Questions To Be Addressed Before You Rush Into Choosing Your Web Hosting Company

• How important is your web site?
• What will your web site need to do?
• How might your web site change and grow in the future?

Importance?

It's always useful to think through 'what is the worst thing that can happen?'
What is the worst thing that will happen if your web site is 'down' (not operational) for a day?  How about a week?  What will it cost you in lost income and lost customers?

If your web site is for a business, then it needs to be available all the time.  A good hosting company will usually keep your web site operational nearly 100% of the time but there will be short 'downtimes' when your web site won't be accessible. 

A business web site that is taking orders and money online 24/7 should be hosted with great care as each hour of downtime may cost the business hundreds or thousands of dollars/ pounds/ euros!  Better hosted with a premium web host.

What will your web site need to do?

The functions of your web site will determine the web hosting features that you need to ensure your selected host can provide. 
Static pages or dynamically generated pages from a database?
How many pages do you expect to need on your web site?
Will you have lots of pictures, audio or video?
How busy will your site be?
Will it need to accept credit cards for E-commerce transactions?
What features might you need?  eg forums, guest books, email forms etc.

How might your web site change and grow in the future?

You need to choose a web hosting plan that gives plenty of room for expansion even if it costs more initially.  The cost of changing over web hosting companies at a later date when you need the extras can be huge in comparison to hosting charges.

Will you need additional websites in the future?

Even the smallest business can sometimes find it useful to have additional websites so it makes sense to consider web hosting companies that offer more than one domain. See Multiple domain web hosting