A Guide to Choosing the Best Web Hosting

One of the most important details when starting or continuing an online business is making the right choice when it comes to a web hosting service. Choosing the right host can be the difference between a successful service that garners a lot of business and a complete failure that leaves your customers to the mercy of your competitors.

If your just beginning to look for a new host, finding one that's right for your business can seem like an overwhelming task. Many hosting providers display so much information that it's sometimes hard to decipher exactly which features are required for your particular online application. We've put together a quick guide to help you make sense of some of the multitude of features and make the best decision when searching for the best web hosting solution.

Accessibility - In order to upload and manage your new website, you're going to need a variety of methods to access. Commonly, services such as FTP, SSH, and web panel access such as cPanel are an absolute minimum. In addition, never go with a web host who charges extra for these very basic options. Hosting companies such as BlueHost, FatCow, ThinkHost, and InMotion Hosting all offer all of these accessibility methods free of charge.

Reliability, Security, Customer Support, and Speed - One of the most important things to look out for when choosing a web host is the reliability, security, and speed of their network. Anything less than 99.9% uptime is basically a relic of the past. Web hosting providers such as FatCow, Host Monster, Host Gator, ThinkHost, and BlueHost. In the off chance that your hosting does go down, make sure your provider offers 24/7 support via multiple means such as email, phone, and online chat. After all, you never know when a customer is going to stop by.

Pricing - When it comes to web hosting, the rule "you get what you pay for" does not work at all. A reliable hosting provider such as Host Gator, FatCow, InMotion Hosting, and Host Papa provide very cheap but also reliable web hosting, that can compete with even the most expensive plans at other providers. Just because it's a good deal doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad one.

Monthly Data Transfer (Bandwidth) - In order to operate your site, you use up bandwidth with every visitor who stops by. Therefore, the more bandwidth allowance you can get on a monthly basis, the more traffic and growth your business can sustain over time. Some hosts provide more than enough transfer for every month including BlueHost, FatCow, Host Monster, and ThinkHost.

Storage Space (Web Space) - Each web hosting provider offers a slightly different amount of web space depending on where you go. A few years back, this was generally one of the most important issues when deciding on a web host. With hard drive space so cheap these days, it's not uncommon to see web space in the multiple terabyte range (enough to store your site and hundreds of others). Take the web hosting providers FatCow, Host Monster, and BlueHost for example. Each of these providers offer space in excess of 1.0 Terabytes. As a result, you most likely won't have to worry much about this aspect unless you plan to upload thousands of videos or other large sized files.

Just remember, when it comes to finding a new web hosting provider, don't be intimidated and do your research. Make sure you use our state of the art host finding algorithm to help you leverage our database of user rankings to find the perfect web host for your site.