The world of web hosting can seem rather complicated and daunting to the newcomer. It’s important to resist the temptation to jump on the first package that comes close to what you think you might want; doing your research will pay off in the longterm.

The best way to start is to work out exactly what you want. You’ll need to think about the following:

- How much storage do you need? Work out how large each page of your site is, add it all up, and then add 50% or so extra to leave yourself room for growth.

- Can you pay monthly? You don’t want to fork out for a year’s hosting, only to find that the service is terrible or that it doesn’t have a feature you want. Make sure that you can sign up a month at a time, and that you can upgrade to year-long subscriptions if you find that it’s just what you were looking for. Don’t tie yourself in to long periods of obligation.

- Do you have a domain name ? You’ll need one of these. There are lots of articles on Domainmonster.com about how to choose a domain name; it’s worth looking at those before you buy. Find out from your host how to transfer your domain name to their name server. If they’re not willing to offer enough help, go elsewhere.

- What email services do you need? For a personal site, a simple redirect will probably be enough. In this case, yourname@youraddress.com doesn’t actually have a mailbox attached to it; emails sent to that address just forward to another email address of your choice. If you are a larger company, you will probably want to go for a mail server, so that your addresses will have an actual mailbox attached to them and you can hopefully check them through a browser for convenience.

- Do you need any additional features? If you’re conducting e-commerce on your site, you’ll need SSL and you might also want a shopping cart feature, as well as credit card processing. Do you need FrontPage support, Access or database support, custom 404 Error pages, and so on? Work out exactly what you need and shop around.

Whatever you do, make sure that you send your prospective host an email before you hand over any cash. If they don’t respond promptly, move onto another candidate. In the long run, you’ll be grateful for good customer service, and it is not worth compromising on this.