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[simonslade]

When you finally bite the bullet and decide to build your own website, one of the first things you'll need to suss out is where you're going to host it.

Your web host is the company that stores all your website files on the internet. It's essentially like having some hard-drive space allocated on the internet. Choosing a host and setting up your hosting can be a very intimidating process the first time you do it, and it pays to take the time to look at a few hosts, get people's opinion and compare features on packages.

Some things to consider:

How many sites can you host on the one package? Some cheaper hosting packages will only allow you to have one domain pointing to the hosting space. Others will allow you to have more. This is quite an important point to consider if you're planning to have multiple websites.

If your hosting only allows one domain, you'll have to buy separate hosting (at 6.95/month, or whatever the cost is) for all your other websites. Since you'll usually have more than enough hosting space for multiple websites... this is a bit of a waste. Some hosts will provide for multiple domains on a higher priced plan. They might also offer it as an optional "add on" that you can get at a later date, for a few dollars per month.

How much space do they give you? If you're only planning on having one site in your hosting package, then anything over 500mb should be fine for you. If you want more sites hosted on the one account, you should look for disk space in excess of 1Gb. Most hosts will provide this anyway... but there are still some out there offering 200mb accounts and less. You'll probably find that you outgrow these plans pretty quickly.

How much bandwidth do they give you? Similarly, unless you have a whole heap of videos on your site and you're receiving a whole heap of visitors, the bandwidth (the amount of traffic through your site... the amount of data sent and received) on most hosting plans should be more than enough for you. But it's something to check. Most hosts will offer in excess of 10Gb/month.

What is the support like? Usually you won't need to spend much time conversing with your web host. They do their thing, you do your thing, and that's the extent of it. When things go wrong... however... you want answers fast. Take the time to check out what their customer support is like for when these things happen. Do they have a phone number you can use, or is it all through support tickets? What is the response time for support tickets?

What features do they provide? This is where everything is likely to go way over your head. Mostly you should just check that they offer cPanel (the control panel for your website... it allows you administer your site from a friendly interface), and web stats (Webalizer or AWStats or both... these allow you to see who is visiting your site and how they're arriving at your site, among other things).

Is there a setup fee? Many hosts will charge you a one-off fee for setting up your hosting account. A lot of hosts will also have a number of hidden extra charges... make sure you keep an eye out for this.

Will you be locked into a contract? Many hosts will lock you into a contract for a certain period of time. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, just make sure you know what you're signing up for.

Is there a money back guarantee? It goes without saying that it's always good to have one of these :)


Recommended Hosting Providers

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Hostgator is very good for your first few sites. They offer a lot of features as part of their cheaper shared hosting packages that you have to pay extra for with other hosting companies. With their basic plan ($4.95/month) you can only host one domain, but take a step up to their $7.95 package and you can have unlimited domains, plus huge disk space and bandwidth allocation. Probably one of the biggest selling points is that we haven't heard anything bad about these guys yet! 

GoDaddy is slightly cheaper than Hostgator for the most basic plan, upgrading to the $7.99/month plan allows you to host multiple websites. GoDaddy have been around for ages, and in the past were had a less than perfect reputation, but these days they seem to have cleaned up their act and we haven't noticed any issues. 

MidPhase: These guys are good in that they can handle a lot of the technical issues for you, particularly if you're transferring your hosting and domain from another provider. Their support is prompt and good, and they're pretty reliable. Their basic package only costs $2.95/month including a free domain. Upgrade to their $5.95/month (Linux hosting) or $7.95/month plan(Windows hosting) and you get unlimited hosting, webspace, mySQL databases, aside from getting a free domain!

Anhosting: Is run by the same guys as MidPhase, but it has some extra features for slightly cheaper. Even with their $5.95/month(for a 24 month timespan) option you can host multiple domains, receive unlimited MySQL databases, cPanel and the usual features. They offer email support and phone support, so if anything goes wrong you can just give them a phone call. Along with HostGator, we'd recommend these guys for your first site, since even the most basic package will take you from first-time newbie to experienced webmaster with multiple websites.