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Customer Service
While we've covered some of technical basics, we can't forget that web hosting is as much a customer service industry as it is a technical product. When something goes wrong with your hosting, be it a loss of connectivity, server crash or any business you need to conduct with them, such as upgrading a package or sorting out a payment mistake. If anything like this occurs, you're going to want to be dealing with a company that has good customer service.
Finding a company with exceptional customer service is important, but what does that really mean? Well first of all problems can occur 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Then there's the question of exactly who you're getting in touch with when you put in a support call. What are their turnaround times? There are lots of questions that you'll have to ask and compare those answers with the experiences that others have had with hosts as well.
All this customer service will cost money though. That means you have to balance your true needs with your resources. While we all want to get instant fixes to our problems with a simple phone call, that will cost you. If you're generating little to no revenue from your website, you can find very cheap hosting, but the host may only respond to problems by e-mail with a 24-48 hour turnaround. Once again, balance your needs and your resources.
This concludes our brief introduction to web hosting. Most factors that guide your hosting choice will fall under technology or customer service. Both are very important to explore. For most explorative startup projects, a simple, inexpensive hosting package is often more than enough. As your revenue streams grow, so should your investment in your hosting package. Upgrade your hardware when you must but make upgrading your service contract a higher priority.