Newer or smaller online businesses usually choose shared hosting through one of the many popular online hosting providers, such as Just Host or Fat Cow. Shared and dedicated hosting providers offer a range of options for ecommerce companies, who in turn save money on software licensing, backup systems, bandwidth, and the hardware required for self-hosting.

What to Look For in an ECommerce Business Web Hosting Service Provider

Choosing a compatible web hosting solution is important because moving an existing online business to a new host can be quite complicated. Before selecting an ecommerce host, carefully consider:

1. The amount of bandwidth/data transfer included in the hosting package.

2. Reliability, speed, and at least 99% uptime.

3. Disk space (unlimited disk space is rarely required and is often used as a marketing ploy).

4. Features and facilities allowed – know your PHP, Perl, FTP, MySQL and other requirements         and ask the provider if they allow these features within their hosting package.

5. Control panel or content management access for updates, modifications, etc.

6. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) availability, to encrypt online payment processing data.

7. Shopping Cart, hosting and payment gateway compatibility.

8. 24/7 technical support (including holidays) by email, chat and telephone for maximum reliability.

9. The inclusion of email addresses, mail forwarding, and other critical online business tools.

The perfect ecommerce web host is difficult, if not impossible, to find. More expensive web hosting is not always better; carefully weigh the features, benefits, limitations and price of each option before making a selection.

FatCow is the only ecommerce web host on the Consumer Rankings Best 10 ECommerce Hosting list to offer a money-back guarantee throughout the duration of the hosting contract, as well as lifetime domain purchasing. Free set-up, multiple domains, unlimited disk space and bandwidth are all included. With 99.9% uptime and the top rated 24/7 customer service, FatCow is a great deal for a small online business.

When looking for web hosting, it is almost a requirement to check and see if the hosting company has cPanel. Short for control panel, this GUI or graphical user interface, is one of the best additions to the web hosting arena.

It makes ease of use and the learning curve for the end user quick and easy, and it is a piece of software that makes setting up and maintaining a myriad of website programs effortless and lacking in frustration.

Things like setting up mailing lists, email, cron jobs and blogs are simplified through the pictorial interaction between the web server and the webmaster who is working to set up various aspects of their Internet presence.

As a result, its popularity has steadily grown to the point where it has become second nature for most webmasters to look for hosting companies that provide cPanel as part of the package.