When choosing a web hosting company you will first want to ask yourself what are you looking to get out of hosting
? What exactly are you going to be using your website for? Are you looking to start an online business and want to earn extra money with it? If you answer yes to this question, then there are certainly some things to considered before you dive in.
There are free web hosting packages available and are very easy to set up. However, if you are going to be running your website as a business or trying to earn extra money with it, then I would recommend staying away from the free option. The reason here is that while free sounds good and you may be working on a limited budget, you will not be able to produce a very "Professional" looking site. There are also other features that you will need or want that come with most hosting packages that simply won't be available with a free account.
Features of certain web hosting packages are what you will have to consider based on what you want to do with your site. If you are going to be selling ebooks, for example, then you may want the ability to accept credit card orders. If you are going to be providing a lot of information via downloads, then you may want unlimited bandwidth (Bandwidth is a term used to describe how much information can be transmitted over a connection).
One of the most important features of a hosting company (to me) has to be customer support. This can be the difference when counting on your website up time and keeping your site running smoothly, especially if you are just starting your first website or have little experience. There is simply no substitute for great customer support, which sometimes seems like a lost art these days!
I have been with a few different hosts in my 12 years of being online so I have seen the good and the not so good. Now I am not a website genius or expert programmer but I had one experience when a company I was with at the time could not figure out the issues my site was having (not going to go into details or name names) but I had to eventually figure out the problem for myself and it cost me a lot of down time!
Needless to say I wasn't with the host for long! That is again why I cannot stress enough about having great customer service.
There are many different packages available to fit your needs. You need to also consider Wordpress if you are thinking about setting up a blog site. Make sure the website hosting company supports Wordpress (if thats what you use of course) Should be a very simple install and again check out their support first.