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Report: VeriSign Has The Best Webhosting Website

The E-Business Insights Group (ebi Group) says that VeriSign has the best marketing plan for acquiring the webhosting business of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).

[February 13, 2002]

In its report "The SME-Friendly Host: Making the Connection with Small- and Medium-Sized Business Customers," the E-Business Insights Group (ebi Group) tested the website performance and customer service options offered to SMEs by 75 hosting providers, and ranked the offerings of 20 of those in depth.

The report said that VeriSign had the best offering, but also cited the following companies as having attractive websites and good customer service options: Gateway, Dell, EarthLink, Superb Internet, Hostway, NTT/Verio, ValueWeb, Interland, and Affinity Internet. (Since the report was published, the ebi Group notes, ValueWeb and Affinity Internet have merged.)

The report says that the sheer number of SMEs, which the ebi Group defines as having fewer than 100 employees, make the segment attractive. The company says that there are more than 5.5 million small businesses compared with about 84,500 larger enterprises. Furthermore, many of these small businesses do not yet have a Web presence, making them attractive potential customers.

The company suggests that webhosts attempting to sell to small businesses make websites easy to use and provide offline contact information. These two basic tenets of e-marketing are ignored by many webhosts. Of the 75 providers examined by the report, 65 percent did not even have a site map, and 39 percent did not offer a toll-free phone number.

In sharp contrast, VeriSign, which, according to the report, has the most attractive website, supplies a wealth of information to prospective customers. "Links to basic Web FAQs are logically placed on the first pages encountered by prospective hosting customers, and a collection of free guides to e-commerce is featured both on the home page and throughout VeriSign's sections on e-commerce and transaction services. As more businesses look to build an online presence, such SME-friendly content will give VeriSign a distinct edge over many other hosting providers," the report says.

The report says that hosting providers need to explain technical options, such as the difference between Linux and NT hosting or the difference between dedicated, virtual, and shared hosting, and not simply expect users to be able to make these choices unassisted.

The report would have been significantly enhanced by a test of the actual webhosting products themselves, but remains a useful tool for any business that is building a website or marketing campaign aimed at SMEs. Priced at $149 for first-time clients through tomorrow, February 14, 2002 ($395 otherwise), the report is available from the company's webiste.

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