There are thousands of web hosting companies — the services that essentially connect your site to the internet. So how does an entrepreneur choose the one that’s right for his or her business?

To ensure that your hosting company supports your business needs and doesn’t create unnecessary hurdles to your website’s success, you first need to understand the major types of hosting. Then, consider some basic criteria to help choose the best plan for you.

Types of web hosting plans: As you begin shopping for a web hosting plan, you’ll encounter a number of different types, including the following options:

Individual plans. These are the most affordable options. As an example, Hosting Bangladesh.co, Dhaka InfoTech‘s introductory package starts at just BDT. 300 a year for a year package. Typically, these plans provide hosting support for a single domain only and may limits the features, bandwidth and data storage. So, they are often best suited to beginning webmasters who don’t anticipate significant traffic or special needs for their websites.

Customer reviews. Customer reviews can be an excellent resource in evaluating web hosts because any fly-by-night host can put up a professional-looking sales page and make bold promises. Search for multiple reviews from current or past customers because a single positive review could have originated from the company’s own marketing department.

Customer support. Whether you’re a beginning webmaster or a more experienced digital business owner, you’ll want a dependable customer support team behind your web hosting plan. Things can and will go wrong on your website’s backend, but getting support when you need it can go a long way toward minimizing any potential damage to your business.

Look for companies that provide 24/7 phone support, email access and online chat. Before committing to a plan, test out each of these features to get a feel for how well your needs will be met.

Storage and bandwidth allowances. As more hosting plans begin offering unlimited disk space and bandwidth, this may not be a concern for your business. But it’s still important to be aware of any limitations to ensure that your plan has enough space for your website to operate effectively.

Script support. One final consideration is the hosting company’s built-in support for popular web scripts. Say, for example, you want to run WordPress on your website. Some hosts offer built-in script packages that make the installation of this popular blogging platform a breeze. Other hosts limit the number of MySQL databases that can be created, which you’ll need to run WordPress and other programs.