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If you are starting or expanding a business, it is imperative that you have a Web presence. This is the 21st century, and the Internet continues to permeate into more and more aspects of everyday life. If you do not have a website, you might as well be invisible. Web presence is so important for marketing your business that it's absolutely worth the time to find a good provider of web hosting.

It is important the you decide what type of business hosting you prefer. When you implement shared hosting you will share a server with many other sites. Dedicated hosting will allow you to have the server completely and totally to yourself. You may find that you may or may not have the ultimate control of the server. Really, the key determining factor is whether you are comfortable with the Internet along with the current technology. Many novices are just not advanced enough to run their own server.

Two more important considerations when looking for web hosting are storage space and bandwidth. Storage space is exactly what it sounds like: how much data can be stored for use on your website. Bandwidth, by contrast, refers to the amount of data that can be transferred. Different hosts have different policies. While you may find some hosts that do not limit either, more often you'll run into limits on space, or on bandwidth usage per month.

How much storage space and bandwidth do you need? It depends on your business. Obviously, a major corporation will need more of both than a small, up-and-coming enterprise. Websites that are heavy on high resolution photos, video, music, and other multimedia aspects will use more space and bandwidth as well. If you happen to need more space, you can either change your website or look for a new host.

Mailing lists, email, scripting language support, message forums, and sub-domains are a few of the added services offered by many hosts. Look for the features that are important to you and your site. It's possible that your host will offer services that you may not need.

One of the questions when looking for web hosting, is how much it will cost. Pricing can be as little as free, and will cost more with hosts that offer more features and accessories. It all depends on what your website needs and what you are looking to add to your web page. A quality host may cost more, but if you consider the quality, it will be worth it.

Though it may not be an obvious choice, a good help and support system is another thing that needs looked into. If your website hosting encounters any problem, they will need to be resolved as soon as they can be. Some hosts have support available every hour of the day. This is recommended. A problem that cannot be fixed immediately is something that can be extremely frustrating.

The time it takes to research your options will be time well spent when looking for web hosting. You are sure to find the one host that is the best fit for your business if you research the many hosts available. Your hosting experience will be a pleasant one if you take the time to shop around and explore your options.