Small Business Web HostingA web hosting service provides you with a storage facility on a server for your website files. When people want to visit your website, the text, pictures and any other content of your website is accessed from the server that hosts your website. While it is possible for a standard in-house computer to host a website, we do not recommend this for small organisations. Websites need to be accessible 24-7 by multiple visitors and bots simultaneously. This requires a connection to a high-speed network, an expensive enterprise-grade server, an appropriate operating system, advanced security, standby backup equipment, and technical expertise to manage it all.
The cost of all this (and the risks involved) is far greater than paying for a specialist web hosting service.
Professional web hosting for SMEs
Lime has developed long-term partnerships with some very reliable web hosting providers located within Australia, Singapore and the US with reliable service. These web hosts have a proven success record, enabling fast-loading websites with 99.9% uptime assurance and prompt efficient support.
Lime’s small business web hosting deals include a fixed annual fee with no limit on traffic and an abundance of website space. If you need a new website, our website development packages include FREE hosting and FREE domain registration for the first year too!
We can also organise email addresses with the same domain name as that of your website.
Cheap web hosting
Lime’s standard webhosting fee is $175 +GST per annum. Webhosting is a highly competitive business and the internet is full of ridiculously cheaper deals. We however advise caution should you choose to organise your own web host. There can be numerous ramifications.
Most webhosts entice small businesses with cheap rates initially, then raise their prices to exorbitant amounts later at the time of renewal. Generally the cheaper the cost, the higher risk of an unreliable hosting service or hidden costs. There could be additional fees if the website exceeds an allocated amount of space, or if the number of website visitors exceeds a set limit. Even worse – some hosts instead shut the website from public viewing for the remainder of a month till the traffic limit is reset.
A common consequence of cheap hosting is the slow display of a website. When the host loads too many other websites onto a server, the total number of visitors simultaneously visiting these websites could put excessive pressure on the server thereby causing it to run slow. Cheap hosts also tend to not maintain their servers adequately, so a server may frequently crash resulting in the website being cut off from public viewing.
With poor server maintenance, there is also potential for hackers to break in without detection, as the host may not have updated their systems to fix the latest known vulnerabilities.
WordPress web hosting
WordPress is the most preferred platform amongst our clients. We note that even amongst good web hosts, not all of their webhosting packages are configured to suit a WordPress installation. This can result in a range of complications such as insufficient RAM allocation, incorrectly set permissions, old software and overprotective security systems that block WordPress from functioning properly. From our experience, this usually ends up with a lot of wasted time, and additional costs involved in ultimately transferring the client’s site over to another hosting package.
Advanced website hosting needs
Please enquire about additional needs that you may have for your web hosting.