Picking a solid web hosting provider is crucial for businesses online today.

If you want a professional website that can grow with you, doesn’t crash at the first sign of real traffic, and provides solid web hosting support in case of issues at all odd hours of the day or night (or weekends!) then you need to consider these features.

1. Plenty of bandwidth (GB), especially if you are high traffic or doing video
2. Plenty of storage (MB), especially for video
3. Cpanel with lots of features such as a script installer like Fantastico for installing blogs, help desk software, forums, and shopping carts.
4. Webmail
5. Lots of email addresses, MySQL databases, and the most recent PHP and PHP-MyAdmin software
6. Additional domains and websites allowed on one account
7. Setup help to transfer sites to their service
8. Email, live chat, and phone support 24/7/365
9. No contract required
10. Dedicated IP and Private SSL functionality available

If you don’t understand what’s on this list, just make sure that you get help in choosing a solid web hosting company. This is not something you want to over-economize on. You do get what you pay for on this one. Ask your website designer for help, or a professional friend who is technically-minded. Or, frankly, the 10-year-old down the street. It’s amazing what kids know these days.

I personally use HostGator web hosting. Their track record has been excellent and the few issues I had on setup were fixed very easily with their excellent technical support. They are also reasonably priced and scalable. Remember – just don’t skimp on the features. It’s worth a couple of extra bucks a month. If you need a domain name, I really like 1 and 1 Domains for domain registration. They have better base features than many, including free private domain registration, and are still very reasonably priced.

So, take the first step towards getting your website up on solid web hosting and check out HostGator web hosting.

Categories: Reviews, Technology
Tags: domain registration, web hosting