Don't just pick any web hosting provider at random; you may end up with serious problems, including downtime, poor customer service, or worse. Look for a quality host using the following steps:

Storage space: How much storage space will you need? Here's a quick trick. For storage, estimate the size of each webpage on your site and how many pages you will ultimately have. For instance, if the average page on your site is 20 kilobytes, and you don't expect to have more than 200 pages, then you would need approxomately 4 megabytes.

Bandwidth: The amount of data you can transfer to users over the course of a month. Estimate the size of each web page, the number of web pages you expect each visitor to visit, and the number of daily visitors you expect when you are fully up and running. Multiply all these numbers by 30 to get your approximate monthly bandwidth.

Search: It can be difficult to find accurate reviews of web hosts. Many "reviews" online are biased attempts to sell hosting services. Try searching Google for the name of the host plus "forum" to find discussions of the host, or use our reviews here which gather such unbiased comments. Look especially for negative reviews; almost all hosts will have some, but if some are consistent with complaints, then it may be good to avoid it.

Price: If your storage requirements are about 500 MB, and your bandwidth requirements are about 20 GB or so, then you should be looking at plans that are about $10 per month or less. Anything more than that is too much.

Quality: Check the hosting company over; do they seem like a solid business? Contact info and 800 numbers? Do a Whois search at domaintools.com. Has their domain name been registered for at least a few years? Don't go with hosts that seem shady or amateurish.