Assuming you have some experience with creating websites, the main cost your going to be faced with when starting up an online business is the hosting - after that its just down to the amount of time you want to put into it. (Of course promoting your website might cost you some money through google adwords for example, but with many free SEO techniques around, it may not be necessary). Either way the host is the first payment, and so choosing the right host is crucial. With many cheap hosts to choose from, whats important?

First up, can you host it yourself? Essentially if you choose to host your site somewhere else, then you are outsourcing your hosting. Before outsourcing, make sure that you can't do it better or cheaper yourself, or that you can't gain some competitive advantage from doing it yourself. Often the decision goes with external hosting, due to the offered redundancy (in terms of connectivity, power and servers), the cost (server costs shared across multiple customers), the support (24/7 while you sleep) and more. So, where to look for a host?

Webguruguide (and some other projects) are currently hosted by globat, but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone (except maybe a competitor!) It will be moved to a new host as soon as the hosting period runs out. Why? The hosting is unreliable, the customer service is terrible, and the thing that makes me most mad is when 'junk' emails inform the customer they have to opt out of some additional unwanted service otherwise their credit card will be charged. Do a quick google search for 'globat bad' and you'll get a long list of dissatisfied customers (with a few positive comments presumably planted by their sales team!)

So, when the time comes to change hosts, what to look for?

* First up, do they support all the languages and technologies that you need? I have another host that I have used for many years, and they still don't support php!

After that I wouldn't look too much at the hosts site - its time to turn to google. On the hosts website, there are bound to be a plethora of positive testimonials from delighted customers (who sleep better at night now they use XXX). Believe them and you'll believe anything! I'm more interested in the negative feedback, which can be found all over the net. There are also forums where customers can give feedback on their hosting company - but always be careful of industry plants.

Many hosting companies try to differentiate their offering, with 'unlimited domains' and 'XXXmb diskspace', but this differentiation doesn't really work, as most other hosts quickly follow suit. Where hosts can really differentiate themselves is through customer service - and if you find a host with satisfied customers (not just on their own page), then it might be worth checking them out, taking note whether they offer 'anytime moneyback' or not.

Notice that at no point have I mentioned the price. It's too easy to choose a hosting company, by choosing the cheapest one you can find. Many hosting companies are branding themselves as cheap hosts - but cheap hosts lead to cheap equipment, underpaid service engineers and then dissatisfied customers. My search for a satisfactory host continues, with the prospect of self hosting not yet overruled.