Choosing right host is an important aspect in lowering your web hosting costs. The web hosting industry, boasting several thousand web hosts, is still young and growing at a remarkable pace; hence finding right host is not only difficult, but very time consuming; fortunately though it is worth time and effort.

There are a few things to keep in mind when exploring; when deciding to form a partnership with host. Below are just a few things to consider, which directly attribute to final cost.

Disk Space - Knowing how much web space your web site needs and compensating for a bit extra, for growth. For example, if your web site needs 200 MB of disk space, look for plan which offers at least 250 to 300 MB of web space; this will prevent a large unexpected bill at end of month when high priced costs, charged by most web hosts for extra disk space usage, are added on to your bill. As a rule of thumb, an average web site should cost you no more than $1 per 10 MB

Bandwidth – Figure out how much bandwidth (data transfer) your web site uses. As above, ensure you get more bandwidth than your site uses. For example, if your website uses 8GB bandwidth per month, then choose a plan, which offers at least 8 or 10GB bandwidth per month. This again will prevent ‘spikes’ of over usage, leading to higher extra costs. As a reference, an average web site should pay no more than $3 per GB for bandwidth usage.

Block buying - Ask web host if they have “block buying” facilities for purchasing projected extra disk space or bandwidth. But, be careful, if your web site needs only 2 GB extra bandwidth, you may have to buy an extra package in blocks of 5GB bandwidth; in this case, look for host which will allow you to purchase extra disk space and bandwidth allowance as per your needs, this is crucial to cost savings.

Note: Ensure that you know over-usage allowance rules; you need to know what happens if your web site uses more disk space or bandwidth than you have been allocated. The web host who informs you of possible over-usage well in advance, allowing you to take measures to reduce or budget for extra usage, is ‘worth their weight in gold’.

Number of web sites – if you have more than one web site, sign up an account with a web host who provides multiple domains hosted on one account; this will work out a lot cheaper than an account per website.

Many hosting companies that offer low prices find it hard to offer a good and reliable service. This, in most cases, is due to failure to project company growth. Web host growth refers to amount of accounts coming in and at what rate. If a web host company does not plan their growth properly, then account holders will suffer directly. With too many accounts and not enough infrastructure, servers and manpower, resources are stretched and service declines, rapidly.

The result being, as soon as you sign up for an account you experience regular down time; find great difficulty trying to get support; and, receive large shocking bills at end of month, for over-usage of bandwidth and disk space.

However this doesn’t have to be case. If a web hosting company has a projected plan for resources and infrastructure; projected rates of growth based on many years of hard experience; dedicated and conscientious staff; well established relationships with their up-provider, third party program and software suppliers; and, a pension for modern technology; good and reliable service is inevitable.