If you're a business owner looking to create an online presence, you'll undoubtedly want to launch a website that will set your business apart. First and foremost, you'll want your website to offer unique services or information and to be as user-friendly as possible. Fortunately, your business web hosting plan can offer specific elements to help you gain a competitive advantage. Here's a helpful list of features that your business website hosting package should provide if you are looking to do any direct selling, marketing, or offer free downloads from your website:
- Security - Most of today's internet shoppers know to look for a site's security before completing their purchase. To make sure that your site accepts payment securely, you'll need a business web hosting package that offers an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Security protocol, or a feature that encrypts data transfers as they pass through the Internet. This feature will protect your customers' data and confirm their identities while protecting you and your visitors from hackers.
- Mailing list management programs (list server) – A mailing list management program is an integral part of any business web hosting plan, as it maintains an email database that can circulate messages to members of the list. Business web hosting plans should also offer autoresponders, (also referred to as mailbots or email-on-demand) which saves the information from incoming emails and sends a professional automatic response. When used properly, these email features can serve as valuable marketing tools that will help to bring visitors to the site and increase a website's revenue.
- Statistical data– Understanding a website's visitor data is essential as it enables business owners to better identify with their target audience and to adjust their website for maximum success. When choosing a business website hosting plan, make sure that its visitor data reports are available in a variety of formats such as graphs, charts and lists so that you can best understand your website's visitors and activity.
- Anonymous FTP - Most business website hosting plans offer File Transfer Protocol (FTP), which is the ability to download files from your server. In order for visitors to be able to access free downloads without a password you will need Anonymous FTP services. Utilizing Anonymous FTP services will make your site as convenient and user-friendly as possible.
