It is important that you spend time weighing your options when you are looking for a web host. Whether this is your first web host or your twentieth there are certain areas that you need to focus on – essentials that will make them pass or fail as a web host.

On top of that there are certain aspects that are ‘nice’ to have, add on benefits if you will, but aren’t essential to the companies core performance.

Knowing the difference between the two can mean the difference between choosing a web host and choosing one that doesn’t meet your requirements.

The Essentials

• Hard disk space. If you are looking to host numerous websites then you need the space to do it. How much space a company offers is important.
• Price. Let’s not beat around the bush here – we all have budgets, getting a hosting package inside your budget is important.
• Traffic. Some measure bandwidth, others visitors. It is important that you get a host that won’t throttle back the bandwidth or limit your traffic. You don’t want your success to be wasted.
• Customer Service. Things go wrong, at both ends – good customer support service can help. They can also solve small problems you may have with things like moving websites etc.
• Reputation. Make sure that the company has a good reputation for uptime and solving problems.

Nice to Have

• Auto-Installers. Softaculous, Fantastico, etc. Allows for ‘1 click install’ of a lot of popular web software such as WordPress
• Reseller options. For some this is an essential but for many the ability to have a new cPanel for each website is just as useful add on (very useful)
• Autoresponder. Many web hosts offer a basic autoresponder with their hosting package. This can save you fees and add some decent functionality for you.

Choosing what you consider most important is what really matters – but consider these aspects, especially the essential ones, and you won’t go too far wrong when choosing a web host.