internet service provider likely won’t provide you with a dedicated or static IP address, which is necessary for good SEO (search engine optimization) and ecommerce web hosting. 3) There’s no support hotline, so if your hard drive melts, you see a blue screen with white text, or get corrupt files, will you know what to do?

Web Hosting from a Reliable Web Hosting Provider

You already knew this was possible, but it’s the most popular method for hosting your website.

Pros: You get technical support if you choose a provider from our Top 10 Web Hosting List. You also get a free domain name, unlimited emails, and you don’t have to worry about melting your hard drive, backing up files, or your internet connection. Web hosting companies have better internet connections anyway, one that will never or very rarely be down. You can also purchase dedicated or static IP addresses easily, so ecommerce and great SEO is never a problem.

Cons: It’s slightly more expensive, though if you run into trouble on your home computer, trust me, the cost will be tenfold more than what you’ll pay for reliable hosting service from our affordable hosting providers.

If you are a work-at-home mom, just starting your home business, or perhaps looking to extend the reach of a local business to a broader online community, small business web hosting is definitely the way to go. But what exactly does a small business website need that’s different from what normal webhosting customers require?

For one thing, technical support. If you are running a simple blog and it goes down for a couple minutes, it’s no big deal. But if you are operating a business online, every minute of downtime means the possibility you are losing sales, money, and customers. Don’t be fooled by “99.9% uptime” though – every web host says they have that. What you need is valuable, trustworthy, knowledgeable technical support available as close to 24/7 as possible. Remember, live chat is great, but live phone support is better and a decent ticketing or email system is best.

Another difference is storage space and bandwidth. While shared web hosting providers can make up high numbers, you really need a web hosting provider who can stand behind those numbers and back you up if you reach them. Choose the best web hosting you can to assure you can run shopping carts, multiple websites and pages, hundreds of emails, and more. Remember to choose the features you need most and worry about pricing second – most webhosts will be affordable these days.

Make 100% sure your webhosting provider has the following features or that you are able to purchase these features at an additional cost:

* Dedicated IP Address
* SSL Certificate
* Shopping Carts
* Blogs (WordPress)
* CMS (Joomla)
* Multiple Parked Domains (redirecting domains)

Small business webhosting can be tough, but with the best web hosting list guiding you every step of the way, you can make sure you are making the right decision.

Here are some more familiar webhosting terms you need to know as you look for the best web hosting providers. These are very important, and once you understand the terminology, you can purchase from anyone with confidence. This article will concentrate specifically on domain names and related terms that describe how your website is recognized online.

Dedicated IP: Also known as “dedicated IP address” or “secure IP address” and sometimes “personal IP address” as well. An IP itself is simply the numeric address where your website is located online. For example, when surfing to www.google.com, you are actually going to 714.65.87.1 or some similar set of numbers that identifies google.com from all other websites around. To simplify this for consumers, we have “domain names” (see below) which take the place of IP addresses. Dedicated IPs are useful for ecommerce web hosting and business websites, as they assure yours is the only domain associated with that IP address. Dedicated IPs normally cost a couple bucks extra per month.

Domain Name: Also known as website address, website URL, and probably others terms, though with web hosting, it’s more common to say “domain”, “domain name”, or “domain name registration”. A domain is just the address where you can find your website online – for example, www.thebestwebhostinglist.com is this website’s domain name. Domain names are normally offered free with any webhosting purchase.

Parked Domains: Also known as “redirecting domains”, “URL forwarding”, and “URL cloaking”. Parking a domain simply means you are redirecting it somewhere. For example, if you own website1.com and website1.net, you want all your traffic from website1.net to go to the .com address. Setting up website1.net as a parked domain, you can redirect it to website1.com. This should be no additional charge from any affordable webhost.

Private Domain Registration: Also known as “private WhoIs Registration” or “anonyous domain registration” . It’s known as private Whois Registration because Private Domain Registration hides your information from the Whois search engines. For example, if you visit whois.com and enter any domain name, you can find out who owns that domain and how to contact them. Adding private domain registration will either black out these fields or populate them with the web host’s information so you can’t be contacted. Adding private domain registration normally costs several extra dollars per year.

PayPal is one of the most well-known forms of payment gateways on the internet today. There are a few reasons for this:

1) They allow international payments, so even if your website customers live in Istanbul and your company is in Florida, your web hosting can still accept their money in exchange for your product.
2) Customers don’t need a PayPal account to purchase things from your PayPal based website! So if a customer wants to buy something on your ecommerce website hosting, they don’t have to go through the motions of signing up for PayPal, activating their PayPal account (which can take up to a week to verify checking accounts), signing in, etc. They can simply purchase what they need via your PayPal payment page using a credit card or existing account.
3) It’s pretty cheap. PayPal eliminates the necessity of purchasing a Dedicated IP address and SSL Certificate for your website hosting, and they only charge a per transaction fee that is slight compared to other providers.
4) It’s incredibly easy. People use PayPal for a reason – it’s easy to setup on any webhosting account, from anywhere in the world. If you know HTML, you can integrate PayPal directly on your site, and if you don’t, PayPal provides you with some you can copy/paste to redirect your users to an easy form.

So for new ecommerce or business website hosting, thebestwebhostinglist.com recommends PayPal pretty highly.

Do you know what you should expect to pay for the best website hosting available? Many customers think that a domain name and website are the same thing. This is unfortunately not the case. The domain name is just the name or website address of your new website: for example, www.YourName.com. The website itself is whatever you create using your computer, whatever your web developer creates for you, or whatever files, photos, content, music, and videos you are using to make your website visible online.

So what kinds of costs can you expect for affordable web hosting purchases? Here’s a brief outline:

FREE Website Stuff

* Free Domain Name Registration – if you web hosting provider doesn’t offer this, you might look elsewhere unless they have really great deals on affordable web hosting.
* Free Website Templates – not every website host offers website design, but if you are inexperienced in web design, you should look for a host who can accommodate.
* Free Blog – WordPress Web Hosting is extremely important, especially since it can help get your website ranked well in Google! The best web hosting companies offer a free blog at least but most can accept WordPress Web Hosting as well.
* Free Shopping Cart – if you need to run an online business, this is a must-have for ecommerce web hosting.

Cost of Web Hosting

* Website Hosting Plan – these can range from $3.95/month to upwards of $100/month, depending on your needs. Most new website owners only need the bare minimum, while experiences webmasters will require additional features and setup.
* Ecommerce Web Hosting Features – additional features like Dedicated IP and SSL Certificate will cost extra. A Dedicated IP shouldn’t cost more than $5 extra per month, while SSL certificates vary from $20/year to upwards of $100 per year.

That’s really it! On average, you can purchase a website and domain name for under $100/year! This is an incredible savings that thebestwebhostinglist.com recommends you take advantage of.

Ecommerce web hosting is simply a fancy way of saying you can make money on your website. The internet really broadened this avenue for small businesses and startup organizations and can transform your tiny business into a Fortune 100 giant in 0-60.

But if you are new to web hosting, do you know what is necessary to running a successful ecommerce website? Take a look at this article first and do some research before you purchase, because there are several costs to think about before you purchase your ecommerce web hosting plan.

1. Ecommerce website hosting

Find a successful web hosting company who as been in the web hosting business for at least 5 years. Take a look at our Top 10 Web Hosting List for more information on the most affordable and reliable web hosting providers in the world and choose the one that’s best for your new business website.

2. Merchant Account

If you’re not sure what a merchant account is, let me briefly explain. A merchant account is simply a business like a bank that can process your online transactions for you. If you are familiar with PayPal or Google Checkout, they are both merchant accounts and the most popular ones on the market, as they are the most affordable. Especially for your first ecommerce website, you’ll want something cheap and easy. We recommend PayPal, as it charges a minimal fee per transaction and you don’t have to be a web hosting guru to use it.

3. Shopping Cart

If you are selling tangible goods on your ecommerce web hosting plan, you’re going to need a reliable shopping cart to sell your products on. Make sure the shopping cart has all the business hosting features you require and check the prices. Many will have a per month or per year charge, and many others will add a per transaction charge to it. This is not abnormal in the least.

The best web hosting providers will offer a free online shopping cart to you with your purchase, so explore that avenue before you go out and buy one.

4. Advanced Features

If you choose to go with a bank or merchant account other than PayPal or Google Checkout for your ecommerce web hosting site, you’ll need to also purchase a Dedicated IP and SSL Certificate, as these two advanced web hosting features secure your website and the payments your customers make on it from being shared with others.

Ecommerce website hosting can be difficult but not if you understand the costs and resources available to you right off the bat!

Simply put, a Dedicated IP address is your OWN address on a server. Typically speaking, when you’re put on a shared server you automatically share an IP address with the hundreds of other people on it — what differentiates you from each other are your domain names. But with a dedicated IP address you will have your OWN IP address. This is especially essential if you need a dedicated SSL certificate to run your online business.   

The best web hosts online should always offer you a dedicated IP address for your website. In some cases, hosts might give you one for free or at a discounted price under certain plans, so always check that out!