How to Pick a Web Hosting Company

One of the most important first steps in creating a website is to find a company to host your website. A great web hosting company can go a long way to making you successful. So how do you find such a company?

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Find a web hosting company with a good reputation. Don't take just the first company that you hear about. If you spend some time reading you will find that some companies stand out in the crowd. If others are happy with their experience then the chances increase that you may be as well.

2. Find a web hosting company with a good price. If all things between companies are equal you might as well go with the one that won't cost you as much. You can easily find quality companies that charge only between $8 and $10. I use Host Gator which charges $10 per month. I highly recommend them.

3. Find a web hosting company with consistent uptime. Uptime is a reference to the percentage of time that the server that your website is hosted on is actually available. It will do you no good to pay only $5 per month only to find that you website is down quite often. Most companies post their uptime percentages but you may want to read around to find out if others agree with their figure.

4. Find a web hosting company that provides for unlimited domains. This means that you can host as many websites as you want for the very same price. I have about 10 websites and I pay the same $10 per month no matter if I host 1 website, 10 websites or 100 websites. I cannot emphasize how important this is.

5. Find a web hosting company with great customer service. You will most likely run into a problem somewhere along the way that you are unsure what to do. At these times you want to be able to contact someone at the company who can walk you through the steps to accomplish what you are trying to do.
   I have had to do this on three occasions with Host Gator and each time their customer service support staff was great. One time I had to contact at nearly 1 AM in the morning and they were fantastic. So look for good customer service.

6. Find a web hosting company that has cPanel. You may not know what it is now but you will definitely want it. It provides everything from email accounts to file managers to loads of software that you can install on your website. It is absolutely indispensable. Don't settle for a web hosting company without cPanel.

7. Find a web hosting company that has Fantasico. You will find this in most companies who provide cPanel. Fantastico will allow you to install WordPress and a variety of other useful software for your site. Again Host Gator has this. If you want to find out more about Host Gator then you can check out the resource box below.

Resources

• Host Gator
• Make Money Online