There are a number of things that you should consider when choosing a web hosting company.

1. Cost per month
2. Storage
3. Bandwidth
4. Domains allowed
5. Uptime
6. User friendliness
7. Available features

Let’s look at each of the components so that we can understand the criteria in order to choose the right web hosting plan.

Cost per month: you should be able to get web hosting for under $10 per month, anything more is too expensive unless you are storing a lot of video and have a large audience.

Storage: this will not be a consideration for most people. The least expensive plan with Host Gator for example allows 350 gigabytes of storage. And just how much is that you might ask? Well there is 1440 megabytes in a gigabyte. That is a lot! To put it into perspective, let consider the training videos that I host on my account.

The average video I produce is around 10 minutes long and usually about 80mb in size. That would be 18 training videos per gigabyte. If I have the most inexpensive hosting plan with 350gb, it would allow me to store 5,400 10 minute video tutorials and still have 50gb left over for other files!

As you can see, storage is not an issue.

Bandwidth: This simply means the amount of space available to deliver information.

Domains allowed: a domain name is simply the address or the url of a website. The amount of domains allowed will determine how many websites you can have on your hosting account. I currently have 6 websites with my account and will probably end up with over 10 within the next few years.

Uptime: Uptime refers to the amount of time statically you website is live on the Internet without interruptions.

User friendliness: I have had hosting plans where I was bamboozled by the way the information was stored. Control Panel is what I prefer, it is very easy and intuitive to use.

Available Features: there are a lot of features that are usually on offer with web hosting, the ones I consider most important are; Fantasico (easy WordPress installation, PBP forum, and a whole more), MySLQ data base, shopping cart, PHP scripts allowed, Pop3 email accounts. There are a lot of other features, but these are the ones that allow me to have my online business running smoothly.

There are 3 possible plans for shared hosting with Host Gator;
1) Hatchling – $4.95
2) Baby – $7.95
3) Swamp – $12.95

Let have a look at the Host Gator Plans

Obviously, Host Gator fits all of the requirements with ease. It is very affordable to have a e-business.

If you go over to the Host Gator site, you will also see that all of the other requirements for web hosting are also met with a lot of other added extras as well. When you get to the site, you will see the tab for ‘Web Hosting’, that is the tab that will take you to the plans. The plan that you will need is the, ‘Shared Hosting’ option.

To view the Host Gator plans, click here…

To watch a video tutorial of setting up an account with Host Gator, click here…