Web hosting accounts are very inexpensive these days.  Professional web hosting companies may charge a little more than the bargain web hosting accounts, but even those fees are extremely reasonable.

Free Hosting Accounts ($0) – There are free web hosting services such as WordPress.com.  These typically work well for enthusiast sites and many nonprofits.  Most of them do not provide email hosting, have strict limitations to prevent abuse, and may not allow you to use your own domain name.   Servers are typically overloaded.  Support is typically very limited or non-existent.  What do you expect for nothing?

http://www.WordPress.com is excellent for zero budget websites.

Discount Hosting Services ($0-$100/yr) – These are the dominant providers out there.  Companies such as GoDaddy.com, BlueHost.com, and many others all seem to offer ridiculous amounts of space, bandwidth, and other services.  Be aware that every one of these has limits.  The common limitation is on CPU utilization.  If your website is too active, they will shut down your account.  Do you want to learn that the hard way after placing some ads?  Probably not.  They probably will not run backups of your site either, so you better watch out for yourself.  This is a big issue if you use databases which require special steps to backup.

http://www.Godaddy.com is excellent for discounted hosting services.

Commercial Hosting Services ($100-$250/yr) – Commercial hosting companies will typically have better servers that are not overloaded.  Some will have mirrored disks.  Most will run backups.  Most will not have CPU restrictions.  Customer support services will usually be excellent.  While these will cost slightly more, it is well worth it to have a professionally managed server.

http://www.AnythingInternet.com – of course I have to recommend my own company.

Premium Value Added Services ($200/yr and up) – These hosting companies are the type that offer special features that require you to host with them.  Marketing companies might have a special database or a special statistics package.   Companies like this will offer special features, typically industry specific.  These packages are very expensive, but you are paying for the special services.

This category will include services specific to your industry.  Direct sales companies provide these types of websites.  Franchises, financial companies, industry sites, such as www.har.com , or niche market sites such as http://www.clubrunner.com .

Choosing a Hosting Company

Know Your Needs – Do you need email hosting?  Does your website require special database or operating system requirements?  Do you want the company to run backups?  Is your site a high traffic site?  Do you need extreme amounts of online storage?

Contact Technical Support – Do not call the pre-sales number.  Salesmen always answer the phone and make big promises.  Try to call or email the tech support team and ask questions there first.  They are the people you will deal with once your account is open.  Call them or email them a few different times.  Get a feel for them.

Try Different Companies – If you have more than one website, put them with different companies for a while.

Read the Forums – Most web hosting companies have a forum where existing customers chat with each other.  Always read the forums before you sign up.  The customers who are unhappy will be complaining really loudly there.  These are great testimonials.  Of course every company will have unhappy customers, but if you see that dozens of customers are all complaining about the same issue, consider those conversations carefully.

Testimonials from Friends – My least favorite point on this list is asking your friends what they do.  Their needs may be different and they may not be qualified to know they are getting treated poorly.  Ask your friends, but consider the source as you evaluate their advice.