Finding the Best Web Hosting for Your Online Business, 10 Key Elements of Web Hosting:
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In the quest to find the best web hosting solution, look for Reliability and Customer Service rather than the Cheapest Price

Finding the best managed hosting solutions is a lot like finding a new car. Ultimately, your web host needs to get you from point A to point B, but understanding which features are important to you as a consumer makes the difference between buying a lemon or a Ferrari. Deciding which are the important features and components can be a confounding task. How do you decided on the best web hosting solution for your online business needs? managed-hosting-solutions.com examines the key elements of this important decision, and helps you make the best choice with ease. Let’s have a look under the hood.

The first step in finding the best web hosting solution is understanding your business needs. Here are some important questions you should know the answers to in order to make the right choice:

• What are you going to be doing with your site?  

• Will your site have just a few pages?  

• Will it offer downloads?

• Is it a database driven?  Will you have a mailing list?

• Is your site commerce enabled?

• Who is managing your site?  

• Will you need FTP access to upload your files, or will you publish using FrontPage™?  

Once you know the answers to those questions, 
start to examine these 10 key elements of web hosting:

1) Customer Service: Top of the List!  Can you reach the web hosting support desk easily and are they responsive?  Try it before you buy it!  Regardless of your technical skills, in most cases you will need to communicate with your web hosting provider. Find a company that is reachable and responsive to your requests. It's always a good idea to make sure the hosting provider has a Toll Free 800 number, and that they actually answer their calls. Before you sign up with anyone, pick up the phone and call them. One tip to remember, the sales group almost always picks up the phone, so call the technical support number and try to talk with them. Try calling at odd hours, and see what you get.  This is always a good way to gauge how easy it is to get them on the phone, and if they are the right web hosting provider for you.

2) Reliability: Are the servers that host your business up? Are you guaranteed server uptime as part of your hosting agreement?  How long have they been in business?  Most good hosting groups guarantee a certain amount of "up time" with your contract. In addition, some companies charge more for better "up time" guarantees. For example: the $5.95 per month package delivers 95% uptime, while the $9.99 per month package delivers 99.9% uptime. Higher monthly fees may put you on a better network.  Something to consider when you’re pricing potential hosting providers, or if your thinking about free web hosting.

3) Control Panel: The heart of a websites features and the place where you control many of the features needed to run a proper website.  With a good control panel, you can Block IP Addresses from Accessing your Site, Password Protect Directories, Prevent Image HotLinking, Prevent Bandwidth Leeching and much more.  Cpanel is an awesome control panel package that is intuitive, and really easy to use.  Many managed hosting solutions utilize it.  I host several sites with hostgator based on the fact that they have Cpanel. 

4) Disk Space: How much storage capacity do you require?  If your going to load the server up with MP3's and large files, be aware of the Disk Space limitations.  If you know your going to use a lot of disk space, that needs to play a factor in your decision.

5) Bandwidth: The amount data that you broadcast from your website on a monthly basis.  Most packages allow you to upgrade if you need more.

6) Domains: Do you need a single domain name, sub-domains or unlimited domain hosting. Domain Management includes tasks like Managing Subdomains, Parked Domains, Addon Domains and Redirect URLs.  With good Domain management, you can put several domain names under one URL, but your web hosting provider must offer these features.

7) Web Statistics: Full statistical analysis of your site lets you understand your traffic, what keywords are used to find our site, as well as browser types, country visitors are from, which pages they visited and much more.  With good statistical analysis programs, you should also be able to view Raw Access Logs for your Site, Disk Usage, Bandwidth Usage, Web Traffic Statistics, Error Logs and visitors demographics. 

8) Email hosting: Email is always a crucial part of running a website.  You will need the ability to create proper business email addresses.  Auto responder, POP3 & Mail Forwarding is a must.  Email management can be easy if you have the right tools. At a minimum, you will want to have control over adding and removing Email Accounts, Setting Disk Space Quotas, Read and send mail through Web mail Interface, Manage Email Forwarders and Auto-responders, as well as Email Domain Forwarding.  Make sure you have this type of control over your email, or you will be at the mercy of the person who is. If you have never done these types of email management tasks, don't worry, it is a lot easier than it all sounds.

9) Costs: How much will you pay per month?  Are there additional fees for going over the bandwidth limits?  Most web hosting packages range from $4.95 to $9.95 per month, and provide all the services you will need for a basic website.  This is a buyers market, and there are many great choices out there.  But pricing should not be the determining factor in your choice.  It is a good idea understand the bonuses that many of these hosts provide.   One of my favorite freebees is a $25 Google AdWords Credit.  Gate.com curently offers this AdWords Credit.  With a free $25 AdWords Credit, you can promote your site and experiment with Pay Per Click Advertising.  Well worth the effort. 

Looking for "Free Web Hosting?"  Don't!  Remember the old adage "there is no such thing as a free lunch." The is also no such thing as free web hosting. If you are serious about your online business, free web hosting is not an real option.  Free Web Hosting costs a lot more than you think.  I recently tried a "free web hosting" deal with one of the major domain companies.  They included a fun little pop under advertising window for all of my visitors, and at the same time, made it impossible for me to promote my site via Google AdWords, as Google would not let me advertise due to their policy against annoying pop-under ads.  So, "Free Web Hosting" comes at a high price, don't pay it. 

10) Advanced Hosting Features: If your looking to build a modern website, you need some advanced tools to make that happen.  Look for features such as MySQL and phpMyAdmin, PostgreSQL and phpPgAdmin, PHP, Perl, CGI, Python and Tomcat.  If you are new to web hosting, you probably won't need all these features.  Some hosting packages come with serious extras including Shopping Carts, Guestbooks, Image Galleries, Forums and Wiki's, Blogs, Counters, Clocks, chatrooms and more.

As a web consultant for over 10 years, I have seen all kinds of hosting scenarios; free web hosting, the classic "$9.99 per month" packages, to server farms run by in house system administrators. The majority of web hosting shoppers are looking for the same thing, a web hosting solution that is reliable, inexpensive and easy to manage.

Managed hosting solutions have evolved over the years. Many of the smaller mom-and-pop shops have dropped off, and a new pack of web hosting provides now offer comprehensive hosting plans that get the job done. managed-hosting-solutions.com rates several of today’s top hosing providers, and has selected 7 of the industries top hosing providers for you. You can't really go wrong with any of these top 7 groups. There are however, a few elements that separate the top selections in our list. Even with all the advancements in server technology over the last 10 years, the basic elements of finding the best web hosting providers remain the same; you need to find a managed hosting solution that can provide Technical Reliability and Outstanding Customer Service.

Another good tip is to check the message boards, like www.webmasterworld.com and http://forums.digitalpoint.com  These people are real webmasters and have good feedback on a whole range of topics. 

visit managed-hosting-solutions.com for a easy to use overview of the top 7 web hosting providers online.