You can choose a cheap affordable web hosting provider provided that you are not setting up a website that requires heavy usage of resources like CPU time, storage space or network bandwidth. Do look at the Terms Of Service with the Hosting provider. The Terms Of Service is usually located at the bottom of the web page.
Customer service has to be looked into, seriously many providers think that because they offer cheap Shared Web Hosting UK that they don't need to support their users to a high standard. BS, you paid them for a service so they should damn well provide it. The truth is many webmasters encounter difficultie and at these times they need the support of their hosting provider. Ignore the importance of customer support and you will regret it.
Shared Web Hosting UK is a kind of platform that will experience growth. Therefore, you need to find a company that allows that growth and not limit you from it. A good provider will have certain solutions for a consumer when the time comes. This is known as upgrades. Websites needs to upgrade their bandwidth, disk space and so on and it is important to get that service. This should be available without huge fees but affordable.
However, when you think deeply about it, it all sounds too good to be true. Perhaps you have seen web hosting services being offered for as low as $1.00 a month --- doesn't this blow your mind? Some people say that when the offer is too good to be true, it most likely is --- too good to be true.
This is why I prefer Affordable Web Hosting plans. They give you more control of your website. If your site doesn't generate traffic right away you will not have to worry about having your web hosting service cancelled with no warning. You will also be given more tools to help grow your website and make your site more user friendly. Reliability is also something you get with paid hosting. They want to keep you as a customer so they will do more to keep you satisfied. Free web hosting can be crappy on purpose in hopes that you will upgrade to the paid service so you might as well get an affordable web hosting plan that fits your needs.
Special characters: Try to avoid the special characters in the name, like hyphens. This is hard for the user to remember and there are chances that the user is redirected to another website.
Webmasters are always asking about web hosts on webmaster forums. Find a few recent threads, and note who gets the most votes. Search engines, on the other hand, have been spammed by some hosts. If you do a search on 'the best web hosts' or 'top 10 web hosts' you'll get puff pages. Recent opinions from professional webmasters are the best.