One of the most important things to consider when making a website, is what hosting requirements you will need - this article will outline the most important things to think about.
Essentials
OK, before you start looking into the fine details, you have to write a list of the things which you ABSOLUTELY DO need - generally these will depend on what you're website is about, how many visitors you are likely to get, and such like. My essentials list was as follows: PHP4.x, MYSQL databases * 10, Statistics, POP3 mail, parked domains and sub-domains. Why are these the first things to think about? Because without them I could have as much bandwidth as I wanted, but my site wouldn't work!
Luckily, most hosts offer all these things as standard, but be sure to check - otherwise you could have paid for hosting you cannot use.
Bandwidth
This is quite possibly THE most important thing to consider once you have the essentials taken care of, why? Because if you get too many visitors, host too many files, or have an overly bloated site with lots of images, then you will either find you're site has disappeared to be replaced by a 'Bandwidth Exceeded' message, or (much worse) you could be charged a lot extra for any extra bandwidth. This has caused major problems for some sites, as if they are mentioned on a large site, and receive a massive influx of visitors it can push your hosting bill up by several thousand pounds in some cases.
The more images you have on you're site, the more bandwidth you will use, the more visitors you have, the more bandwidth you will use - its almost a catch 22 situation sometimes, whilst you always want more visitors, it can push you're costs up if you get them! All in all you need to strike a happy balance, if you're wondering infinite-fire has 40GB of bandwidth a month, and used only 12GB of this last month (September '03) - why do we have the excess - plan for the future, if you pay for bandwidth monthly, then you can afford to adjust depending on your current statistics, however you may well be paying for this convenience - if you're paying annually (like me) you can often save a notable amount simply by creative guessing!
If you're wondering, Infinite-Fire's front page is ~12KB, which allows for ~87,000 visits a month.
Space
Disk space, for some sites, is an absolute top priority, for others it is merely a bonus. For example an mp3 download site would require masses of space if it wanted to have any large scale catalogue of music, whereas a content rich news site would require very little disk space, as each page would be about 40KB, although if you have thousands of pages they can add up. If you're only running a small personal site then you probably won't need much space. Remember, however, that this space doesn't have to be used by a website - you can (as I do) use it as a means of transferring files between home and work/college.
Reputation
Reputation is an often overlooked because it is not measurable in bytes, but this may be the most important factor of all - if your website is 'down' then you can have as much space as you like and it won't make a difference. A lot of people will remember you're site for all the wrong reasons if it is down every time (which won't be often unless you're site is really good) they try to access it.
Conclusion
You should now have a little bit of a better idea of what to look for when host-hunting. The thing to remember is that it is a buyers market, and you can often get a great deal by asking at one of many forums and message boards, for example at www.webhostingtalk.com you can very often get a great deal for a knocked down price!