When you’re trying to have a website online, your hosting company is one of your biggest choices. It’s very critical. The best way of deciding on which one is best for you is by first examining what your own personal expectations and needs are. Once you know these things, you can weed out all the hosting companies that just don’t offer what you need and narrow your search down to the ones that do. So write down all your needs and some things you may want to do with your site and what it requires, then look at some companies and see if they can cover you.

There are two main categories for website hosting – the shared hosting and the dedicated hosting. There are both positive and negative aspects to both of them, mostly depending on what you need. So we need to take a closer look and get some better detail.

We’ll take a look first at the more common of the two, which is the shared web hosting. Shared servers host literally millions of web sites. And the reason for this is due to the cost. The pricing is quite affordable, most usually below $100 a year when dealing with basic accounts with large web hosting companies. The only drawback here is the fact that you don’t have total command over the server or the resources that are standard with a dedicated web host. But for most of the webmaster online a shared web hosting account is the way to go due to the low prices.

Now we come to the dedicated website hosting. They are just like the name sounds, dedicated. This means to only one user. They offer you a higher level of customization and stability with the server, as opposed to what you get on the shared hosting. But if you happen to be one of the unfortunate webmaster operating on a short budget, you’ll find that these can be hard to keep up. It’s just common logic, if there is only one client paying all the costs for a whole entire server,  that cost is going to be higher. But of course, you get more benefits too.

The point is this – determine what all your needs are going to be, and what your budget can handle. Then check out some hosting companies that can give you the flexibility and the technology you need, and that you can afford. Knowing just what you need from them is your biggest challenge. Once you understand that you’ll have no problem locating one that suits your needs and can handle your website.

You can search online and find that there are tons of web hosting companies, both shared and dedicated, that are well able to give you exactly what you’ll need. But be sure you check them out good. Call them by phone and check the response time. Good customer service is a must in case of any problems. You don’t want to be stuck without solutions when running a website.