If you're planning on building a website for yourself or your business you probably know that you'll need to find a web hosting company to host your site. Searching online for this can be an overwhelming task, as there are so many out there to choose from. How do you know which ones are good and reliable? How do you know which one will suit the needs of your particular website? How do you know which hosting packet to purchase? How will you know if they have good customer service?

Q: How do you know which ones are good and reliable?
A: There is almost no way to know which ones are good and reliable just by looking at their website. Start asking around to any web desginers/developers that you know for recommendations. If you don't know any personally, find a forum online where web designers/developers hang out and ask them for input. They would be more than happy to assist you in this because usually they have worked with a number of hosting companies and can tell you which ones to stay away from and which ones are reliable.

Q: How do you know which one will suit the needs of your particular website?
A: If you're building a simple website yourself, then most hosting companies will be able to fully accomodate this. If you are having a site built by a web designer/developer, then they may be using complex coding. If this is the case, then your web designer/developer would need to be involved in the web hosting choice to ensure that it is compatable with how they plan to build your website.

Q: How do you know which hosting packet to purchase?
A: If you're building a simple website, then you will most likely be going with a Linux hosting package. If your web designer/developer is building a site for you, then you will want to consult with them on which hosting package to purchase. If your designer/developer is using ASP code, then they will probably opt for Windows hosting, but if they use PHP, then Linux will be their choice.

Q: How will you know if they have good customer service?
A: Try asking the hosting company a question by email or phone. Evaluate how knowledgeable they are as well as how fast they reply to you. See if they provide 24/7 support, which can be a life saver if your website ever has a problem at midnight. Alternatively, you can again ask a web designer/developer which ones have the best customer service. They would definitely be aware of which ones were easy to work out problems with.

Hopefully these tips will assist you in your search among the many hosting companies out there ensuring that your website will have the best home possible.

Mindy Lepp
http://www.saltedwebsites.com/
$50 off your website if you mention Idea Cafe!!

I always make sure to check with NetCraft's (www.netcraft.com) rankings to see who has been the most reliable over the past couple months. There are several hosting companes that generally rank at the top of their up-time lists.

www.mywebadviser.com