Web hosting has changed a lot in recent years. Gone are the days when you had to pay $100 per month just to have your website hosted on the internet.

Now there are literally hundreds of options when it comes to web hosting. So how do you choose the right one for you? In some ways, it may depend on the type of website you want to host. Do you just want to host a simple brochure site or do you need a lot of bandwidth for photo and video galleries?

Knowing the answers to questions like these is your first task. However, there are some essential features that every good web host should have, and that’s what we’re all going to talk about today.

1.) Reasonably priced – Unless you have special needs, you should never pay more than $10-$15 for a fully featured, reliable web host. You can often save money by paying for a full year upfront, but in any case, there are plenty of cost-effective web hosting solutions available today.

2.) A cPanel interface – All of the best web hosts offer cPanel, which is a web-based control panel that allows you to manage your domain through a web interface. It is an industry standard that allows site configuration and administration, including email configuration, database administration, file management, FTP, and script installation. cPanel usually also comes with Fantastico, which is an easy-to-use installer for the WordPress blogging platform, forums, and much more.

3.) 100% Reliability – Your web server should be able to guarantee 99.9-100% uptime. That means you can have your site live pretty much all the time and have access to it, cPanel, and your email. Being able to guarantee reliability will usually require the host to have backup server capability. If you’re not sure, just ask them before committing.

4.) Easy-to-reach customer support: You should have 24-hour support, whether it’s via the web, by phone, or both.

5.) Multiple Domain Hosting – If you decide you want to host more than one website, you don’t have to pay separately for each of those websites. Now, you’ll need to pay separately for the domain, but your hosting provider shouldn’t charge you for hosting multiple domains. Some even offer unlimited domains.

6.) Lots of Storage Base and Bandwidth – You want to plan for future growth of your site, both in terms of the size itself and traffic and leads, and you don’t want a website that will penalize your growth. ; at least not for long.

7.) Number of POP3 Email Accounts Allowed – Unlimited email accounts are best. That gives you the flexibility to add unique email addresses for different features on your website.

8.) Access to logs and statistics – You want to assess how your site is performing over time once it goes live. So by having access to the free statistics offer and weblogs, you will have that analysis.

9.) The ability to use FTP or online file management – that’s where you can upload a large number of files quickly.

10.) Backups – There should be some sort of plan for backups with your web host, and also figure out what’s being backed up; files, databases, server configuration. Hopefully everything.

There you have it, a rundown of the top features you can expect from the best web hosting companies. And by the way, free web hosting is still available, but the old adage, “you get what you pay for” has never been more true when it comes to web hosting, especially if you want to host a business website. Be willing to pay for quality, reliability, and a full set of features.