Choosing the correct web hosting package, from the best web hosting company is an important step in developing your website.

First off, if you have an existing website, you will no doubt know whether or not your website runs any Server Side Scripting, such as PHP, ASP or ASP.Net.

For PHP, you will generally want to be looking for a hosting package that runs on the Linux operating system, and you may typically also require access to a MySQL database.

If your website runs ASP, or ASP.Net, you will need a Microsoft Windows hosting environment, and may require access to a SQL Server database.

You should not choose a web hosting package simply by price.

Performance and Extendability are key considerations.

Your website may be of paramount importance to you or your company, so you will want to achieve high levels of availability and speed.

In terms of extendability, carefully assess whether your website requires, or may require in the the future, access to any additional server features or components.

For example, your site may use server side Email components, such as Jmail, or Image Processing components, such as Persits ASPJpeg, which may not feature as standard on budget hosting offerings.

Another important point worth noting is that if your site does not have UK Web Hosting, then your site may not show up in UK Only search listings on Google and other Search Engines.

Having UK based hosting could prove be the catalyst to your SEO campaign.

Web Hosting often comes hand-in-hand with Email Hosting. You should research what types of Email services your hosting firm will be able to offer you for your domain name.

A simple solution could be Email Forwarding: forwarding email from your domain name to an existing email account, such as your Outlook, Yahoo! or Google Mail mailbox.

Hosting providers will also offer POP3, IMAP and Exchange mailbox types.

A Microsoft Exchange email box is an advanced mailbox type that can be read both via Microsoft Office Outlook on your desktop, and remotely via Outlook Web Access.

Microsoft Exchange emails will typically be backed-up by your hosting provider, on their servers, for added confidence.

For most web hosting needs, especially for Dot Net websites, I now recommend 'Cloud' Hosting with Microsoft Azure, either on their managed App Service, or on a Virtual Machine.

I can recommend Office 365 for robust professional email provision.