All businesses need websites, but getting started can be daunting. Sure, you could just communicate with your customers via Facebook, but if you're serious about doing business online, you'll want to take the plunge and sign up for a top-notch Web hosting service. Bluehost does a good job of balancing price and features for businesses that need a bit of hand-holding, while also offering plenty of options to experienced administrators. Bluehost lacks some features offered by the top services, Dreamhost and HostGator, but it's a solid service that's worth checking out.

Shared Web Hosting Packages
Bluehost doesn't offer month-to-month shared hosting options. Instead, it requires you to sign up for an annual plan. If you sign up for a two-year or three-year plan, you get discounts. If you commit to staying put for three years, the service's $3.95 per month rate is attractive. That said, those who don't want lengthy commitments will probably prefer HostGator's month-to-month options.

Bluehost's offerings are identical to HostMonster's, right down to the names of its shared Web hosting plans. Of course, the fact that Bluehost and HostMonster have the same parent company—Endurance International Group—may have something to do with that. Endurance International also owns FastDomain and iPage.

The Starter shared hosting package (from $5.99 per month with a one-year contract) includes a free domain name that you can keep as long as you use Bluehost, free domain name transfer, 100GB of storage, unlimited monthly data transfers, and the ability to host a single website. The Plus package (starting at $9.99 per month with a one-year contract) adds an antispam tool as well as unlimited storage, websites, and mailboxes. The Business Pro package (starting at $19.99 per month with a one-year contract) tops all of Bluehost's shared hosting plans with a dedicated IP address, an SSL certificate, site backup, and two antispam applications. There are a lot of options, which is great, but every time I log in to Bluehost, I'm shown an ad to purchase another service or add-on. That's annoying.

HostGator, the Editors' Choice for shared hosting, gives small- and medium-sized businesses room to expand their Web presences without the aggressive upselling. The Linux- or Windows-based Hatchling plan (starting at $7.17 per month) offers unlimited disk space, bandwidth databases, and email addresses, plus support for one domain and third-party applications, such as content management systems and e-commerce platforms. HostGator's Baby plan (starting at $7.96 per month) builds on the Hatchling offering by adding unlimited domains. The top-tier Business plan (starting at $11.96 per month) includes highly specialized options, such as a free toll-free phone number and a private SSL certificate. HostGator has a well-rounded shared Web hosting package.

Virtual Private Servers
If you need more power, expect high volumes of traffic, or have specific compliance requirements that prevent you from using shared servers, Bluehost's virtual private server (or VPS) options are worth considering.

Bluehost offers four tiers of Linux-based VPS hosting, ranging from the $29.99 per month Standard (30GB of storage, 2GB of memory, and 1TB of monthly data transfers) to the $119.99 per month Ultimate (240GB of storage, 8GB of memory, 4TB of monthly data transfers). As with the shared Web hosting plans, VPS hosting plans include discounts for longer-term contracts. Unfortunately, Bluehost doesn't offer Windows-based VPS.

Those are attractive plans, but Hostwinds—the Editors' Choice for VPS hosting—beats out Bluehost with packages that include unlimited monthly data transfers and Linux- or Windows-based server options. Don't underestimate the importance of a Windows server option. If you plan to build (or migrate) a site built on an ASP.NET framework, you'll appreciate Hostwinds's Windows-based VPS offerings.

Dedicated Servers
Bluehost has many dedicated server configurations, too. The servers start at $149 per month and can be outfitted with a Linux operating system and up to 1TB of hard drive space, 16GB of RAM, and 15TB of data transfers per month—the same specs as HostMonster. Those are solid numbers, but Arvixe$3.20 at Arvixe - Shared—the PCMag Editors' Choice for dedicated Web hosting—one-ups Bluehost with a choice of Linux and Windows operating systems and unlimited monthly data transfers.

WordPress Hosting
If you're looking to create a WordPress-powered website, consider Bluehost's four Linux-based packages: Blogger ($24.99 per month with a one-year contract), Professional ($74.99 per month with a one-year contract), Business ($119.99 per month with a one-year contract), and Enterprise ($169.99 per month with a one-year contract). These plans are of the managed WordPress variety, which means that Bluehost performs automatic site backups and protects your installation with WordPress-specifc security.

Bluehost doesn't require you to install the content management system, as it comes preinstalled. Once you're logged into WordPress, you can create posts, pages, and galleries as you would with any other self-hosted WordPress site.

Bluehost caps your site's traffic based on the number of visitors, but the caps are removed if you sign up for the high-end Enterprise plan. The Web host's storage starts at 30GB and tops out at 250GB.

1&1, the PCMag Editors' Choice for WordPress hosting, has no such traffic caps at any hosting tier. It also boasts a choice of Linux- and Windows-based servers, and a curated list of recommended WordPress themes and plug-ins.

Bluehost also lets you set up non-managed WordPress sites. When you click the control panel's WordPress icon, you're taken to the Mojo Marketplace, from which you can install the WordPress app. Like iPage, Bluehost lets you set up a fresh WordPress installation or directly import an existing one. Installation is straightforward, and you can browse through the marketplace for additional themes and applications.

Site Creation
Bluehost has a lot of tools for building sites, filtering spam, managing email, collecting site statistics, and managing domains. For building a website, you can use the WordPress content management platform, create a website using Weebly (an excellent website-builder), upload files using FTP or File Manager, or use the goMobi Mobile Web builder if you bought the add-on. Weeby's drag-and-drop functionality let me quickly build an attractive page complete with slideshows, contact forms, social media links, and more. Weebly's free version gives you basic functionality (you can create six pages and add custom HTML), but upgrading to the $8.99 per month Professional tier offers even more flexibility (custom themes, password protected pages, and more). Check out the PCMag Weebly review for a deeper dive.

You can also go to the Mojo Marketplace to download other content-management systems or site builders. It's an entirely separate interface, but if you want to expand your site's capabilities, the marketplace is a good place to start. Using Bluehost's Mojo Marketplace is a similar to running sister-site iPage's marketplace.

Email
If you have a website, you will most likely eventually want email accounts. Bluehost lets you create up to 100 email addresses with its most basic plan. Other Bluehost tiers let you create unlimited email addresses. If you think you want a lot of email addresses, consider the many alternatives that let you create unlimited email addresses with the starter plans, such as Arvixe, Dreamhost, and iPage.

Setting up an email account in Bluehost is a breeze. You don't set up an account during the Web hosting sign-up process as you do with Arvixe. Instead, you click on the email accounts icon from the control panel and create email accounts one at a time. Along with setting a password, you can also assign storage quotas or leave them as unlimited. This is fine, but I really wish more providers would provide a bulk email tool similar to what Network Solutions offers.

E-Commerce
You can grab email-marketing tools such as DaDa Mail (starting at $34.95 per year), software that lets you send email-based newsletters to a subscriber list. For an online store or the ability to accept payments, you can get e-commerce applications such as Magento, ShopSite (for shopping cart software), and TransFirst payment gateway. With Magento, I was able to create an attractive store by dragging and dropping website elements. Magento has more flexibility than ShopSite, but if you aren't looking for an elaborate online storefront, ShopSite's simpler interface may get you up and running faster. For small businesses, that time savings may be worth it.

I also like the fact that Bluehost supports PostgreSQL along with the more popular MySQL. This means I'm not limited to installing software that runs only with MySQL.

Security Features
Bluehost's security features are pleasantly surprising. It offers three antispam tools—Apache Spam Assassin, Spam Experts, and Spam Hammer—as well as hotlink protection. You can also create filters for email accounts and users, password-protect directories, create IP address blacklists, and manage private keys and digital certificates. I'm always pleased to see secure shell (SSH) access, because it means administrators have a secure way of accessing specific configuration files.

I'm impressed that Bluehost offers CloudFlare, which enhances performance and security features. If you want SSL on your site, or you are worried about distributed denial of service attacks against your site, CloudFlare is worth considering.

Rock-Solid Uptime
Website uptime is a vital element of the Web hosting experience. If your site goes down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services. For this testing, I used a website monitoring tool to track my Bluehost-hosted test site's uptime over a 30-day period. Every 15 minutes, the tool pings my website and sends me an email if it is unable to contact the site for at least one minute. The data revealed that Bluehost is incredibly stable. In fact, of the Web hosting services I've reviewed, only a handful went down less often.

Customer Service
Bluehost offers 24/7 telephone support, online Web chat, a ticket-based system, and a knowledgebase—another way Bluehost is similar to HostMonster.

I tested Bluehost's Web chat on a weekday afternoon to ask about the differences between regular Web hosting and optimized WordPress hosting. The rep quickly fielded my question. He stated that optimized WordPress Web hosting has automated site backups and is designed for highly trafficked WordPress sites. I was satisfied with his response.

I called the phone support system the following morning to ask a representative about how to import my WordPress.com setup into Bluehost. A person came to my assistance in just a few seconds, and the representative walked me through the steps. That's another win for Bluehost support.

Money-Back Guarantee
Bluehost's hosting packages come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is standard fare in the Web hosting space. That said, Dreamhost bests it with an impressive 97-day money back guarantee.

A Decent Web Host
Bluehost is a respectable and highly stable Web host that makes setting up a website a breeze. The features and the user experience are very similar to stablemate HostMonster's, and the only reason I would suggest picking Bluehost over HostMonster is because of the former's array of security options. If you are looking for a Web host that's easy to get set up and running, however, you get far more for your money with HostGator—the PCMag Editors' Choice for novice-friendly Web hosting services. And if you want a Web host that will let you grow and that is furthermore designed for more advanced users, Dreamhost—the PCMag's other overall Editors' Choice for Web hosting services—is excellent, too.