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Your business is your lifeline. Thus, your web hosting company is the heart of your business. However, some Internet Business owners fail to recognize the difference between Business Web Hosting and other, types of cheap web hosting. It is critical that you, as a savvy Internet Entrepreneur, understand the difference between the two. And there is a huge difference.

Your business requires certain things from a web hosting company to remain up and running 24/7, and to continue to be profitable. It needs a reliable host, enough bandwidth, and the ability to expand as your business grows. Also critical to the success of your business, it needs an email system that is both reliable, non-restrictive and customer friendly. A free or cheap web hosting company will not be able to offer you these features. You need company specializing in Business Web Hosting.

You may have heard about the free web hosting offered by many Internet Service Providers; many Internet Entrepreneurs even rely on them. This is a huge mistake. Cheap web hosting companies such as these are extremely limited as to what features and what kind of service they can offer a serious online business owner (you are serious, aren't you?).

We've all seen some of the websites out there, the ones that have family pictures, blogs, recipes, etc. These websites are probably hosted by ISPs or cheap web hosting companies. Do you want your business, your lifeblood to end up like this? Do you even want your business in the same category? I didn't think so. This illustrates the difference between a Business Web Hosting company and a cheap, fly by night or ISP web hosting company. You must consider more than what the price of the web hosting package may be. Remember, you really do get what you pay for. In the realm of web hosting, cheap=cheap, in every sense of the word.

We won't even discuss free web hosting in detail here. No explanation is really needed (ever heard the expression, nothing in life is free?). But in short, it is generally unreliable, limited and probably will have you sharing IP addresses with just about everyone, including the Spammers. Choosing a free or cheap web host is a quick way to make your site both unreliable and irrelevant (due to lack of bandwidth and the number of websites being hosted), not to mention appearing unreliable, unappealing and unprofessional to visitors.

Additionally, with a free web hosting company, you will probably use the web host's domain name. As a serious business professional, you need your own domain and you need business web hosting.

A business web hosting company will have fast servers, adequate disk space and will be able to offer you lots of options in web hosting packages. Generally, business web hosting companies are able to grow with your business, give you advice and form a long-term relationship. A business web hosting company will make sure that you are a satisfied customer. You wont be just a number to them. They have a vested interest in providing your business with superior customer service. Cheap or free web hosting companies simply don't do this. They don't have any motivation. After all, it's cheap or free!

Business web hosting companies also have something that the free or cheap web hosting companies don't have and something that is most often overlooked. They have the ability to offer you a dedicated IP address. Having a dedicated IP address means that your website is not sharing an IP address with anyone else. Why is this important? Assume that a web hosting company has an IP address that has 1000's of websites sharing it along with yours. One of these sites happens to be a Spammer (and it only takesone). The entire IP, along with your website, can and probably will be banned by the search engines eventually. You don't want this to happen to your business. If it does, it could be months before you realize why your website traffic has ground to a halt.

Below are additional features that set business class hosting apart from the cheap or free web hosting companies:

FTP access
User-friendly Control Panel
Backup Servers should the main server go down
Backup Systems
Blogging Software
Raw Logs (help you monitor performance)

Additionally, a business web hosting company will be able to offer you something more substantial than the standard 98% uptime guarantee. Let's face it ' in today's world, this guarantee really isn't a selling point anymore.

Selecting a business web hosting company for your business is a serious decision. You can't afford not to choose a web host specializing in business class web hosting. So think through your decision carefully, evaluate your options and choose wisely. Your business is important to you. You need a business web host that will be not only your web hosting company, but your business partner as well.