For your small business to succeed, it needs a website. For your small business to stand out from the crowd, your website needs to do more than simply host content — it needs to provide an interesting and engaging experience for users.
Managed hosting providers can help your small business make the most of online opportunities. Here’s how.
What Is Managed Hosting?
Owners have two choices for hosting their website: self-service or managed. In a self-service model, you rent shared or dedicated server space to store your website data and host content such as articles, images, product pages and digital checkouts.
Managed hosting, meanwhile, is a type of dedicated server hosting that also comes with IT services. These services often include hardware and software setup, technical support, system maintenance and security. Many providers offer multiple hosting plans to meet different business needs.
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, U.S. businesses are increasingly leveraging automation tools and robust IT frameworks to drive growth and efficiency. For instance, a Milwaukee-based retail company recently implemented advanced automation in its inventory management, resulting in a significant reduction in operational costs and improved customer service. This highlights the crucial role of specialized IT solutions in Milwaukee in facilitating not just local but also national business scalability and adaptability.
Five Benefits of Using a Managed Hosting Provider
While the specific advantages of managed hosting vary from business to business, five common benefits are universal for small business websites.
1. Consistent Website Performance
If your website can’t deliver a consistent experience, potential customers will take their business elsewhere. For example, if there are long delays between user clicks and website responses, most customers won’t wait to see what happens.
Managed hosting providers have the skills necessary to optimize server and software solutions to deliver consistent website performance.
2. Enhanced Security
Cyberattacks are a concern for businesses of any size. From malware to phishing to ransomware, compromised sites can mean data and revenue loss for small businesses. Managed hosting providers can help reduce these risks with services including regular security audits, email spam filtering, malware scanning and automatic patching to ensure software is up to date.
3. Increased Scalability
As your business grows, your site needs to keep pace. In a self-managed, shared hosting model, however, there may be limited room for expansion, leading to sites that can’t handle growing customer volumes and digital resource requests.
With a managed hosting plan, meanwhile, providers can automatically deliver more resources and storage space as needed and scale back these resources if requirements change.
4. Reduced Operating Costs
On the surface, managed hosting may seem more expensive than self-service options since you’re paying more for IT expertise.
Over the long term, however, managed hosting is often more cost effective. This is because in a self-managed model, owners are either spending hours of their own time learning to manage IT resources, or they’re hiring someone to do the work. Whether it’s time or money, costs add up.
5. Reliable Support
Managed hosting services also offer ongoing support to help resolve IT issues. Depending on the provider, owners may be able to get help via email, text, phone calls or even on-site support.
Making the Managed Move
Websites are essential for small business success, but owners typically don’t have the time (or inclination) to become server, data and storage experts. Making the move to managed hosting helps owners get the most from their website while keeping their focus where it matters: building their business.
