Most hosting adverts compete on numbers that don’t matter much to a small business: unlimited this, terabytes of that. If you run a shop in Ludlow, a trade in Oswestry or a guest house near Knighton, the things that decide whether hosting is good are much simpler.
1. Speed on the connections your customers actually have
Large parts of Shropshire and Powys still have patchy mobile signal. A customer standing in a farmyard near Llanfair Caereinion, or a walker on Offa’s Dyke above Knighton, may be loading your site on one bar of 4G.
That makes two things matter more than usual:
- Fast servers close to your customers. UK hosting on SSD storage cuts the time before anything appears on screen.
- A light website. Huge photos and heavy page builders hurt far more on a weak signal than the hosting itself. Resize images before you upload them, or use our image size calculator to see the difference.
2. UK servers and UK support
Hosting in the UK keeps pages quick for UK visitors and keeps your data under UK law, which is simpler when you think about GDPR. Just as important is being able to reach a person in your own time zone when something goes wrong on a Saturday morning.
3. Email on your own domain
An address like hello@yourbusiness.co.uk looks far more established than a Gmail address on a van or a business card. Good hosting includes email on your domain, set up so it works on your phone as well as your laptop.
4. Free, automatic SSL
Browsers warn visitors away from sites without HTTPS, and Google prefers secure sites. SSL certificates should be free and renew themselves. If your current host charges for SSL, that’s a sign to move.
5. Backups you can actually restore
Ask any host how often backups run, how long they’re kept and how you restore one. The answer should be specific. A backup you can’t restore quickly isn’t much use.
Hosting, or a managed website?
If you enjoy running your own site, simple web hosting or WordPress hosting is the most affordable route, from a few pounds a month.
If you’d rather spend your time on the business, a managed website puts design, writing, hosting, security and monthly changes in one place. Many owners across the borders find that once they add up the hours spent fixing plugins, the managed route costs less in practice.
Not sure which fits? Look at the page for your town, such as Shrewsbury, Welshpool or Newtown, or get in touch and we’ll give you a straight answer.