First and foremost you’ll want to figure out what their uptime guarantee is. This should be on their website or you can ask any of their representatives, but the uptime guarantee is basically how much the provider will guarantee that your website will be up and running. You’ll want to find something that is no less than 99.9% uptime guarantee. If you can find something that is 99.99%, that’s much better and you’ll definitely want to go with that.

Next up, see what kind of bandwidth and storage limitations they have. Bandwidth is basically the amount of file transfer that you have from one site moving to another and storage is the amount of files you can have living on that site. So you’ll definitely want to check and see because your web host has to pay for both of those. Sometimes there’s overages and sometimes there’s not, so find out how that pricing plays into it and decide how much you need for your website.

Next, see if email addresses come in. So, for example, if your domain name is “myawesomeproduct.com” you’ll want to have an email address like “sales@myawesomeproduct.com” or “matt@myawesomeproduct.com” because if you have a website that has an email address like Gmail or Yahoo, it kind of takes away from your credibility. Most web hosts have this included, so just make sure yours does too.

Next, see if they have FTP access. FTP is basically a fancy schmancy name called “File Transfer Protocol” which allows you to move big files back and forth from your website. You may not need this or you might, so if you do, just make sure they have it and if there are any charges incurred.

Then, see what kind of support the provider has. So is the support available to you 24×7? Are they there for you on holidays or are they closed on weekends? More often than not, your site is going to go down when you don’t want it to, so you’ll want to make sure that someone is there, and of course, see if they charge you for that as well.

With all the charges involved, of course, take a look and see what the price is going to be. Remember, ultimately you’re going to get what you pay for, so if something seems a little too good to be true, you might want to check their uptime or other reviews to see what’s going on. But remember you need to invest in this to make sure that your website is outstanding and it’s going to provide all the tools that you need.

Hopefully that was helpful in choosing your website. Every week, Volusion.com, (a Shopping Cart Software company) records quick educational videos regarding e-commerce solutions, SEO, PPC and other tools to help you succeed online.

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