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If you're looking for plenty of options - options like dedicated servers, virtual machines, cloud hosting and scalable limits - you're going to need to pay for a subscription to premium website hosting. If you're a little confused about the ins and outs of getting that done, this article hopes to clear a little of that confusion up.

There are four kinds of premium hosting that most services will sell to you:

• Traditional, shared-server web hosting, where you'll be buying space on a single server that exists physically somewhere else and hosts numerous websites other than your own.
• A dedicated server, which means that the physical machine on which your website is stored is used only by you and your site. Doing it this way will give you the option of deciding which kind of operating system your website is hosted with, as well as a few other options.
• Virtual server accounts are a sort of halfway house option. There's only one machine, and several websites are hosted on it - but it's been set up with 'partitions', which means that from a software perspective there is more than one server on the same machine. You can choose your OS and you'll have the same extra security you'd get from a separate machine, but you won't get the space and speed benefits that come with a truly dedicated server.
• Cloud hosting, on the other hand, means that you have more than one server - sometimes dedicated, sometimes not - all dealing with the workload of serving your website at once. This is by far the most stable and secure option, though also the most expensive.

The Kinds Of Features You'll Find On Offer

Once you've decided on the kind of machine you want to use, you'll need to think about the options you're going to want to take with the package you're paying for from your server host or web host. Here's a list of some of the things it's worth considering while you're comparing different hosts.

• Will there be a setup fee, or is the cost of setting up included in the total cost?
• How much disk space does this package offer, and how much do you realistically need? Buying too little can result in an unstable, unusable website that loses you a lot of money in customer profits - but buying too much can be needlessly wasteful and expensive.
• Is there enough bandwidth to support the amount of use your website is likely to see?
• Which options are included for buying your own domain name, how flexible can the host be about domain name options, and will you be able to take the name with you if you leave?
• Is the data transfer speed reasonable, and is it going to be quick enough to satisfy your website's visitors? This is especially important for websites that people will need to download things from, like videos or images - but it's worth considering for all sites.
• How good is the server's uptime record? 100% uptime is impossible unless you're using a large, dedicated cloud server and happen to get lucky, but all servers should offer at least 99.5% uptime - don't go with any company whose uptime is less than that.
• Do you understand the features offered by your host for creating and uploading your website, and are they powerful enough to enable you to create the website you want?
• If you're running an eCommerce website, you should consider the apps available from your host for account creation, virtual shopping cart handling and secure checkout. Are they going to be convenient, safe and powerful enough to do everything you need from them?
• What kind of statistics about your site's traffic and data transfer will be available from the host once the site is up and running? This is vital information for any site owner.
• Are you going to be provided with email accounts from your domain? If so, will those accounts come with SMTP support, spam protection and a webmail interface?
• Does this site host offer support for Perl, MySQL, PHP and other popular web programming scripts, and will you be able to do everything you need to do with them?
• Many web hosts offer a content management system - usually either WordPress, Joomla, Wiki or Drupal, though there are plenty of others. Do you like the CMS on offer, and how good is the support provided while you're trying to learn how to use it properly?
• Is the customer support decent, and is there a toll-free number to call that will allow you to speak to a human being voice-to-voice as well as a text-based support service?