Choosing which web server hosting company is a decision which should not be taken lightly, like any service there are good and bad, finding the right one for your needs can make it a breeze, choose the wrong one and the whole experience could leave a bad taste in your mouth.

After asking what people want from a hosting company it really came as no surprise to me to see that cost was number one on the list, but some of the other items were things I never really considered

Cost $$$
One of the easiest ways to get cheaper web site hosting is to sign up for more than a single year, lots of hosting companies offer cheaper web site hosting when you sign up for 2 or 3 years, sometimes the saving can amount to around a 20% saving which over the course of 3 years is actually quite a saving.
After Sales Support
Having a decent support service after you’ve paid for your web server hosting package is vital, especially if you are in the process of setting up your very first website

It really makes no difference as to the size of the hosting company when it comes to after sales support, it’s all a question of how much the company wants to invest in this side of the business, one feature worth looking for though is live chat.

Service reliability
Service reliability to me means one very simple thing; do you want your website or blog to be a success? No matter how cheap the service or what bells and whistles it comes with when choosing which web server hosting company if it cannot deliver in the reliability stakes then walk away as you are setting your site up to fail before you have even started.

Extra stuff
Ok so you’re going to build a website or blog, what else does it need? Will your website be a static or dynamic site? If you choose dynamic or you’re going to make a blog then you will probably need a backend database included in the hosting package, but what’s the next step, are you ok to build your site from scratch or would you like some type of automated script which will build the basic site in a few minutes for you? Deciding on what you need beforehand is time well spent.

Ease of use
When deciding which web server hosting company, how easy to use are the website tools, admin interface etc, how easy is it to create a basic website if your new to web design, use the email interface or FTP upload facilities, this may not sound like such a big thing, but all of this helps and when your creating your website, changing it around, checking emails etc you will be very pleased everything is quick and simple to use.

Type Unix or Windows
When I first started out of course I went Windows like most people, I just assumed (wrongly) that it would be easier, luckily the ISP was able to move me over to a UNIX based system, from a front end it made no difference, but as I wanted to create a dynamic website one of the easiest routes was the CSS, PHP and MySQL which was not fully supported under windows, which meant I would have to go and use a pay solution.

If you want an easy to use solution for your blog or dynamic website choose UNIX, I did and have not looked back.

Automatically renewing domain and hosting
How sure are you that your new website will be a success? What happens if it fails? Do you know that many hosting companies will automatically renew your hosting and domain with them, meaning you could actually get charged before your even aware of it as it will be as stipulated in the hosting companies terms and conditions, of course we hope your website is a success, but to get charged when not using web space or a domain is just a waste,

As a safety net it’s not a bad idea to make sure your chosen hosting company will contact you prior to  it expiring so you at least have the choice of renewing or not.

Web server hosting site expansion
If your building a website for an existing business make sure you allow for expansion, if your website cannot handle the volume of traffic it means lost visitors it’s as simple as that. It’s a fact that if visitors cannot access a website fast or find what they want quickly they will leave.

Make sure you’re chosen hosting company can offer extra bandwidth or dedicated server facilities.

Adding email
Does your hosting company offer email as part of the hosting package? They should, also check to make sure it supports common protocols such as POP3, which means you can setup email through common applications such as Microsoft Outlook and view email locally as opposed to having to be online all the time.

Another nice feature, although not vital is webmail, so you can check your email from literally anywhere on any computer with an internet connection.

Finding which web server  hosting company is right for you; other considerations

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