One of the most crucial decisions you will make for your website is selecting your web host. Choosing a hosting company that suits your needs can be a daunting task. All hosting providers are not created equal, some are better than others, some have features better suited for only your needs or have even a better reputation than others.
Depending on what you intend to do with your hosting account or server, there are a lot of questions to ask yourself before you settle on one. Questions here for you to make the right choice;
- How much traffic will you be getting?
- How much bandwidth and storage will you need?
- How many domains and/or sub-domains will you be hosting?
- Will you host only your own sites or your client's sites as well?
- Ecommerce website? Do you need SSL?
- Will you be reselling hosting to your clients?
- Do you even need hosting? Would all-in-one solutions like Square Space, WordPress.com, Tumblr or Virb be enough for you?
- Do you need a domain?
- How comfortable are you updating your server? Should you go with a fully managed or an unmanaged solution?
- Will you need to manage your hosting account while working? Does the host offer a mobile app to manage your account?
- Do they offer 24/7 support? Email, phone, support tickets, live chat?
- If you choose a small plan to start, will your hosting company let you upgrade to a bigger plan or server?
- Does the web host offer some guarantee when it comes to uptime? What's their check interval?
You course don't need to answer all of those questions. But try to answer as much as possible. Check out the features of providers and then make your choice.