Ecommerce is exciting because you can get a website up and running rather quickly and newer marketing solutions help drive customers to your site. You can be making money online in no time with the right strategy and hard work.
When looking for an ecommerce web host you will want to look for a variety of things. We have compiled a few ideas for you to take a look at in hopes of helping you to think of all that you will need. You know your business best so don’t get short changed in your hosting.
There are a few things that you will most certainly want and they include: email support, databases, ftp, blog, shopping cart, payment processing, live customer support, and content management that is easy for you to use.
On top of these items you will want to be sure that your hosting includes the following:
- SSL (Secure Socket Layer)- This is a method of encrypting information so that your information as well as your customer’s information stays secure. With identity theft on the rise everyone is security conscious. It is vital that you protect the information that you have and insure that your customers can shop safely.
- Shopping cart – If you are selling anything you will need a shopping cart system. Your ecommerce web hosting should come with this, you should not have to purchase a separate program. However, just because it comes with one doesn’t mean it fits your needs so really look at the program and make sure that you can customize it and most of all that it will accommodate the number of products that you are offering and has room to grow.
- Advertising credit – Advertising credits are available with many web hosting companies and you should keep this in mind while shopping around. Once you have your website designed and built you are going to have to have a way to let the word out. Most of the credits that you will find are for Google AdWords and Yahoo! Marketing.
- Support – Just as you can’t afford to close shop in the middle of the day with a traditional store front you can’t afford downtime in your online business. Being online is great because you are open for business 24/7 for your customers but if they know that you have outages and downtime they will not be back. It is crucial that you get the support you need at all hours so that you can prevent losing sales and repeat customers.
We recommend the following three ecommerce web hosts: