There are literally hundreds of web hosting companies with multiple hosting plans vying for your business. While most are good and will do an adequate or better job of hosting your site, there are a number of considerations to make when looking at various companies.
For most web sites, shared hosting provides the most cost effective solution to web hosting. While the basic hosting is just that, each offer many different features and incentives. Before even looking at a hosting service, it is a good idea to thoroughly assess your present and future needs. For example, an ecommerce site will require much more in the way of storage and features than a personal or hobby site. If you will be hosting multiple domains or sub-domains, you need to know if a given company will support them without additional charges. Plans may include basic shopping carts, free domain registrations, multiple scripting options, etc. The list is endless, but the first order of business is to develop some criteria based on what you need right now and what you may require in the future. Its always possible to switch companies in the future, but much easier to get it as right as possible the first...