Running an online business is not a lot different to running a small business in the real world. You need to look after it and run it prudently. Whereas you might rent premises off line, your premises in the online world is your web site. And the rent you must pay is to your web host. So what is the secret to successful small business web hosting?nConsidering that your business is your livelihood, many would get the first answer to this question wrong. Many would focus on the price as being the secret to successful small business web hosting. But I personally think that those people would be wrong.nThe most critical element to any business web hosting, be it for a small business or otherwise, is the support you receive.nAnd I don’t mean that support that everyone receives when you first sign up and you are a new customer!nWhat is most important is the support you receive when things go wrong. And things will go wrong, believe me. What matters most is how your web host reacts when the chips are down.nThereafter, we can focus our attention on some of the more obvious things that would contribute to successful small business web hosting. Things like price, features and value for money.nAs far as price is concerned, you can get very good deals on Internet hosting at the moment. There are a lot of web hosts around, so the nature of the business means that prices will be competitive. However, price is not so easy to measure as you would think. There are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes standard small business web hosting package. You have to assess your needs and compare like for like as much as you can. Just remember that you will need to have adequate hard disk space to store your files on, and have a healthy monthly bandwidth allowance as well.nOne of the reasons that you should focus on features in a small business hosting package, is that the better featured the hardware is, the less likely you will have problems with your web site. And you will want to keep your web site up as much as possible.nAbout the Author: Charlie Cory makes his living from computers as a consultant, and has been creating web sites and marketing them for a number of years.