Reliable web hosting for a small business? What do I need?

[BlueWeasel]

The engineering firm I work for is about to make the jump to purchasing a domain and web space hosting. We dont' mind paying extra for a good reliable host, but I am a little confused about exactly what I need to be looking for in a host.

A little background first....

The majority of our work comes from existing clients and "word of mouth" advertising. We really just want a fairly simple website with probably the following:

- Overview of our projects with photographs
- Weekly updates/news
- Staff information
- Contact information (possibly with user submitted forms)
- Downloadable company brochure and business related forms (in PDF format)

At the most, I'd expect 1000 hits per month maximum. Also, downloads from the site would be minimal and would probably only consist of the brochure/forms and would only be a few MBs in size.

Our personal requirements would be:

- SMTP mail server
- POP3 mailboxes (10-15 maximum) with at least 10mb per mailbox
- Webmail

I've heard good things about Fluidhosting as a reliable hosting service for small businesses. Given the small amount of bandwidth we'd be using each month, I think the FH Value Package would be just fine for what we need.

Who would you recommend as a hosting service and what features should I be looking for?

Also, what are you thoughts as using 1and1? They've got what appears to be a good deal for ~$10 per month, but I am relunctant to them because of what I've heard about their reliability.

 

[Ausm]

Contact Rossman


Sysadmin

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel

The majority of our work comes from existing clients and "word of mouth" advertising. We really just want a fairly simple website with probably the following:

- Overview of our projects with photographs
- Weekly updates/news
- Staff information
- Contact information (possibly with user submitted forms)
- Downloadable company brochure and business related forms (in PDF format)

At the most, I'd expect 1000 hits per month maximum. Also, downloads from the site would be minimal and would probably only consist of the brochure/forms and would only be a few MBs in size.

Do you have someone who's going to be doing this for you?

The hosting part isn't hard to find... I would be more worried about the quality of your site and who's going to be handling the updates. ie. are the competant enough.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: ChrisIsBored

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel

The majority of our work comes from existing clients and "word of mouth" advertising. We really just want a fairly simple website with probably the following:

- Overview of our projects with photographs
- Weekly updates/news
- Staff information
- Contact information (possibly with user submitted forms)
- Downloadable company brochure and business related forms (in PDF format)

At the most, I'd expect 1000 hits per month maximum. Also, downloads from the site would be minimal and would probably only consist of the brochure/forms and would only be a few MBs in size.

Do you have someone who's going to be doing this for you?

The hosting part isn't hard to find... I would be more worried about the quality of your site and who's going to be handling the updates. ie. are the competant enough.

It will be me. While I am not an expert in HMTL by any means, I am certainly competent enough to handle something like this.

 

[mcveigh]

that's not much of a load at all contact rossman or fluid hosting

 

[jjones]

You might want to look at Dathorn.com. Good, reliable service and you're not limited to a single domain. 2 gigs of space and 30 gigs of bandwidth; everything else like POP3 accounts, databases, etc. are unlimited. Dedicated IP is included and more available if you ever need another. They don't offer a shared SSL cert but a real business doesn't want to use a shared cert anyway.

 

[DaveSimmons]

We've been using www.Pair.com at work to host a secondary domian for about a year now with zero problems or downtime. They're a little more expensive but very reliable.

I'd stay away from 1and1 for a business website, simply because companies who offer free or ultra-cheap hosting tend to disappear overnight, and Murphy says it will be right after you place a $4K ad in some trade magazine.

Seriously, isn't the main web presence for a real business worth $15-25 a month? Trying to save $100-200 a year at a company that's earning hundreds of thousands or even millions seems like a foolish economy.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Seriously, isn't the main web presence for a real business worth $15-25 a month? Trying to save $100-200 a year at a company that's earning hundreds of thousands or even millions seems like a foolish economy.

Most definately...

My company doesn't have problem with spending $30/month for hosting. I'm not trying to squeeze every last dime out of it, but I just need some guidance considering our relatively "simple" needs and configuration.

 

[RossMAN]

You want good reliable web hosting and you're considering 1and1's $10/mo package?

FluidHosting is awesome, they have a great infrastructure, it's run by adults with true 24/7 tech support and 100% pure InterNAP bandwidth.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
You want good reliable web hosting and you're considering 1and1's $10/mo package?

FluidHosting is awesome, they have a great infrastructure, it's run by adults with true 24/7 tech support and 100% pure InterNAP bandwidth.

Well, up until today, 1and1 was all that I really knew about. I've always heard stories of the reliability, so I was never really considering it.

 

[RossMAN]

I just spoke with BlueWeasel on the phone for about 20 minutes, a very friendly guy.

You should receive an e-mail from me shortly with details regarding the $13.99 resellers account with server specs (Dual XEON, 2GB RAM, 2x36GB SCSI) located at the CyberWurx data center (Atlanta, GA).

 

[Lars]

FluidHosting is very good. I am a customer since March 2002.