If you are starting an online business it is essential that you sign up with a top website hosting service. By using a well established and reliable provider you should have few problems and will be able to offer a good service to your customers by your website always being available and loading quickly. This became even more important recently as Google started taking speed of loading into account in their search results, so slow loading can negatively impact your ranking.
Forget about free hosting, you will have to pay for the standard of service you will need. There are plenty of website hosting providers which can provide the level of service required and a web search will find several sites which list the top suppliers. Unfortunately it is not quite as easy as that because these sites differ in their views as to the top hosting companies and it is usually difficult to directly compare reviews.
To get through this and make a good choice you need to be clear about what you want:
Linux or Microsoft Hosting:- If you are having a site built for you the developers will advise you on the hosting requirements. If your site requires a Microsoft environment then you must get a Microsoft hosting package. If you are building your own site it is best to go for a Linux package.
Level of Service:- This starts with space on a shared server and goes up to having your own dedicated server, the higher the level of service (and the more you pay) the less competition their is for resources (e.g. bandwidth). At the outset a basic shared package will be all you need. Here multiple users have their websites and email on the same server and share the disk space, bandwidth etc.. There is a danger that shared servers can be overloaded but this is unlikely with a reputable supplier.
Reliability and Speed:- To provide a good service to your customers and to avoid them going elsewhere it is vital that your site is always online and loads quickly when requested. Look for a guarantee of uptime of at least 99.9% and also search for recent user comments on potential hosting providers.
Help and Support:- This can be overlooked at the outset but it can be critical if you have a problem. Look for 24/7 support preferably with a toll free phone number in addition to email.
Disk Space/Bandwidth:- Most hosting providers now offer unlimited website hosting with unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. Clearly this is just marketing as it is impossible for these things to really be unlimited and you may well find that the terms and conditions do include some sort of limitation. However, bandwidth and disk space are unlikely to be an issue in the short term, and may never become so, unless your site grows dramatically.
Domains/Databases:- The basic sharing packages of many hosting providers limit these. This is not a problem if you are only interested in having one site as you can always upgrade later if necessary.
Price:- Whilst this is important, it is last here because the price difference between the top website hosting providers is not enough to outweigh the other factors above. It is worth noting that whilst all hosting providers advertise a monthly cost, only a few actually let you pay monthly. Most require payment for a number of months in advance.
