Web hosting is an area where too many mistakes can be made at the start. Most web hosting companies are fine. I haven’t yet come across a web hosting company that is better than fine. The reason for this is economies of scale. I have not found or used any company that would be small enough to give personal attention, however I would not feel safe dealing with a company of that size in this market. I like the idea that my web hosting company is large and strong and not going to give me a problems by folding and disappearing – that would be too much trouble. I always have current copies of all sites, but there are domain names to consider.
For a small business site web hosting should cost no more than €50 or €60, often less.
Don’t expect them to hand hold you setting up FTP or email.
If you site is country specific, it is a good idea to have the hosting in that country – for optimisation reasons.
Make sure they offer PHP and MySQL databases for FREE. This is average and although you may not need either at the beginning chances are you will if you ever do business through your site or if you need a company blog at any time in the future.
If you know little about hosting take advice – your web designer or your SEO marketer will know the answers, and keep in mind the above when talking to them.