A recent survey by C I Host shows that more than half of small and medium sized businesses still don’t have a Web site, but 41 percent plan to develop...

A recent survey by C I Host shows that more than half of small and medium sized businesses still don’t have a Web site, but 41 percent plan to develop one over the next year. Of those who have no Web site, 90 percent say they plan to contract for shared hosting for their first Web site. Of those who already have a Web site, only about a third use it to sell products or services or perform Internet-based transactions.

Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host, pointed to the survey as evidence that there is a strong, untapped market for shared hosting. “Web Hosting represents a significant opportunity and is a profoundly growing market,” Faulkner said. “SMBs use their web sites primarily for disseminating information about their company and its products and services.”

Another encouraging finding was that 93 percent of business owners wouldn’t be interested in free Web hosting. Most said they either did not trust a company that was offering free Web hosting or felt they would have no recourse if the company caused an error with their site or damaged their online business. “We repeatedly heard the phrase, ‘You get what you pay for,’” Faulkner said.

Although the vast majority of companies would avoid free hosting, price was still a compelling reason to pick one Web host over another. Some 43 percent of companies named price as their primary reason in choosing a Web host, followed by support, 23 percent; financial strength of the company, 17 percent; reliability, 15 percent; and features offered, 2 percent. The random survey included 1,000 small and medium sized businesses in the United States and Canada. None were C I Host customers. All the companies had fewer than 15 employees and revenues between $100,000 and $10 million. The survey was conducted by the C I Host telemarketing division in November 2003.

Of those surveyed, 52 percent had no Web site and of the 48 percent who had a Web site, only 28 percent used it to sell products or services. Of those who didn’t have a Web site, 2 percent planned to get one within a month; 6 percent within 3 months; 19 percent within 6 months; 41 percent within a year; and 32 percent within no particular time. Of those without a Web site, 90 percent expected to contract for a share package; 9 percent for a dedicated server; and 1 percent for a colocation package. According to the most recent U.S. Census data, there are more than 5 million firms in the country with fewer than 20 employees.


About C I Host
C I Host, based in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, is a Web hosting and Internet solutions provider, domain name registrar (DNR) and application service provider (ASP) serving 200,000 individual consumers and businesses in 182 countries worldwide.

C I Host creates business-class Web hosting solutions for the small- and medium-enterprise (SME) market, with the broadest portfolio of managed hosting and value-added services in the industry. C I Host is accredited by ICANN to register domain names. C I Host operates three diverse data centers across the United States, with its main facility and Network Operations Center in Bedford, Texas. C I Host also has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and London.

For more information about C I Host, please visit http://www.cihost.com