This is something that many of us will go through in our business making decisions for our online ventures when we first start out. Yes I said business, because even if you are doing your own personal website the fact is you are still in business whether you like it or not. Keeping your website visible to your visitors, both new and returning is a key to your ultimate success. How you choose your web host is very critical to this success.

There are several key factors that many of us look at when we consider a new web host.

1. Price
2. Package includes (storage, bandwidth, etc.)
3. Control panel (e.g cPanel, Plesk, etc.)
4. Price
5. Price and more price.

Yes we are a price driven society. While not all that bad the problem with this when it comes to web hosting is that you get what you pay for. The large companies such as Hostnine, GoDaddy, 1and1, Hostgator and many others like them promote unbelievably large and cheap plans. While this may be good for some and for the price these plans serve their purpose the choice to go with cheap is not always the best one.

If you have a business you are attempting to launch you should consider before anything else reliability and service. Will your business be operating fast and smooth when your customers want and need it to be? This is something to consider when you are setting up your website for online business or even general use. The first 2 to 3 seconds of a visitors experience on your site is very important. If your site loads slow visitors will leave and many will not return. While for many who are simply dabbling with their first website to get their feet wet the large shared hosting providers can and will meet their needs. However, for a serious person they will not do.

So what should you look for if you are going to be operating a serious business on the Internet to attempt to make a great living? Well price is always a factor to some extent. However, you should be looking at a few different factors with your hosting provider when looking for a good provider to host your web business with.

1. Network Reliability. (how reliable is their data center provider and its backbone)
2. Speed of currently hosted websites. (ask for some domains that they host and test them. Make sure you ask for some on different servers if they have many accounts.)
3. Ask if they provide managed accounts if you need this help. (for the novice web operator this is a very good idea and will save you time and money in the long run.)
4. Server specs. (yes this is important as well. Your host needs to be keeping their customers on quality web servers if they are going to charge a premium price. Better servers will give your website a better chance at loading fast and remaining online.)
5. Quality of the customer service. (test their customer service response times via e-mail and phone. Yes they should have both. If they take more then 4 to 6 hours to respond to your questions via e-mail then chances are they are not the host for you. Most good companies will respond within 2 hours or less.)
6. Finally Price. (yes it is important, but is not the number one reason to choose a host.)

So when you are looking to choose your next host try to realize that the size of the package and price is not the only thing to consider. Your reputation and image are the most valuable thing you have and this should sway your decision making when it comes to choosing a hosting provider, not price.

One final note. Make sure to research your hosts using well respected forums and sites such as webhostingtalk.com and webhostingstuff.com. While no host has a perfect record these sites can help you to determine the overall worth of your potential partner in your business.