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Choosing a web host is an important decision that all businesses need to consider. For one, it is integral in today's world for a company to have a website. A business simply cannot become a major competitor in an industry without an online presence. Consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet for information and products, and as a profit seeking company, you want them to see you. To have a website, you need more than just a domain. In addition to that, you also need a web host. Hosts provide servers for you to store your data on; without a server, there is no place to store data, and thus your website cannot exist on the Internet.

There are literally thousands of hosting businesses online, meaning that there is a wide variety of options to choose from when it comes to deciding what host to go with. Some hosting companies are huge conglomerates, while others are small start-ups that have only a few clients. It is important that you take the time to find a host that can fit your needs, as partnering with the wrong host can be disastrous in the long run.

What kind of things does one need to look at when deciding on a web host? The two primary factors are storage space and bandwidth. Storage space is how much data you can store on the server, so if your website is going to have a lot of pages, you will need more storage space. Even cheap hosting plans come with a fair amount of storage space, and start-up companies probably do not need to worry about this factor.

The other main criteria, bandwidth, is how much traffic your site can accept. Once again, unless you are a large site, any standard package on a hosting business should be able to accommodate you. For example, inexpensive packages under ten dollars often provide all the space and bandwidth you will ever need. In fact, eight dollars a month can get you over five hundred gigabytes of space and five thousand gigabytes of bandwidth, and it takes a lot of data to overwhelm those numbers.

Being that most small businesses do not need to worry about space and bandwidth, it is the other features that are deciding factors in hosting choices. If you are inexperienced with using FTP, you probably want a host that can provide cPanel. If you need to use MySQL databases, make sure those are provided for. Make sure to check if any free software is included in a hosting package, such as blog or forum resources. There are hundreds of features that a host can opt to include, so try to find one that offers the most features, or at least has the ones that you need.

Who said you need to pay for hosting? If your needs are low and you are on a tight budget, free hosting might be the answer. Some websites do not even require that you purchase a domain; instead, you can get a subdomain of the main page (although it is recommended that you at least buy your own custom name).

The downside to free hosting is that you waive a lot of helpful features available from paid hosting. Also, free hosts often put ads on your website that they draw revenue from, not you. Those who are running a serious business should immediately dismiss the possibility of a free host, as utilizing one is somewhat unprofessional.