What the best way to choose a hosting provider when there are literally thousands of companies to choose from? Just do a search on Google and your come up with thousands of results. There are just too many to choose from.  But, hopefully with these recommendations you be able to make a decision that you will be happy with. Important things to consider when selecting a company to host your web site include looking at the reliability.  This is the percentage of server uptime.  Most company strive for 98 to 99% uptime.  It’s hard to achieve but finding someone who is close is a good number.  Stay away from companies whose numbers are closer to 65%.  This is a bad sign.  Just remember, the more the server is down (this is also known as downtime), the lower someone can visit your site.   Another consideration is how much sotrage space is provided for your web pages and files that will make up your web site.  Also what kind of bandwidth is included with your package? Bandwidth is the amount of data, calculated monthly, that can be transferred from your website to your visitors.

With the kinds of cheap web hosting that are available today, you can really get a lot server disk space and bandwidth for very little money.  This is handy as it will allow your site to grow and as your site becomes more popular you will have the bandwidth needed for the increased traffic.

FEATURES

It is equally important when purchasing business web hosting that scripting, php and CGI access is provided; along with features such as MySQL and streaming audio/video (many companies will upsell these as an add on service). Another crucial feature for ecommerce sites is secure web services or Secure Socket Layer(SSL). This encrypts all order and credit card information until it reaches you. An SSL certificate can be purchased from most web hosting providers.  Legally this is needed for ecommerce web site to porve that your site transactions are safe and secure.

Many hosting providers offer CPanel (Control Panel) to allow their customers to easily manage their web server.  Also Fantastico is a great free add on many hosting companies offer which allow customers an easy way to install things like WordPress, Joomla, or shopping carts to your websites.

You will need a domain name that tells surfers a little about your business.  For example, a music site might have a URL that is www.mymusicfavorites.com . Most of the time hosting providers can also sell  you a domain when you buy their hosting package.  You will need to either buy a domain name or transfer one that you already own in order to setup your website.

There are many web hosting service providers available to choose from.  We have a few of our favorites that we like to recommend.  We suggest you visit each one and look at their prices and terms.  All of our recommended web hosting providers are fantastic, will great reliability and support.

BlueHost – We have heard lots of great things about Bluehost. Many very reputable and profitable web site owners  trust thier businesses to bluehost. Reliability and Affordability are the two things we hear most.

HostMonster – Very similar to bluehost. Lots of rave reviews and very affordable.

HostGator – This is who we use, though this is to say that they are better than BlueHost or HostMonster. All of these porviders are great.  Currently Hostgator is running a special where your first months hosting fees are only $.01 (one penny) when using our link and the discount code “WordPress”