I think that there are a lot of things to consider for a good hosting company. Perhaps scalability and support are two of the biggest. Can the company support your unique technical needs? Can they get back to you in a time frame that is acceptable for you? Not everybody needs a 2 minute response time - personally, i'd rather have something done right than have it done right away. Additionally, I'd look to see if you can grow with the host and what other services they provide as part of their solution set.
- can you go to a dedicated solution or colocate your own server there down the road?
- can you run ecommerce software on the server or do they provide their own - ie credit card processing, shopping cart, etc..
- do they provide a knowledge base of information to help you in your web and html needs?
- do they provide you with marketing tips and Search Engine help?
Hope that helps
