There are a lot of web hosting plans available in the market today. Each of them has their own unique features corresponding to the type of plans you will get. Just bear in mind that the most expensive web hosting plans are not always the best in the industry; because there are also much cheaper plans which can offer better web hosting services than the more expensive ones. Hence, you should choose wisely by knowing the important features that each ideal web hosting plan should have in order to give you the best services possible for your web hosting needs.

When choosing your web hosting plan, it is very important to check the features and services offered along with the package of your plan. This is the crucial part because there are some features which your plan should have; for your own convenience and better effeciency in managing your online business.This is also very essential in maximizing the revenues of your site.

Hence, to help you choose the best web hosting plan for your business, the following are the things to look for which should be part of your package.

1.    File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - Your plan should include FTP software which is very important in managing transfer of files from your computer and your server’s computer; and vice versa. This will allow you to upload files, documents, pictures, videos, and MP3 files stored in your computer; and transfer them to your site. This will also allow you to download files from your server’s computer and transfer them to your hard disk. There are some plans which do not include this feature; hence, in such cases you will need to download or purchase FTP softwares in order to manage your file transfer.

2.    PHP- Originally, this means personal home page which allow you to create well designed web page that attracts customers and make your site look professional.

3.    Uptime- The amount of time that your website is shown online. There is very crucial because once your site is up, the next thing you will do is to exert a lot of efforts and investments in sending traffic to your site. If you site is consistently down and unavailable, you will lose sales and your efforts of sending traffec are wasted. Hence, ensure that the webhosting plan you will get have higher uptime; as much as possible 99.9% of the time per month. This is equivalent to around 45 minutes of downtime per month for server maintenance.

4. Amount of Space – This is another important basic feature of every webhosting plan; they only differ in the amount of space usually measured in Gigabyte (GB). You should have at least 10 GB of space for smaller business; however, once your online business has grown bigger, you need to increase your space. Some plans are offering unlimited space under premium plans; just weigh in the pros and cons; definitely, the more space your plan has, the better for your online business.

5. Bandwidth- This is the rate of data transfer. Generally, you have monthly allocated amount of data transfer from your site. This is crucial because once you have consumed your allocated monthly bandwidth; your clients will not be able to download files from your site. For example, if you are offering a free ebook download on your site, and this ebook is a 3 MB file; every time a prospect or client downloads the ebook, 3 MB of your bandwidth is already consumed. If your site is very popular and 1000 people downloaded your ebook; this means that 3000MB or 3 GB has already been used from that ebook downloads alone; and you still offer other services. Hence, try to estimate the amount of monthy traffic of your site; and make sure that your bandwidth can accommodate all of them.

6. Setup Fees – This should be another aspect that you should look when choosing a web hosting plan. Setting up your site requires technical knowledge or some degree of familiarization on how to build a professionally designed web site. Some plans offer this services for free; others will give you discount on their professional fees; while most plans offer to give you easy-to-use software where you can build and design your site with ease using the features of the software that is included in your package. Ideally, the set-up should be free.

7. Pop up email accont – Having an email address from your own site will make your emails formal and professional; compared to sending emails to your prospects and clients using a free email account. Make sure this feature is part of your plan. The ideal number of email your plan should have is ten or more email accounts.

8. Site Statistics – This is very important. Having a business without tracking your site visitor count won’t succussful enough. It is essential to track the number of visitors to your site and monitor what pages that are most viewed, and what links are most clicked on. This will help you make better marketing plans to improve your business and profitability.

9. Excellent customer support – Another one of the most important aspect is the customer and technical support from your service provider. Somehow you will always encounter problems with your web hosting plans and technical assistance may be needed as soon as possible. Make sure that the customer support of your plan provider is excellent by immediately responding to your queries within 24 hours; and their customer support should also be available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.

The features mentioned above are things that your web hosting plan should have. If any of them are not provided, or part of your plan; then chooses another one. There are many plans available elsewhere that can offer better services and package for a very affordable rate. Choose your web hosting plan wisely because it is very crucial in your online business. At this point, you should be well equipped in making the right decision on how to choose the best Web Hosting plan