When you are building an online business, reliable web hosting is one of the things you are going to have to have. Companies like Bluehost, Hostgator, and Dreamhost will usually do the trick for most web businesses, but make sure they can handle the 6 things below.

1. Your website is where your business resides — it’s like the headquarters of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practice good design principles to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and sells to as many people as possible.

2. Make Navigation Simple. — The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.

3. Cut back on the photos — They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.

4. Have a lot of short paragraphs instead a few long ones — Imagine coming to a web page that has 500 words on it, but it is only broken up into 3 paragraphs. If you are like me, I’m out of there. It’s too hard to read. Shorter paragraphs are easier to read and they allow for the visitor to at least skim through the content, which is better than leaving.

5. Firefox and Internet Explorer have got to be able to show your site — Their are others for sure, but these seem to be the most popular one’s at the moment. You are going to want to make sure that your site works the same in both. Go to w3.org and double check.

6. Stay Away from Scripts — Using heavy script will, fir sure, slow down your site’s loading time. Remember this as well, not all scripts are compatible with all browsers. So, if you have some important info wrapped in a script, it may show up on Explorer. but ot Firefox. Not good for you.

Hang with some basic web design principles and you will be well on your way of creating a professional website.

Next time buy anything online, be sure to check Bill D. Sheers awesome free articles on Google web hosting and a host of other affordable web hosting services.