How to choose the best web hosting service is a question which requires careful consideration of a number of points. Different persons will have different needs. First of all we need to consider what we want for our web site. Is it going to be a simple personal web site or are we going to put up a website which has to handle commercial requirements? Is it going to be simply for our own pleasure or do we intend to make money out of it? We also have to consider what our budget is going to be. How much money are we willing to spend on it? Other point to be kept in mind is whether we are just beginning, or are already experienced in maintaining a web site, and the level of our proficiency in web technologies.
If you are going to have a simple web site, perhaps to showcase your hobby, then your requirements are not going to be much. A simple web site package, priced at a minimum, with little storage space or monthly bandwidth should be good enough, as you will not be expecting too many visitors to your site. If you put down a lot of money for a web hosting package which has a many features and capabilities, you will simply be paying for stuff you are probably never going to be using. If your requirements go up you can always upgrade to a higher end package, or even switch providers.
If, for instance, you are a software developer, offering say one or two freeware products, you ought to go for a slightly higher end package. You will need a package which has greater storage and bandwidth, as you will be storing your products on the server, and would be expecting people to download them. It will cost you a bit more, and since you would not be making any money out of your products, you can make use of sponsored ads on your pages to offset some if not all of your costs.
If you have many products to sell, your best bet is to go for an ecommerce website package. This would be one where you have a lot of storage space, and a very high bandwidth and having shopping card and SSL capabilities. That is because you will be expecting heavy traffic on your site. You would also need database and scripting capabilities, as you would most likely be having an online catalog of the products you have on offer.
A package that offers Search Engine Optimization is essential here, as search engine ranking is very important in the marketplace. Server technology is a factor to be considered although that is not of vital importance. Linux based servers are more than capable of delivering everything you are likely to need. However, building such a site may be beyond your capability, and you may need to give the job to a professional. If this person prefers to use ASP and ASP.NET technologies, you would need to have your site hosted on a Windows server.
