Steps in Choosing the Perfect Web Host

by Bob Willis

The World Wide Web is literally littered with thousands of web hosting companies, all touting to offer the best web hosting plans. While this can be beneficial as choosing the best one will be at your fingertips, this can also be a daunting task as choosing one from a lot of companies promising the same things would be difficult.

The following are simple steps you can follow to choose the perfect web host:

Determine the features. The web host should provide you with features that will cater to your needs. The disk space, the bandwidth, the number of domains allowed, the uptime guarantee, the email accounts are only some of the important features that must be considered.

Customer service. You should never settle for a web hosting company that offers less than 24/7/365 customer service support. This feature is most important for an ecommerce website that has to be up 24 hours to generate the most number of sales. Never be swayed by sales people that promise their support as often times the promises are not backed up by actual performance. Test them any time of day or night through live chat, email or phone calls.

Domain name control. Never let your web hosting company register your domain name in their company name. This is a most common oversight. Your domain name is your identity on the internet and without it you will be lost in cyberspace. Domain names can be registered through the web hosting company but you have to do it yourself. This way if you need to switch servers, you can take your domain name with you.

Be wary of free hosting. Your website will surely appear online but it can also disappear anytime you won't know what hit you. If you are embarking on an online business, spare a few dollars for an inexpensive web hosting plan. This will ensure that your website will enjoy a steady stream of qualified traffic.