Choosing the right host for your website

Websites today are the best and low investment source to an income. But the decision to launch your website is just the beginning to it. With an inappropriate and inadequate understanding of the basic things that you need to take care off when launching your website, you would end up being the only one to be browsing to your website everyday. The most important of all the factors is your choice of the host where you decide to host your website. A poor host would mean that you face a lot of downtime, with problems every now and then on your pages. The bottom line is that a poor choice would ruin the otherwise good website you would have launched.

Your choice should be based on the following:

1. The kind of website you wish to launch is the most important aspect to be taken into consideration. If you are planning to launch an online business you cannot afford to loose your customers because of downtime. You would have to look for a host who can assure you an excellent uptime. You would probably have to spend some time on the internet researching at various directories and forums as to which provider has a proven uptime record. The success of an online business depends upon the niche market it is targetting and this would mean that you would have to develop one primary website for your primary website and a few secondary websites whcih would cater to a few of your niche websites. So it is always advisable to look for a hosting provider who offers you an affordable plan with multiple or, unlimited domains hosting.
2. The kind of web pages you intend to process at the server is another important aspect. In other words this would mean the kind of language you intend to use to develop your website. A wrong choice of a host would at times mean that you have certain requirements to process CGI scripts and the host doesn't support it. Hence after you decide what language you would want to use, search for hosts who would support widely used languages like PHP,ASP,ASP.NET,Coldfusion,CGI,PERL,Frontpage. Even if a host does not support all of this (which should be the primary consideration) support for 4 out of these should be an optimal choice.
3. Who do you think would be the administrator for the site needs to be given a thorough thought. There are hosting providers who offer a very wierd way of accessing you hosting account which would not be enough is you plan to administer you website. You need a complete hosting manager access to do any changes that you want to anything in youy hosting account. Hence look for a hosting provider who would give you access to a 'Hosting manager'.
4. How huge a website you plan to launch would again be another important aspect. If you intend to launch a website which needs huge bandwidth and dedicated server assistance, you should opt to go in for a dedicated server, either virtual or, otherwise. Else if you are planning to launch a normal and simple website, or even a small online store (small businesses and personal websites) you may opt for an affordable shared hosting plan.

A bit of research by spending some time on the internet can bail you out of the difficulties you would otherwise face by choosing the WRONG host for you website