With thousands of web hosting companies in the market it can be difficult if not impossible to know which web site hosting companies truly provide an excellent hosting solution at an excellent price. When you have an established domain name with a good web hosting company, you can get reports on your traffic and which of your pages your customers are visiting most often, as well as many other statistics.
Always avoid free or very inexpensive web hosting services, because you may experience bouts of server downtimes and you are likely to have significant limitations in storage, number of email addresses, FTP upload etc.
Be sure your web host can accommodate e-commerce and storefronts, wireless capability, bogs, forums, chats, online interactive helps and anything else you want to add onto your site.
Estimate what your growth needs are and ensure that this web host can serve you as you grow. The last thing you want to do is change host mid way unless you absolutely have to do so.
Check your bandwidth capability to be sure that, if your website traffic grows rapidly, your customers will not have to wait to download or view information. Three things to look for in a web hosting company are:
1. Excellent Customer Support: Your hosting provider should be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem. Ask them how long it takes for them to typically respond to your problem. A good test is to call them in the mid night to check if you get to a live, level 3 support.
2. A Sound Infrastructure: Check whether they offer a multi-homed network powered by multiple bandwidth providers to ensure redundancy. Some offer a 100% guarantee on its network availability or network uptime.
3. Financial Stability: If you're running very critical operations, you can't afford to be with a hosting company that may not be in business in a few months.
OBS: You always get what you paid for... If you pay for a host like we describe here you are likely to get a much better service than the ones for free, But of course nothing is preventing you to start from the free ones, for example it is always depends on your objectives, right now I am writing this article in Blogger.com from Google (witch is free blog service provider), also I put some links to my website from google (free too). I am not a big company making millions of sales per months, as of right now it is serving me well.
Some people can argue that a free host does not like professional comparing to the paid ones, perhaps that is also true but a lot is changing in the market and a lot of good people are starting small and as long as they are being honest and putting themselves out there , that is much better than not having a online presence.