If you do business on the internet one expense you cannot get away from is web hosting. It is also crucial to the reputation, success, and survival of your online business that the service be reliable. I know from experience what a poor quality web host can do to your business as I have had experiences when launching a new site and have the server go down. Let’s go over some of the items that you need to be most concerned about.

One of the biggest considerations is that of Network Uptime. Personally, I only do business with companies that have a 99% uptime, they are few and far between but well worth the investment and the time it takes to find them. Uptime refers to the percentage of time their servers are live and online, they will occasionally have to install software and reboot servers but this should be minimal.

The next issue is a big one with me and that is customer service. If I can’t get someone on the phone I will not do business with them. If I have a problem I want an immediate response to it. Read testimonials and check to see what other clients they have. Look up their ratings online and check them out with the Better Business Bureau and find out how many years they have been in existence.

Make sure that you have a contract that stipulates that you can increase Disk Storage and bandwidth. You may start with only one or two websites and then need to increase as your business grows so you want to make sure that the company is flexible and will allow you to make adjustments as needed. These two factors are probably the most important considerations when looking for a web host.

You will also want to be sure that the company provides the scripts needed to operate your sites properly and that they run the same Operating System you do. Some of the scripts are specific to certain operating systems such as Access for forms which only works in Windows. You also want to have high quality statistics reporting so that you can track your results and keep up with bandwidth.

Make sure that the Control Panel is easy to use and has the tools you need to help you with your websites. I personally prefer cPanel and have used it for years. I would also suggest making sure that the company provides the Fantastico service, this makes setting up blogs and forums a breeze.