The Best Web Hosting List

The best web hosting providers will offer easy website scripts that you can install with one-click. For example, if your web hosting provider uses cPanel, one of the forerunners in web hosting control panels, then you also get Fantastico, which allows the kind of easy website script installs I mentioned earlier. But if you don’t have an easy tool to install scripts, you can do them yourself without any HTML or programming experience! Here are a few popular script ideas you may want to use.

Counters & Web Stats

Having a website counter or web statistics program on your web hosting plan allows you to see who is on your website, at what time, how long they stay, where they came from, and even how many times they came back.

* Perfect for business web hosting to keep track of potential customers or personal web hosting to see the popularity of your blog, church website, or hobby website!

Advertisements

Owning your own website means you can put your own advertisements on it if you wish! This is fun because you can actually make money off online advertisements, and it won’t cost you a dime to install them. Make sure the ads are relevant to your website, find a good application or script, and install it. It’s that easy.

* Perfect for ecommerce web hosting to gain additional income from your website or blog web hosting where you can easily capitalize on your readership.

Photo Galleries

Do you want to have a professional art or photo gallery for your family, church, vacation, business products, digital or traditional art, and more? Then installing a photo gallery script will help your best web hosting look phenomenal! With photo gallery scripts, you can have any many ‘galleries’ as you want and can add unlimited photos or images instantly, all from your main hosting control panel!

* Perfect for mothers and families, churches, blog web hosting, vacation photos, business products, digital or traditional artists, and more.

So you think you’re ready to buy web hosting? That’s great! Like the first time I purchased web hosting, you must be very excited! It’s a little bit scary, a little thrilling, and a great deal nerve-wracking. To help ease your web hosting anxiety, here are some presales questions you may want to answer yourself before you buy from the best web hosting provider of your choice.

What kind of website do I want to host?

Are you ready for business hosting? Ecommerce? Personal? Family? Narrow it down as much as possible to a specific niche. Here are some further examples:

* Blog hosting / WordPress web hosting
* Joomla hosting
* Web 2.0 hosting
* Dedicated Server Hosting
* Adult hosting
* Music hosting
* Email hosting
* Reseller hosting
* Photo hosting / Artist hosting
* Church hosting

What kind of features do I need?

Consider the kind of website you are looking to create. If you are starting a church website, odds are you are not going to need very much storage space, whereas you might need a website template and an average amount of bandwidth. On the other hand, if you are running a photography website, you are going to need a good deal of storage space and bandwidth, but may be less concerned with website templates or the amount of email addresses you can use.

How many webpages and/or websites will I create?

You may not know this ahead of time, but think in generic terms – do you plan to add other websites to your hosting account in the future? Would you like to be able to have that option?

Do I need advanced web hosting features?

Do you plan to add scripting or programming to your website? If so, make sure the kind of scripts you want to run are supported by your web hosting provider. If you’re unsure, odds are you don’t need them.

Can I build the website myself?

If yes, don’t choose a web hosting provider who offers free site building tools over one that doesn’t just because it looks like they offer more. If you’re unsure about building your own website, make sure that you put a website builder as a priority on your web hosting checklist! Or get a web design template.

By now you are probably wondering why we have so many of what we call the “best web hosting” providers listed on our Top 10 List. This is because all other top web hosting lists are wrong. They choose to evaluate each web host in relation to the other hosts and assign an arbitrary number to them to show they are the best or the worst.

Notice that we do not have any numeric values listed on our website and while one web hosting provider may be listed above another, this does not mean they are better or worse for YOU.

Instead, we decided to change things up a bit and rank each web host based on the values you care about most: Support, Features, Price, and Functionality.

So how is this different? Simple – each host is #1 for its own reason or we would not be showcasing them on our website. So each web host we provide information on has something they work best for, as we have discovered along our web hosting work and research that one web hosting provider is perfect to host a business or e-business, while they are very poor for personal web hosting or blogging. Then there are other web hosts who are best-suited for personal or family web hosting but really don’t have the features necessary for the business world.

Here is a detailed list of our current Top Web Hosting providers and what they are #1 for to help you find the perfect web host.

IX Web Hosting - #1 for Overall Web Hosting - IX Web Hosting is great for businesses, blogs, personal websites, adult hosting, and nearly everything else you can imagine to use your website for. Check out our IX Web Hosting Review for further details.

ThinkHost - #1 for Eco Friendly Web Hosting - ThinkHost is green hosting at its best, meaning they are conscious of the environment in everything they do. Use them for personal websites, blogs, and web hosting projects based on personal needs.

DreamHost - #1 Webmaster Choice Web Hosting - DreamHost is definitely one of the most popular web hosting providers on the planet and for good reason. Use DreamHost for music and media hosting, a simple green hosting solution, or blog.

EasgyCGI - #1 Advanced Web Hosting - Do you like Windows? You’ll love EasyCGI! They have various web hosting options for your small business, Fortune 500 enterprise, or dedicated server. Not for newbies, but great for professionals.

StartLogic - #1 Cheap Web Hosting - You need a website and you need it cheap, then StartLogic is for you. They have hosting for as little as $5.95/month, which can help you get your blog online ASAP.

BlueHost - #1 Secure Web Hosting - 24/7 Support was literally defined by BlueHost, so you can rest assured that you’ll be taken care of and your website will be backed up. This is great for ecommerce and big businesses who need the extra attention.

HostMonsster - #1 Professional Web Hosting - Business hosting, ecommerce, affordable servers, reliable support, and even personal assistance for your ebusiness needs. Easy to work with too!

FatCow - #1 Ecommerce Web Hosting - Ecommerce web hosting has never been easier with FatCow. You can create your ecommerce shop in 3 steps with online tutorials and design assistance. Perfect for beginners and work-at-home moms.

GoDaddy - #1 Domain Web Hosting - You need 50 domains and you need them cheap, hosted, and with plenty of email access. In that case, GoDaddy is for you! These guys are known worldwide for domain registration and secure hosting.

HostingZoom - #1 Reliable Web Hosting - 24/7 support backed by incredibly web hosting professionals means they are perfect for small businesses, enterprise solutions, and work at home corporations.

You’ve bought the best web hosting plan you could find. You’ve registered your domain name and picked out a website template, added your site content, optimized your links and text and images, and even learned how to FTP in the process! Maybe you have even added an ecommerce storefront to help your customers purchase products with your company or you have begun blogging about your industry, customers, discounts, or philosophies.

Whatever you have done, none of it matters unless people know where to find your website. Period. This is why people spend a fortune on advertising (both online and offline) through SEO or search engine optimization practices.

But there’s one thing many professional SEO companies don’t want you to know – the simple fact is, you can advertise your website successfully yourself, without spending a dime. I’ll repeat that, as it’s extremely important – you can advertise and get your website noticed, for free! There are two ways:

1) Purchase Hosting From our Recommended Web Hosts

If you haven’t yet purchased hosting, we recommend the following web hosts to businesses, ecommerce ventures, or bloggers:

* IX Web Hosting
* ThinkHost
* Hostmonster
* StartLogic

These web hosts are considered the best web hosts in the world and are ranked highly in our Top 10 Web Hosting List as a guide to help you choose the best provider. We are telling you about them here because every single host mentioned offers a package of FREE online advertising credits! That’s right, 100% free advertising for your business. So sign up with any of these best web hosts and save big on SEO.

By advertising yourself, you will not only learn the best practices for your specific niche or industry but gain relevant experience in that industry. You are in charge and you don’t have to hire staff to assist you. You are the boss.

2) Use Google & Yahoo to Monetize Your Website

If you already have web hosting, you can simply signup with Google and/or Yahoo to advertising your website using what’s called Pay-Per-Click services: i.e. you only pay when a potential customer clicks on your advertisement. Plus, your ad shows up first in Google or Yahoo sponsored results, so you get better business and more of it!

A recommended budget is around $100-200/month for a small business or $200-1000 if you really want to drive those sales.

The good thing is, Google and Yahoo let you experiment, and there are multiple ways to advertise using their PPC (pay per click) technology.

We have already explained some basic web hosting terms in detail, but it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty web hosting terms that come up literally everywhere you look! This ought to make it easier to choose the best web hosting provider for your business or personal website.

Control Panel – This is what you use to manage all aspects of your website. For example, you will login to your control panel to update your website, install a blog like WordPress, or to create an email address.

Database – You will likely never use them (either consciously or unconsciously) but databases are places you can store things like product or customers lists, scripts, or where automatic installations install important features. For example, when installing Joomla, your web hosting control panel will install modules into databases. You don’t need to know this, but it helps make Joomla function.

Domain – Your website URL that you want visitors to type in to visit your website. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our domain name here. Normally, you can get this registered for free with your web host.

FTP – FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and though it sounds technical it’s as easy to setup as downloading a file from your email! FTP Programs help you upload and download files, music, and videos from your webhosting account to your PC or vice versa.

GB – (gigabyte) Honestly, you don’t need to know what a ‘gigabyte’ is to enjoy your webhosting account and website. But a gigabyte (or GB) is a measuring increment. 1 GB is worth 100 MB (megabytes). Make sure you choose a web host who offers more than 5GB of storage space and more than 100GB of bandwidth. That’s all you’ll really need.

Money-Back Guarantee – Pretty self-explanatory, this is something every web host should offer. It’s a guarantee that, if you dislike their services, you can get a refund within a specified period of time. Most MBGs are 30, 60, or 90 days.

Subdomain – Yep, there are levels for domains. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our primary domain. But ix-web-hosting-review.thebestwebhostinglist.com is our subdomain, devoted to explaining everything there is to know about IX Web Hosting. Using subdomains can help you build a new website without purchasing an entirely new domain name for it.

If you are a work-at-home mom, just starting your home business, or perhaps looking to extend the reach of a local business to a broader online community, small business web hosting is definitely the way to go. But what exactly does a small business website need that’s different from what normal webhosting customers require?

For one thing, technical support. If you are running a simple blog and it goes down for a couple minutes, it’s no big deal. But if you are operating a business online, every minute of downtime means the possibility you are losing sales, money, and customers. Don’t be fooled by “99.9% uptime” though – every web host says they have that. What you need is valuable, trustworthy, knowledgeable technical support available as close to 24/7 as possible. Remember, live chat is great, but live phone support is better and a decent ticketing or email system is best.

Another difference is storage space and bandwidth. While shared web hosting providers can make up high numbers, you really need a web hosting provider who can stand behind those numbers and back you up if you reach them. Choose the best web hosting you can to assure you can run shopping carts, multiple websites and pages, hundreds of emails, and more. Remember to choose the features you need most and worry about pricing second – most webhosts will be affordable these days.

Make 100% sure your webhosting provider has the following features or that you are able to purchase these features at an additional cost:

* Dedicated IP Address
* SSL Certificate
* Shopping Carts
* Blogs (WordPress)
* CMS (Joomla)
* Multiple Parked Domains (redirecting domains)

Small business webhosting can be tough, but with the best web hosting list guiding you every step of the way, you can make sure you are making the right decision.

You’ve got the best web hosting. You’ve registered your domain name. You have even created email addresses, learned how to use the web host’s control panel, and have set up your first blog!

But what makes your website work? What makes it look good? What makes it do the things you need it to do?

In fact you’re wondering, how do I make my website work?

1) The first step is great web hosting. Choosing the best webhosting provider can be difficult, so take a look at our Top 10 Web Hosts for suggestions.

2) Find great website design. If you are working with WordPress Web Hosting, try finding free WordPress Themes. If you are working with a basic website, you’ll want to get reliable web design templates.

3) Learn scripting or hire a professional. If you want your website to do things, automate certain processes, or otherwise interact with your customers or audience, you’re going to need to learn coding like PHP and MySQL. There are many resources online to hire professionals also to help you out.

Do you know what you should expect to pay for the best website hosting available? Many customers think that a domain name and website are the same thing. This is unfortunately not the case. The domain name is just the name or website address of your new website: for example, www.YourName.com. The website itself is whatever you create using your computer, whatever your web developer creates for you, or whatever files, photos, content, music, and videos you are using to make your website visible online.

So what kinds of costs can you expect for affordable web hosting purchases? Here’s a brief outline:

FREE Website Stuff

* Free Domain Name Registration – if you web hosting provider doesn’t offer this, you might look elsewhere unless they have really great deals on affordable web hosting.
* Free Website Templates – not every website host offers website design, but if you are inexperienced in web design, you should look for a host who can accommodate.
* Free Blog – WordPress Web Hosting is extremely important, especially since it can help get your website ranked well in Google! The best web hosting companies offer a free blog at least but most can accept WordPress Web Hosting as well.
* Free Shopping Cart – if you need to run an online business, this is a must-have for ecommerce web hosting.

Cost of Web Hosting

* Website Hosting Plan – these can range from $3.95/month to upwards of $100/month, depending on your needs. Most new website owners only need the bare minimum, while experiences webmasters will require additional features and setup.
* Ecommerce Web Hosting Features – additional features like Dedicated IP and SSL Certificate will cost extra. A Dedicated IP shouldn’t cost more than $5 extra per month, while SSL certificates vary from $20/year to upwards of $100 per year.

That’s really it! On average, you can purchase a website and domain name for under $100/year! This is an incredible savings that thebestwebhostinglist.com recommends you take advantage of.

By now you know that blog web hosting is one of the most popular and best forms of web hosting in the industry. With the release of WordPress 2.5, many web hosts are starting to provide quality WordPress web hosting services for their clients, as WordPress is in high demand. But there are really minimal requirements necessary to run amazing blog websites with blog web hosting tools like WordPress. So how do you choose the best web hosting provider out of the lists of thousands of available choices?

Simple – you choose the features you need and disregard the ones that don’t matter, as with most decisions in the web hosting industry. However, here are a few things you’ll want to look for in the best blog host.

WordPress Web Hosting. This means support for MySQL 4+ and PHP4+ support. Simple enough.

Multiple Website Hosting. Trust me, once you start one website, you will want to create more, and using WordPress and a web host with multiple web hosting capabilities, you can run anywhere between 2 and unlimited websites, all from the same plan.

Free Domain Registration. The best web hosting companies will provide this hands down, and if you want YourName.com, you’re going to need it. So choose the best web hosting that comes with free domain registration. If they give you more than one domain for free, kudos to them!

Subdomain Hosting. Say you already run “yourwebsite.com”. Now you’d like to add a blog for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes. With subdomain hosting, you can have blog.yourwebsite.com, for example, a practice many companies are taking advantage of for their business hosting website.

Ecommerce web hosting is simply a fancy way of saying you can make money on your website. The internet really broadened this avenue for small businesses and startup organizations and can transform your tiny business into a Fortune 100 giant in 0-60.

But if you are new to web hosting, do you know what is necessary to running a successful ecommerce website? Take a look at this article first and do some research before you purchase, because there are several costs to think about before you purchase your ecommerce web hosting plan.

1. Ecommerce website hosting

Find a successful web hosting company who as been in the web hosting business for at least 5 years. Take a look at our Top 10 Web Hosting List for more information on the most affordable and reliable web hosting providers in the world and choose the one that’s best for your new business website.

2. Merchant Account

If you’re not sure what a merchant account is, let me briefly explain. A merchant account is simply a business like a bank that can process your online transactions for you. If you are familiar with PayPal or Google Checkout, they are both merchant accounts and the most popular ones on the market, as they are the most affordable. Especially for your first ecommerce website, you’ll want something cheap and easy. We recommend PayPal, as it charges a minimal fee per transaction and you don’t have to be a web hosting guru to use it.

3. Shopping Cart

If you are selling tangible goods on your ecommerce web hosting plan, you’re going to need a reliable shopping cart to sell your products on. Make sure the shopping cart has all the business hosting features you require and check the prices. Many will have a per month or per year charge, and many others will add a per transaction charge to it. This is not abnormal in the least.

The best web hosting providers will offer a free online shopping cart to you with your purchase, so explore that avenue before you go out and buy one.

4. Advanced Features

If you choose to go with a bank or merchant account other than PayPal or Google Checkout for your ecommerce web hosting site, you’ll need to also purchase a Dedicated IP and SSL Certificate, as these two advanced web hosting features secure your website and the payments your customers make on it from being shared with others.

Ecommerce website hosting can be difficult but not if you understand the costs and resources available to you right off the bat!