Everyday, more people are discovering the benefits and global reach of the Internet. As a result, more online businesses are being established and more websites are going up. Now is the right time to stake your claim in Cyberspace and the best way to do it is with your very own website. Because web hosting is what you need to get a piece of the action, I will help you find a good service in five easy steps.

1.) Determine Your Needs

The first step in finding a web host is determining your individuals needs. Why do you even need a website? Is it just to share photos and info with family and friends? Are you moving your business online? Do you plan to sell products or services? The answers to these questions are very important as they will ultimately determine what type of web hosting you need.

2.) Features

After getting a good idea of what your website needs, it’s time to consider the feature-set that will meet those requirements. Of course, features will vary greatly depending on individual needs but here are a few to keep in mind.

- Disk space and bandwidth

Disk space refers to the amount of space you have on the server for storing your website files. Bandwidth entails how much traffic and activity your site can support. If you don’t have enough of either, your site will be limited and can actually become slow or inaccessible. The good thing is that most web hosts supply more than enough as the average website requires less than 1 gigabyte of each resource per month.

- E-commerce tools

If your goals consist of selling products or services, selecting a web hosting plan with Ecommerce features is a must. Keep your eyes peeled for multiple email accounts, free shopping cart software and SSL encryption to protect your online transactions.

- Control panel

The control panel is one of the most essential web hosting features. This software allows you to control virtually every aspect of your account. From the interface you can access the design tool that allows you to build your site, create email accounts, upload files and much more.

3.) Reliability

Your website won’t be very popular if it’s always down because of technical difficulties. In order to avoid these issues, I suggest searching long and hard for a host that delivers a reliable service. There are many aspects that point to reliability but the most critical is uptime. Uptime refers to the amount of time your site will be available opposed to being down for a wide range of reasons. As of now, 99.9% is the industry standard so anything less should be viewed as unacceptable.

4.) Technical Support and Customer Service

When it comes to web hosting, one should never underestimate the importance of support. Anything can go wrong behind the scenes and when it does, you need to know what’s going on. I recommend looking for a company that offers various means of support including toll-free phone, email and live chat. Support is something that can make or break a web host and also determine how successful you will be online.

5.) Customer Feedback

One can learn a lot about a particular web hosting service from customer feedback. You can find web hosting reviews all over the web, and trust me, they are absolutely golden. A quality review you will tell you what to expect in terms of price, features, reliability and support. Most importantly, it will let you know what service is worth looking into and who should be avoided at all costs.

The Web hosting firm you choose can make or break your small business. Good ones can run things smoothly, are easy to reach, and fix problems efficiently. But bad ones can have more problems than they are worth, be unreachable at critical times, and bring your business to a screeching halt. Finding a good one is crucial to your success.

Here are some tried and true ideas for how to select a host that will save you money, avoid technical snafus, and build your online platform for the future.

1. Choose a service that primarily does hosting

Although it might be tempting to sign-up with a firm that provides an umbrella of services in addition to website hosting, a good rule of thumb is that if a company overly-diversifies its services, it won’t deliver top quality in any of them (e.g. tech support, updates, maintenance, etc.)

2. Choose a host with a great record for online security

Most secure hosts will provide SSL Certificates to guarantee your security. Without an SSL Certificate on your site, visitors may come and go without identifying themselves, and this could put your site at risk. Make sure your host implements best practices when it comes to maintaining security architecture, updating security software, and responding effectively to breaches if and when they do occur.

3. Excellent technical and customer service support via phone

Does the host provide phone support around the clock? Or can you only email for help during non-business hours? You definitely want the option to call a staffer. Studies show that over-the-phone tech and customer support systems are vastly more efficient than e-mail support centers, on average.

4. Solid add-on services

A number of great web hosting companies provide little extras to make sites more effective and user-friendly. These can include image upload galleries, blogs, control panels, order forms, support scripts, databases, and embedded video features. When evaluating various firms, examine sample sites and note what value add-ons you like and what value add-ons you feel are missing in each sample.

5. Don’t rely on numbers alone to make the decision

Many hosts promise uptime approaching 100%. But there’s no way of verifying that kind of claim. If your website goes down, for instance, the company can easily explain it away as a statistically insignificant outlier. Similarly, a potential host may brag about oodles of bandwidth and space on servers, but if your online small-business needs are modest, these numbers shouldn’t be your incentive. Finally, be wary of online rating systems. These figures can be jiggered and rejiggered to make a web host look better (or worse) than it actually is.

6. The right price for your needs

Sure, you can find a service for practically nothing. But there is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to web hosting. If you’re paying a dirt-cheap rate, chances are that the host is watering down services in some respect. Perhaps the host offers minimal security protections or charges clients “pay per play” for technical support. Or maybe the site charges a sky-high maintenance fee or other monthly fee. The point is, you need to read the fine print and to price-compare before making a decision.

7. Flexible features and enough elbow-room

You have no idea how your online platform might evolve. That’s why you need a hosting company that boasts flexible features, supports many different languages, offers Linux and Windows options, and supports an array of scripts (PHP, Pearl, Java, etc.) A good rule of thumb for determining space is to “buy big.” In other words, even if you don’t have tens of thousands of files to upload and store, leave yourself some wiggle room to anticipate future growth.

8. An easy-to-use and safe shopping cart

According to numerous estimates, U.S. and U.K. consumers will be spending nearly $150 billion per year online by the year 2010. Your site’s e-commerce options should be simple, safe, battle-tested, and easy-to-use.

9. Protection against spam, viruses, Trojan horses, and the like

Most creditable web hosting sites provide solid e-mail protection. Make sure to check for compatibility, however. For instance, if you use Microsoft Outlook, make sure thatthe host has the tools and services to shield your Outlook e-mail effectively — without blocking key notifications from clients or suppliers.

10. Important questions to consider

- Does the host provide good references and testimonials?

- Does the company employ best-of-breed firewalls and routers?

- Has anyone filed complaints against the company through the Better Business Bureau or other organization?

- What services do small businesses similar to yours use for web hosting?

- Can the company provide any statistics to back up claims regarding reliability and technical support?

- Can you use the host for a trial period before paying full prize?

- How expensive is it to upgrade or downgrade plans?

- How do blogs and customer forums rate your candidate hosting services?