How to Find the Best Web Hosting Company

If you’re new to the game, finding a decent web host can be a very frustrating business.  Just as you can find pretty much anything you want on the internet with a simple search engine enquiry, so you can find hundreds of hosting companies eager to take your money.  Finding a hosting company isn’t a problem.  The problem is that you can find too many of them.  How do you begin to choose between them?  In this article, we’ll give you a six step guide to finding the right web hosting company for you.

Steps you should consider choosing a hosting provider

The first thing you need to do is to be very clear what your intentions are.  Are you looking to host a personal website, a professional website or a business website?  Your requirements will be very different in each case.  A business website, for instance, will need a payment system and enough bandwidth to cope with large numbers of visitors.  A personal website may need to accommodate lots of pictures or media files.  Once you understand what your website actually needs, you can sort through different web hosts according to your criteria.

Know your budget.  When it comes to web hosting, the sky is the limit, so be very clear in advance how much you’re prepared to pay.  Although price should never be the main criteria on which to judge a web host, setting out a budget will help you to narrow down the search.

Look for reliability.  This is probably the most important thing when it comes to choosing a web host.  There’s no point paying for web hosting if visitors can’t actually see your website.  Look beyond the guaranteed uptime, and find out how quickly they can get a server back up and running in the event of an emergency.  On a similar theme, check out how long the company has been in business.  Companies come and go with astonishing rapidity on the internet, so a web host that’s been around for a few years is obviously doing something right.

Look at disk space storage and data transfer speeds.  Good web hosts will give their customers lots of storage space and generous bandwidth allowances, since these things are the lifeblood of online businesses.  Does the hosting package allow you to upgrade easily should your business expand?

What sort of features do you get with the hosting package?  Look for user friendly control panel software, add-ons and plug-ins, and the number of email accounts you’re allowed, since all of these things will help you to run your online business more effectively.

Finally, check out your web host’s security arrangements.  Whether its personal or professional, your website data is too precious to be left unprotected.  Before signing anything, reassure yourself that your web host can protect your site from virus corruption and online hackers.