Many popular scripts like Wordpress and Joomla need one MySQL database. Database is storage for the content of your pages. Usually you will need only one, but you should check this first. It is a good idea to have a hosting plan which offers more than one database because sooner or later you will install some new script and you will need a Interserver testing database.
Try to avoid companies that have just been established. Let others do the testing for you. It's wiser to choose those web hosting providers, that already have lots of customers and have received many positive reviews. That usually costs more, but you will always know that you get what you pay for.
Uptime. If your site's server is off-line, your business is more info off line. And, if you happen to get spidered while your site is "down," guaranteed you're going to get slammed by Google. Search engines don't send users to inaccessible sites. So what do you look for? How about an uptime that exceeds 99.9%? How about uptime of 100%? You're site is always up, even when the power is down in your server location!
However, like most things that are for free, you get what you pay for. In other words, if you pay nothing, you will also get nothing. This may sound harsh, but free web hosting actually does more damages than good. In the end, instead of feeling relieved that you were able to enjoy free hosting services, you will feel remorseful instead.
When it comes to uploading files from your local computer to the web hosting server, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is number one tool of choice. This is a must for every hosting plan. Look for hosting companies that include plenty of FTP accounts in your hosting plan.
Another point to note is that shared hosting can hurt your website's SEO rankings. Experts believe that if you have a site which shares the same server and ip address as a Google penalized site, your site also suffers as a result. The obvious way to avoid this is to host your site or sites on a separate ip address which will mean a dedicated server of a Virtual Private Server.