There are so many time consuming little things that conspire against you when you first start your online adventure. Selecting a hosting provider is one of them. How do you find a good hosting provider ? By the way you need hosting, if you plan to put your site on the Internet (so that other can see your web pages).

What ever you do, don’t buy hosting services from local companies. I’ve made this mistake in the past and paid quite a lot in price and time. It’s simply a nightmare to get things done with them and they never provide 24X7 support! These are the cheaper and more efficient options.

Depending on the size of the site or the number of sites you want to host, There are 3 main answers.

1. If you want to host a simple site, then go for Hostgator. They are world famous for providing this service for a very small price (about $4.95/ month). There are many packages but the best one I’ve used so far is the “Baby” package for Web Hosting. You can select your preferred operating system as well (I prefer Linux, it’s more robust and easier to use, but if you like you can select windows). With the “Hostgator Baby” package you can host a unlimited number of domains, meaning you can buy any number of domain names and host them here. Quite a good deal ?
2. If I want to host many high traffic sites, then I use a Virtual Private Server (VPS) from Jaguar (jaguarpc.com) they have some very good deals costing about $19.97 / Month. When you use a VPS, you are given your own VPS, but main hardware (CPU, RAM, etc..) on the server are shared between many VPSs. On this, You can host about 500 site, with about 300 pages per site. Their customer service and support is superb. Usually you get a reply to your queries within minutes.
3. Lastly if I want to host 1000s of very large site, I use a dedicated server from Softlayer (softlayer.com). They come with good CPUs, RAM etc..Prices start from $139 / Month. Very solid networks, fast connections, etc…

So those are the options… if you are just starting your online journey, I would go for a “Hostgator Baby”. Once you buildup some traffic you can migrate to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) from Jaguar. Once you have quite a lot of traffic and web pages you can select a dedicated server from Softlayer.

Make a quick decision and Jump start your online journey !
By the way if you are still struggling to find a domain name read
How to buy a Domain name ?