Best Web Hosting Options for Corporate Brands Launching a Web Presence

The first step towards attracting visitors to your online business is choosing a web hosting option that fits your business needs. To keep your visitors happy and convert them into loyal customers, you must provide the best online experience possible. It is also crucial for ranking on search engines.

It might be challenging finding the right web hosting company that provides the complete package you need.

Here are the essential features that corporate brands should look for in a web hosting company.

Technical support

Technical support is important for all websites. You want your online website to run efficiently 24/7. A technical support team ensures that you have support when your website suffers downtime or experiences any technical issues.

Storage

One of the primary concerns when choosing a web host is the amount of storage they will provide. For medium and small websites, 50-100GB should suffice depending on your applications.

For large corporate brands who expect to receive higher traffic, you might need between 500-1000GB or more. Be careful with hosting providers that promise “unlimited storage”. Read the fine print to determine what they offer.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of data you can download and upload within a defined period. For media-heavy sites and traffic-heavy sites, you’re going to need a high bandwidth allocation to ensure you serve your visitors. Similar to storage, some hosting companies offer “unlimited bandwidth” but these plans often have limits so ask questions.

Backup

Remote backup service is another essential feature to look out for. Imagine the nightmare of losing your emails, customer data, website content and financial details. It’s the type of disaster that forces many corporate entities to go under.

A hosting company that provides automated backup is crucial to your daily operations. For e-commerce brands, it ensures that you don’t lose information on recent sales. Data must be remotely stored on a different server to ensure that backups are available when your server goes down.

Security

We live in an age where cybercriminals and hackers are constantly developing new software and techniques to hack millions of websites. Thousands of websites are infected with malware every day. These hackers steal customer information such as credit card data.

A reputable web host should provide corporate websites with an arsenal of tools such as an SSL certificate, email scanning, monitoring, firewalls, spam removal, RAID and more.

An SSL certificate encrypts data sent over the web to prevent an interception by hackers. Payment gateways won’t let you use their services if you don’t have an SSL certificate. Google will also mark your website as “not secure”. Many antivirus companies advise their clients to only visit websites that use HTTPS instead of HTTP, alongside SSL certificates.

Uptime

The best web hosting companies are reliable. They don’t just claim to guarantee 99.99% uptime; they actually provide it. Read online reviews before signing a contract. Customer reviews will tell you those who offer the best uptime.

The importance of high-quality web hosting for corporate brands

Brendan Wilde of https://www.openhost.co.nz asserts that “nothing gives you control over your online presence like premium web hosting.”Consider the many risks you take when you host your website on free sites like Tumblr and Blogger. The biggest risk is having your website taken down for an error or a rule you didn’t know you had broken. A business planning to launch a web presence cannot afford to be complacent.

Customers must trust you. That won’t happen if you’re co-branding with a free hosting site. You won’t be able to customise or expand your site as you need. The pieces of software you can install are also limited; same as access to plugins and tools.

It is also important to choose a web hosting company that scales with your business as it grows. It shouldn’t lock you into a contract or package that makes it impossible to migrate when you need to.

Web hosting options for corporate brands that need an online presence

Cloud hosting

With cloud hosting, there is no physical server. It is a system of storing data across multiple computers that will be accessed via a network connection. Think of it as a single server where websites can tap into endless resources depending on their needs. Instead of hosting the site on a single server like on a shared or dedicated server, it’s a clustered hosting through multiple servers.

Managed cloud hosting

This is a process where websites share and access resources including hardware, database and software tools via multiple servers in different remote locations. The hosting company provides experts at data centres who monitor the equipment to ensure that it functions properly. The focus is on the guarantee of uptime and security.

Corporate businesses focus on their core competencies while the hosting company manages the resources on your behalf. You have access to superior disaster recovery and efficient data backup on a managed cloud hosting plan.

For mid-market corporate brands and larger ones, it makes the most sense. You can control costs, leverage a customised package designed for your hosting needs while focusing on running your business.

Unmanaged cloud hosting

Unmanaged cloud is a public cloud where multiple website owners share resources from a single pool. Cloud providers operate large data centres where they load clients to reduce cost and reserve computing resources for those who want to scale.

Users have access to the standard features of cloud hosting such as flexibility, scalability and global access via an internet connection. You also enjoy the operating system of your choice but managing software is up to you.

The major problem with the unmanaged cloud is security. It might be cheaper than managed cloud hosting but it doesn’t offer the technical expertise you need to stay on top of the latest security issues.

VPS hosting

This is a type of hosting that depends on virtualisation technology. The VPS is a portioned part of a single server. It has its own bandwidth, operating system and disc space. Unlike shared hosting, VPS hosting offers guaranteed performance and dedicated resources. There is more security because your website is hosted in an isolated environment. It also offers complete server root access.

The major significance of an unmanaged hosting plan is that a business saves money on technical support services. It is an option for tech-savvy webmasters who need a different operating system or application software that the hosting company doesn’t provide.

You have control in terms of memory, bandwidth, storage, usage and software installation. It is a cost-effective solution for startups with a shoestring budget.

A managed VPS server is a hosting package where your hosting provider takes care of technical support, automated backups, software updates and other features you need to run your website efficiently.

Having someone to call for help is always important. They take care of the problem immediately and ensure that you offer a fast and quality service.

You also enjoy a higher level of security with your hosting provider taking care of all the necessary security configuration for you. It also offers time-saving benefits that ensure you focus on what you do best while your hosting provider takes care of the technical end of your website.

Some hosting companies go a step further to offer customised security for handling sensitive information such as passwords, username and credit card details.

Dedicated hosting

Think of dedicated hosting as owning the building, whereas you’re renting with other hosting packages. You’re leasing an entire server including its resources, instead of sharing. You have full access to disk space, CPU, memory and bandwidth.

It offers the most benefits for corporate brands looking to establish their web presence. It enhances performance and autonomy in terms of operation and management. A dedicated web hosting package takes care of high traffic.

To leverage the best of dedicated hosting, we advise clients to choose the managed hosting plan.

Benefits of managed dedicated hosting for corporate brands

24/7 monitoring and maintenance

Many website problems usually occur at odd hours. No one prays for downtime or getting hacked but when it happens, you want your site back online in the fastest time. With managed dedicated hosting, you have access to a team of dedicated professionals who work quickly to solve any technical issue.

Enterprise quality server hardware

A quality website service begins at the data centre. A top web host provides high-quality server hardware for your online and critical website applications.

Reliability

If IT is not your forte, managed dedicated hosting takes the burden of managing your own servers off your hands. A reputable web hosting company provides a quality data centre infrastructure to ensure your servers are running efficiently.

Shared hosting doesn’t work anymore for corporate brands

Shared hosting simply doesn’t have the bandwidth for large corporate brands or high-traffic sites. Your website speed suffers and you could be penalised for consistently exceeding your permitted limits.

It is a single server shared across multiple websites who don’t know the ethical policies of each other. It might be low cost but the risk of low availability, poor speed and unreliability makes it a poor choice for corporate brands.

The major issue is the lack of security due to delayed updates and patches needed to mitigate hacking attempts, DDoS attacks and malware. These are the loopholes hackers use to infiltrate websites.

Conclusion

For corporate brands looking to launch an online presence, a managed dedicated server offers all the full resources you need to provide a good browsing experience for your users. Cloud computing or managed VPS is a bridge plan that offers the best of dedicated hosting without the high cost.