I wrote about choosing the right web hosting partner for your web business a moment ago, and through this post, I would like to take you to focus on how to look for recommended web hosting partner.

As you might already know, there are so many choices of web hosting today. I ended up changing web hosts several times during my journey in online business, just to waste valuable resources – time and money, that is.

Of course, a web host is better than the other in some ways, but choosing and testing each one randomly would not be the best way, and would not be fair for your business website visitors.

Moreover, doing so might damage your online business reputation, especially in term of website reliability, simply due to the fact that changing web hosting will cause your business website to be temporarily unavailable. And you don’t want that to happen often.

There are better ways.

You need to look for recommendation from the Internet, such as web hosting rating websites and personal blogs, to give you insights on what people think of their choice of web hosting.

Browsing for web hosting recommendations

The best way to choose the web hosting partner for your business is to look for recommendations from the Internet. Here is a tip or two on how to look for the best web hosting partner for you.

1. Personal blogs
   You can read what bloggers recommend from their own first-hand experience. Some giving honest reviews (and critics), some doing affiliate marketing – but all in all, bloggers are one of the best source for ‘unedited’ comments of a product!
2. Tutorial websites
   Webmaster tutorial websites is your source for web developing-related tutorials, including web hosting tutorials. Let the expert recommend you their choices of web hosting.
3. Award websites
   Award website, a website that do the-best-of… lists voted by site visitors, is often a good source for recommended sites. In term of web hosting, look for a particular website that host web hosting awards to give you an idea on what is best for your web business.
4. Social media
   Social media, such as Digg, is often your best bet for non-direct web hosting recommendation. Look for stories about web hosting that are voted by many members (usually indicated by a number on the story’s side – the larger the count, the better), then read the stories about web hosting that might interest you.
5. Forums
   Threads and posts in forums, especially webmaster forums, are also your source of opinions and reviews – including on web hosting. A place of some of the honest and harshest review, forums are where web hosting services stake their reputation.
6. Web hosting rating and review websites
   This type of website contains either the website owners’ recommendation or user votes. It usually is an affiliate of web hosting companies that allow visitors to read the recommendation and join the services they want directly through the site.
7. Add your list here by leaving a comment on this post :)

Ivan Widjaya
Web hosting recommendation