If you don’t have a decent Hosting provider, your online business is destined to fail. There is a chance you will encounter endless problems like down time, loss of data, poor customer service, and maybe even a hacked site. Before you choose a hosting provider you should first do research. I’m here to save you some time, and give you a few tips to use when choosing a hosting provider.

So you spent hours on your business plan, your web site is nicely designed, and you are ready to launch, so where are you going to put your site? Unless you are a large corporation with the budget to host your own site; you will most likely have to fine a hosting provider. Most people overlook this step and just choose any hosting provider without any prior knowledge of the company. So before you choose a provider here are a few things to consider…

* What kind of customer support do they offer?
* Does their hosting solutions fit your website needs?
* Can you upgrade your package?
* What happens if you go over your bandwidth?
* Are you tied to a contract?
* What is their up-time percentage?
* Do they offer any tools for design and marketing?
* Do they backup your data?
* What type of servers to they offer

I have dealt with websites in one form or another since the late 90’s, and in that time I have gone through lots of hosting providers. They ranged from crappy to excellent, cheap to expensive. To be honest the saying “You get what you pay for” is not always true when it comes to hosting. With the introduction of Broadband internet to the market and the cheap cost of servers, just about anyone with any IT knowledge can call themselves a hosting provider. Also since there is no standard on pricing homegrown providers can charge anything they want. So I advise you to do your homework. When you are searching for providers see if they are a member of any associations