Small businesses are increasingly helping to boost the nation's economy through strengthened employee hiring. Businessweek reports that job creation at small companies has been robust, with small employers adding 2.6 million jobs in the last 33 months. That's a potent 2.9 percent increase in employment, according to figures from ADP.

As more small businesses ramp up with employee hiring and business growth, it's likely they will eventually outgrow a shared-hosting plan and need to move from a few dedicated laptops and desktops toward a more cohesive network and web-host solution.

If your website is the e-commerce touch point of your business, it's imperative to have secure, reliable web hosting that will handle all your growing small-business needs.

A solid option for fast-growth startups and other small businesses with fewer than 50 employees is to use VPS, or virtual private hosting. VPS hosting gives companies far greater flexibility and scalability to make changes to their website to meet customer demands. It also helps small-biz firms to have customized server environments, while sharing hardware and network connections with dedicated privacy, performance and flexibility.

If you're looking to upgrade your website flexibility, here are three key expectations you can have from a web-hosting company to support your website business:

Consistent, reliable uptime

Good web-hosting companies will ensure all-around uptime for your website. If your site is down for a few hours or a day because of web hosting issues (much like the recent GoDaddy outage), it could result in lost sales and a damaged reputation. Uptime is a definite plus for small businesses. Make sure your web host of choice ensures 99.9 percent uptime.

High-speed bandwidth

Small businesses want to leave a lasting impression with web visitors. One way your web host can support that is providing a lightning-fast website, free of heavy animated GIFs or Flash tutorials. Higher bandwidth allows for larger amounts of data transfer, and less chance of your site being overrun in the case of high levels of visits. The speed of Internet popularity can take down sites with low bandwidth; it's better to be bolstered with more bandwidth than not.

Top Performance

A good web-hosting firm will establish secure, reliable performance for your site. Reliability offers your customers faith in that transactions will be properly handled and no charges will go astray. Your site can also be supported with enhancements like data storage, recovery and backup, virus checks and disaster-monitoring protection from chances of malicious Web attacks.

The last thing your business's website needs is a reputation for spreading viruses. Just one malicious attack may doom your website, so properly securing your website is vital. This is not an area to be cheap; Consider the money you spend on protecting your website an investment and buy the best service you can afford.
Small businesses usually have to watch their budgets very carefully on all sides, from product development, staff hires, leases and equipment rentals and more. In some areas, business owners have to work cheap. This is not recommended for web hosting. Your web-host service is crucial to your business website. Make the company a supportive partner over the growth of your business.

Author: Kurt Hughston 
Kurt is a freelance writer, editor and consultant. He spends most of his spare time traveling abroad.