Medium and Small Business Web Hosting
How big do you want to be?
Whether you focus on business to business or business to consumer, as your business grows, your website hosting and management needs will also increase.
- Evaluate your web site presence in line with your business plan. This is particularly important if you are a small start up business, because funds may be in short supply.
- We recommend obtaining your own domain name. It's as important as registering your own business name. Your own domain name can clearly identify your business and clearly set you apart from your competitors.
- Only buy what you need - don't get fooled into "unlimited everything"...because your web host will have to cut costs somewhere, and it will probably be "good service" that goes first.
Red Rook provides small business web hosting services that can be scaled to meet the changing needs of your business. We don't believe in selling you more than you need, and we're flexible enough to allow you to upgrade your services as your business website grows.
Small Business Web Hosting
To get started, we recommend small business web hosting on the Starter 10 web hosting plan...
- 10MB disk space - more than enough for a small menu-driven web site comprising 10-20 pages, with both text and optimised images.
- 1 POP email account - this gives you one username and password for accessing emails, and therefore, one email "inbox". However, as we allow unlimited email aliases, you can have any number of email addresses that "deliver" email to this email account.
- Unlimited Traffic - we put no restrictions on the amount of traffic your web site receives, and will never bill you if your site is popular and attracts large volumes of traffic.
If you have an existing web site that you're transferring to Red Rook, you may already need to sign up for the Busy 20 web hosting plan.
Medium Business Web Hosting
When you outgrow the your small business web hosting plan, it's time to upgrade to the Busy 20 for medium-sized business...
- 20MB disk space - this should allow for the growing amount of content on your web site. Check that there aren't obsolete files that could be deleted and may mean you don't need to upgrade just yet. Also, make sure all your images are optimised for file size.
- 3 POP email accounts - now you have a few employees, they can have access to their own email account. You can allocate email aliases to each account, depending upon the account owner and their position or role in the business.
- Unlimited Traffic - once again, as the popularity of your web site increases, there's no need to worry about unexpected traffic bills.
What makes a good business web site?
There have been countless pages written about what constitutes a good business website. Regardless of your business size, the principles remain the same. We've included a few tips that can help if you're designing and developing your own web site.
The next important thing is to get your web site known. Small business internet marketing can be very cost-effective. You'll need to make sure your web site is optimised for search engines, and start building links to your site.
Think hard about the keywords that will be relevant for anyone finding your web site.
What other tools could help your business?
Establish an online business database
An online database for your business can enable you to:
- give your website visitors the ability to subscribe to email newsletters and be notified of website and news updates
- include "fields" into your web pages so you can make changes to your website with less fuss
- implement a content management system
- run a bulletin board or online forum
- include product and price details
- take online orders and implement other ecommerce applications
Utilise a corporate/employee intranet
Enable your staff and employees to:
- remotely access corporate files and documents
- gain both remote and local access to business applications
- place orders via the internet when "out in the field"
- streamline business administration processes
Get serious about internet marketing
Some ideas for how you can promote your website:
- Promote your website address through conventional media such as television and press
- Make sure your website is search engine optimised
- Start building a link exchange programme from other web sites
Implement a Business Content Management System
An Business Content Management System can help you keep your website content fresh and ensure all information is up-to-date.
Your website will be a much greater success if you give management and employees responsibility for website content and the access and tools to manage that content.
