With the rapid growth of the World Wide Web and global communication infrastructures, Internet access as well as online server hosting have become very affordable also for millions of private user blogs. Web hosting services and cloud services have become essential for online businesses and product manufacturers worldwide.

Free Open Source Software tools like the content management framework and most used blogging software WordPress take their part in this success story of our modern digital time. Online communities and forums are blooming and we see new online services nearly every day or week, now. This article shows important selection criteria on how to choose a suitable web hosting service for your online business.

How many Domains can you host?

A good website hosting provides an unlimited amount of domains that clients can associate with the hosting. If you only need to host a single domain, it can be suitable to choose a single domain hosting with one account price-wisely. This is also interesting to separate clients in a reseller scenario.

How much Disk Space is available?

In times of mass storage devices, prices for disk space are decreasing weekly. This is reflected in prices per gigabyte or even terabyte nowadays and disk space should not be an issue anymore, even for low budget website hosting. To calculate how much disk space you will need, double or triple the size of your current web files to add a buffer for your website growth.

How many Databases can you maintain?

Most modern content management systems like WordPress use one dynamic SQL database as storage backend. If you do have a limitation on the amount of databases, you can create with your hosting plan, you should have at least as many databases as domains (5 domains = 5 databases to maintain).

How much website Traffic and Bandwidth comes with the plan?

Website traffic is the physical Internet traffic caused by worldwide visitors of a web page and is as much higher as more users will visit your website. The measurement for website traffic is based on monthly consumption. Good hosting contracts provide unlimited monthly traffic and the bandwidth for your website.

Which Extra Features might be useful to add?

Depending on your business or purpose of your website, it might be interesting to add certain features like a SSL certificate for secure connections (transport layer, HTTPS). Other additional features include online telephone numbers and toll free numbers that cost an additional monthly or yearly fee.

A suitable hosting service should reflect your business’ requirements for an affordable budget to cover. Your business is also here to grow beyond the current state, so calculate some buffer for its growth potential to be prepared for rising user demand to accept your online service and to guarantee great customer experience on your website.