Your website resides on a computer, but you don’t need the whole thing. Shared hosting means that your site sits on a computer along with many other websites, while dedicated hosting means that you lease an entire server just for your site. Unless your site has an amazingly large number of visitors every hour, you don’t need this. Dedicated hosting is far more expensive, so make sure your web host offers shared hosting.

Because your site sits on a web server’s hard disk, you need to make sure your host offers plenty of disk space. Ordinary web page files take up very little room, but other files that you might want to offer require more storage space. Examples include video, audio, images, and files that you want to offer your visitors for download. Disk space is cheap these days, so your web host should offer lots of it. Look for a plan that gives you at least 10Gb.

Bandwidth just means the amount of information that can be sent between your website and its visitors, usually on a monthly basis. You can think of this like a water pipe. The more water you run through your house's water main, the more the water company charges you. Sending web pages to visitors doesn't take up much bandwidth unless you're transferring larger files like video, big downloadable files, or streaming audio. Unless you have tons of traffic and they're downloading lots of big files from your site, bandwidth probably won’t be an issue. Still, more is better, so look for someone who offers at least 100Gb per month.

Your web host doesn’t just offer web servers, it also offers e-mail accounts that use your domain name. A good web host offers lots of e-mail addresses, so expect at least 25 from yours. Keep in mind that many web hosts offer unlimited e-mail addresses, so shop around.

The availability of good help when you need it is very important in a web host. Whether you have a simple problem, like a forgotten password, or a major crisis, like a website that’s disappeared, competent assistance is what you need. Choose a company that offers phone support, preferably with a help center based right here in the U.S. Most of the hosts with whom we’ve worked offer just this, so yours should, too.

Linux is the most popular web server operating system. Microsoft's web server software is gaining popularity, but Linux is still on top. It’ free and incredibly reliable, so it’s easy to find web hosts that offer it. In addition, all of the web applications that we use to build websites under our Basic Website Package are built to run on Linux. Make sure your web hosting service uses Linux for their servers.

All of our web applications work in much the same way and have similar technical requirements. Here are the things to look for if you want to take advantage of our Basic Website Package:

• Apache Web Server, version 1.3 or higher
• PHP, version 4.3.10 or higher (4.4.7 recommended)
• MySQL Database Server, version 3.23 or higher

This is who we use, and we couldn’t be happier. Their slogan is, “Web Hosting Grown Up”, and they deliver. A2 Hosting offers all of the technical features that we need to publish websites with no hassles. In short, everything just works. Period.

You can get by with their Startup Shared Hosting Plan, which offers everything you'll need to take advantage of our Basic Website Package.

The Startup Hosting Plan costs, as of February 2009, $4.95 per month. This gets you all of the technical things we need to set up a website and 25 e-mail addresses. It’s one of the least expensive plans we’ve found.

While you can find hosts that offer a little more for the price, we haven’t found one that’s easier to use or more reliable. In our opinion, having websites work with no hassles or work-arounds is well worth having few more features that you probably won’t need anyway.

Our experience with HostGator is limited, but we have no complaints and their prices are very attractive. Additionally, HostGator gains consistent good reviews with others who use the web applications that make up our Basic Website Package.

As of February 2009, HostGator’s Hatchling Web Hosting Package costs $4.95 per month. You can review pricing specifics at the HostGator Linux Web Hosting Packages page.

GoDaddy is the web host we end up using most often, simply because they are probably the most popular hosting service there is. Like A2 Hosting, GoDaddy costs, as of February 2009, $4.95 per month, and they do offer more features than many other web hosts. Their support team is extremely good — they are based right here in the U.S., and every one we’ve dealt with has been very polite and knowledgeable.

GoDaddy is a fine web hosting service, but there are a few drawbacks. First, their interface can be a bit clunky. For example, it’s a little difficult to figure out how to set up your e-mail accounts. This problem stems primarily from the number of windows their Hosting Control Panel opens while you’re working.

Second, you don’t really make changes to your web hosting settings, you request them. Let’s say, for example, that you want to back up your website’s database. You point your browser to your GoDaddy Hosting Control Center, click the backup button, and then you start waiting. According to GoDaddy, it’s possible for your request to take several hours. Most often, tasks complete in just a few minutes, but this “feature” does slow things down just a bit.

Finally, and most importantly to us as we install your web applications, certain features we use on your site require special tweaks and fixes to operate correctly — or at all. Examples we’ve encountered include shipping calculators for certain e-commerce applications, search-engine friendliness extensions that make your site more visible on Google, and some streaming audio components.

From a web developer’s perspective, all of these are fairly minor drawbacks, at worst just inconveniences. Their hosting is reliable — that means that your site stays up — and they are inexpensive. You can see their pricing on the GoDaddy Hosting Comparison Chart. You might notice that GoDaddy offers both Linux and Windows hosting, so make sure that, if you choose GoDaddy as your host, you stick with Linux.

GlobalCon, a division of Global IP Networks, is a decent web host, but they have issues with the web applications that make up our Basic Website Package. Their server setup is a bit different than most, and it appears to interfere with certain website features.

Additionally, their technical support isn’t the best we’ve found. Their technicians are reasonably competent, but they seem to serve up answers from a database of solutions, and if your problem is non-standard, you could be in for some frustration.

Sometimes, it's hard to get the technician you need on the phone. The “I’m going into a meeting now, so I’ll call back in 30 minutes” answer is common, and invariably, they don’t call back. Once you pin them down, though, the lead techs are knowledgeable and can provide help.

GlobalCon’s prices are competitive, and they offer a good range of features. Details about prices and plans are available at GlobalCon’s Hosting Plans page.

ValueTech is based right here in Greenville, SC, and it's always nice to deal with local folks. They offer everything you need for our Basic Website Package and keep all of their technology up-to-date. ValueTech is also very good about website up-time, so you can count on your website always being available.

ValueTech has, in our experience, always been very honest and it’s always been easy to deal with them. They have grown quite a bit since we first worked with them (actually, our lead developer worked with them before starting SiteScriptors), but our experiences with ValueTech have been nothing but positive.

Unfortunately, ValueTech is incredibly expensive. Their cheapest hosting plan costs, as of February 2009, $19.95 per month plus a $5.00 setup charge — a hair more than four times as much as A2 Hosting or GoDaddy (who charge nothing for setup). Additionally, this price only includes 1Gb of disk space, which isn’t much at all these days. You can read more about their hosting plans on the ValueTech Web Hosting Plans page.

Additionally, all communication with the company must be initiated electronically, so you can’t just call up and get an answer. However, ValueTech’s technicians are extremely knowledgeable, they are located in the U.S. (perhaps in Greenville), and they do respond to support requests promptly.

If you have it to spend, the extra money might be worth dealing with a local company. While they aren’t cheap, ValueTech is honest, competent, and reliable.