Originally Posted by Steve OSS

1. Reliable Network with little to no downtime (If your server is down you will loose money and your customers will not know if you are in business or not. The last thing you want to do is leave money on the table and have your business appear to be unreliable to present/potential customers. Uptime says a lot about your company and tells potential/existing customers whether or not they should do or continue to do business with you. If the uptime is higher than 99% it is good; below 99% look elsewhere.)

2. Tech support - If you have an issue, you can get hold of somebody competent to resolve (Its important that you have someone there to make sure that all technical issued are resolved in a timely manner and that your business continues to grow and operate smoothly. Its well worth paying a reasonable premium for a company that is going to make themselves available to you at your disposal)

3. Price - lowest cost possible (Affordability is important; however, the cheapest hosting company is never the best. Fact of the matter is that hosting companies need to factor in labor cost to provide the best service possible and satisfy the above two)

4. Company that?s been around for some time, not a newcomer, one that wont disappear overnight (I rate this the least important because if hosting provider cannot satisfy the above three they should not be considered).

*Many others have touched on this; other than the above, I think customization, flexibility, and options are also very important. Whether it is additional bandwidth, CPU adjustments, additional memory, upgraded drives, or additional IP addresses it?s important that a hosting company can satisfy your needs in the present and also the future as your business grows and needs change.