A lot has already been said here, so I can add one more important detail to this list for me personally. If we tell about payment - the biggest part of web hostings has a refund plan. So if you are unsatisfied - you can obtain your money back.
But this does not work for everyone, and not in all...
1) Location
2) Reliability, quality of the provider's hardware
3) Support
4) Hosting should be loyal to the hosted content
Also I pay attention to the flexibility in choosing a payment method, for me a good option is payment in a crypto.
Definitely not
Maybe for household use :)))
For business purposes - there are no really good free options
And if you find such, then I think it is impossible to avoid any pitfalls.