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The website hosting industry is EXTREMELY competitive right now. Hosting services are becoming as important as regular utilities. They’re the engines driving innovation on the web from the latest website ideas to the hottest blogs.

So, how do you get in on the action? How do you choose the best host for your blog or e-commerce business? As I’ve written about before, if you want to be taken seriously on the web, you need to have your own domain name on your own hosting.

The good news is that hosting is so competitive right now, it’s easy to get a cheap deal on hosting if you search hard enough.

What Website Hosting Features Will You Need

If you’re looking for start your first website, what are some of the features you should look for? Whether your buying hosting for a blog or for an online store, these are the things you should look for.

Unlimited Space - So you can throw whatever you want on your FTP server and use it as a backup source

Unlimited Transfers - So you’re site doesn’t go down if it gets a spike in traffic.

Unlimited Websites/Domains - So that you can start as many websites as you want.

Unlimited SQL Databases - You’ll need SQL databases for most Content Management Systems and E-commerce systems.

Unlimited E-mail - So you can have as many e-mail accounts as you want.

Latest Web Hosting Deals

I’ve rounded up the latest deals and offerings from the major hosting providers and have compiled a list for all of you. You can see that many of the hosting companies have cheap hosting but vary on the features.

Web Hosting Services	Cheapest Plan	Storage/Transfer	Features
	$4.99/Month - 6 Months Free	1,000 GB Storage Unlimited Bandwidth	Unlimited Domain Hosting Unlimited E-Mail Unlimited Databases Unlimited Everything
	$5.95/Month	600GB Storage 6,000GB Transfer	1 Free Domain Free Setup 2500 E-mail Accounts Unlimited Domain Hosting
	$9.99/Month	300 GB Storeage 3000 GB Transfer	Free Domain 100 Domain Websites 1,000 E-mail boxes 25 SQL Databases
	$4.95/Month	Unlimited Space Unlimited Transfers	Unlimited Websites/Domains Free Domain Unlimited E-mail Unlimited SQL Databases Free Setup
	$5.95/Month	Unlimited Hosting Unlimited Transfers	Unlimited Websites/Domains Free Domain Unlimited E-mail 100 SQL Databases
	$9.95/Month	300 GB Storage 3,000 Transfer	5 Free Domains 1,000 Email Accounts Unlimited Websites/Domains
	$4.99/Month	10 GB Space 300 GB Transfer	100 Free E-mail Accounts 10 SQL Databases
	$7.95/Month	Unlimited Storage Unlimited Transfer	Unlimited Websites/Domains Unlimited SQL Databases Unlimited E-mail

How to Choose a Good Web Host Conclusion

Which would I go with? Well, I currently use GoDaddy.com and have had no problems with them. However, if I was going to get new hosting, knowing what I know now, I’d go with HostRocket.Com.

Why?

GoDaddy’s hosting packages don’t provide a good value for money compared to the other hosting companies. For example, I only get 25 SQL databases and if I want more, I’d have to upgrade to a more expensive hosting package.

HostRocket.Com has a great package. It’s amongst the cheapest and pretty much has unlimited of everything (except data storage - which is 1 TB - plenty if you ask me). You can host all the websites you want and won’t have problems with data transfer or database limits.

Once I hit the limits at GoDaddy.com I will definitely get an account at HostRocket.Com.