I forgot to mention ImHosted.com in my post the other day about reliable and affordable web hosting. ImHosted has been one of my favorite hosting providers for awhile now so I’m going to talk about them at length today to make up for the foolish oversight of last week.

ImHosted.com is well-known for their reliable and stellar customer service. Customer satisfaction is the top priority at ImHosted. They’re so concerned with their user experience that they’re more than willing to help their customers with a variety of tasks such as troubleshooting scripts, setting up domain transfers or whatever is required to keep your site up and running.

Over the years they’ve won dozens and dozens of industry awards including the following Web Host Directory Awards: #1 Budget Hosting, #1 Ecommerce Hosting, #1 Reseller Hosting and #1 Unix Hosting. ImHosted.com has won the top award in four of the most important categories in web hosting.

ImHosted offers a variety of solutions at very affordable prices. For smaller sites or customers newer to the Internet they offer Shared Web Hosting which is perfect for personal sites and websites for small businesses. If you’re looking to run an online store they also offer a Ecommerce Web Hosting package that will get you up and selling your goods online in less than 24 hours. If you run a large network of websites, check out ImHosted’s Unlimited Domain Hosting. Also known as the Gold Plan, Unlimited Domain Hosting allows you to hows an unlimited number of domain names under one account. Finally, there is the Advance Hosting solution for sites that need more horsepower and technology than your average web site.

Aside from the hosting solutions listed above, ImHosted.com also offers a handful of other services for people running their businesses online. They can provide you with E-mail Hosting that includes POP/SMTP services, spam protection and more. If you need an online store or backup plan, check out their Online Data Storage (ODS) service. ODS gives you a web-browser accessible means of storing your files safely and securely online. This is a great way to access your files from wherever you are in the world, regardless of whether or not you have your usual computer with you.

I know that’s a lot to take in all at once but if you’re looking for a new hosting provider you’ll want to give ImHosted a look. They offer even more features than what I’ve listed here.

As a freelance web developer, I’m constantly on the look out for quality, low cost web hosting. One of the best ways I’ve found to find good information is to read web hosting reviews posted online by actual customers. These reviews tend to be honest, sometimes brutally so, and can save you a lot of hassle and pain when it comes to choosing a web host. Customers who aren’t satisfied with the hosting and service they received will never be afraid to share their feelings about their experience.

I’ve read a lot of these web hosting reviews in my time and there are several hosts that routinely seem to get some of the best reviews.

HostMonster seems to always be at the top of the list when it comes to the best-rated web hosts. They offer some of the most reliable service and uptime for costs that are right at or slightly better than the industry standard.

Another popular choice amongst web developers is BlueHost. BlueHost is a web hosting company that has been around since 1996. That’s almost the same year I first got into creating websites actually. It should come as no surprise that a company that’s been in this game that long would come highly recommended by its customers.

A lot of people who run personal blogs have some kind of contact form their visitors can use to get in touch. This is a growing trend on corporate blogs as well. The purpose is to make it easy for people to offer you customer feedback and comments without having to bother using their email clients. It also cuts down on spam by not making your email address available to the public.

The problem with a simple contact form is that they do not promote customer relationship management very easily. It’s essentially just a one way conversation without any real means of getting a sense of what your site or blog’s community really wants. There’s where tools like SuggestionBox come into play.

With SuggestionBox, you can quickly and easily setup a means for customer relationship marketing needs. Your customers and visitors can quickly offer you feedback on your site or product using the site’s simple interface. The best part is that SuggestionBox handles all of this without you having to install or configure any software.

If you’re looking for a better way to interact with your customers on your site or blog, and you aren’t happy with a simple contact form, you should give SuggestionBox a look.

It’s pretty obvious that I’m in favor of using WordPress to create a website. It’s slowly turning into a viable content management solution for sites of all shapes and sizes: blogs (of course), static content sites, brochures, interactive social sites, and more. Unfortunately, there’s still quite a hill to climb for less technically inclined folks looking for an easy solution to build their own site.

The secret on how to build a website when you have no technical knowledge to speak of is to find a quality website builder, like the one available from BuildYourSite.com, that offers an affordable site building program at a low price.

In less than ten minutes, a new user to BuildYourSite can have their very own website up and running without any technical knowledge whatsoever. This is in stark contrast to WordPress where the concept of databases, installation and themes has to be understood before you can really get going with the program. The increasing rise of one-click installs of WordPress on web hosts may one day eliminate this hurdle.

BuildYourSite comes with over 4,000 easy to install and customize templates for your website. They’ll even register a domain name for you at no cost. All of this for under $10 a month seems more than reasonable. Check it out if you’re looking for a simple website builder.

If you’re serious about starting a blog, and using WordPress to operate and maintain it, then finding the best possible hosting solution is going to be key. Unfortunately, the world of web hosting is a large and confusing one full of over-marketed service providers promising you the world and delivering you nothing but problems. That’s why great sites like Web Hosting Rating are so important.

The goal for the staff at Web Hosting Rating is to build the largest searchable listing of web hosts on the web. Not only do they offer just a general directory of hosts but they also include details on the plans they provide, any discount or promotional coupons the hosts are offering and, most importantly, honest reviews from actual customers.

Another great feature of their site are the articles and web hosting tutorials that they offer visitors. They cover all sorts of topics including: reseller web hosting, dedicated servers, shared hosting and security issues. While none of these articles are specific to a particular host this is a great resource for those of you new to web hosting. By spending some time reading through these articles and tutorials you’ll be better prepared to select the right hosting solution for your new blog. There are even articles that specifically mention WordPress.

One last section of the site you should check out is the collection of web hosting awards. If you’re not interested in spending a lot of time doing your own research you can visit the awards section and see which hosting provider is recommended for particular niches like “Best Budget Hosting” or “Best Blog Hosting.” This is a nice collection of web hosts for people short on time but I still recommend everyone does their own due diligence before selecting their web host.

It’s important to make the right web hosting decision at the start of your blog. If you encounter problems with your hosting after you begin blogging it’s going to be a pain to switch to a new host.