Reliability is KEY!

Basically, reliability in this instance means your website is up and
running as much as possible. I don’t want to blast any hosts in the
guide, but when I started out we had hosting with a certain
company, and our uptime in North America was great, but thanks to
an overseas friend we realized our site was constantly offline in
Europe and Australia.

This was a big hit to us, because England and Australia make up a
nice chunk of English speaking population, and was an area we
targeted with our Google Ads.

How can you possibly know if a web host is reliable or not?
Research is the only way. You need to be doing Google searches
and finding reviews for each host you are considering.

Google searches for hosting information, can be tough because so
many hosting affiliates dominate the top of Google. A lot of it will
come down to common sense, with enough practice you will be
able to figure out what reviews are promotional. One thing to keep
in mind is Forum or Message Board threads that come up in searches are often less promotional and more of a consumers point
of view. Perfect for your needs.
There are also some tools online that can help you test reliability. The
first tool:

http://www.whoishostingthis.com/

This website won’t actually tell you what hosts are reliable or not, BUT
if you know of a website that is never down and fast loading - you
can actually enter that site and find out who hosts it. This can be a
good way of finding potential hosts.

Another way to ensure reliability is to find web hosts with uptime
guarantees. You will often find 99% uptime guarantees, and even
99.9%, 99.99% and 99.999%. Now some might find that to be a
marketing ploy, but over the course of a year even a less than 1%
uptime boost can make a difference.

If your potential host claims a certain uptime guarantee, then make
sure they offer regular ”Uptime Reports”. This is something that will
either be stated on their site, or you might have to ask the support
before you purchase.

Once you have bought your hosting, you should still monitor
reliability. http://www.uptimerobot.com/

Above is a website that will help you monitor your website’s uptime.
It is free and you can get notified of any down time via text
message, email or Twitter!
If your site is down too often - change hosts!