Your web host is the company that actually houses your website.
While it is possible to host your own website using a computer
in your home or office, it is cheaper and easier for new website
owners to work with an established web hosting company. When
choosing your web hosting company, you should consider three
issues:

• Price - Generally speaking you should be
  able to find a good shared hosting plan for somewhere between $5
  and $30 per month.
• Hosting Technologies - There are
  different types of server technologies, and a number of “add-on”
  software products that some web hosting companies bundle into
  their offerings. Generally speaking, the more software that is
  included in your plan, the higher the price for your hosting
  services.
• Support - Depending on your level of
  sophistication in dealing with web technologies, you may want to
  consider paying a bit extra for a hosting company that provides
  better support packages. Of course, if you have a friend or
  family member that has skills in this area, or you are planning
  to hire a custom website designer or developer, then you can
  probably forgo paying extra for support.

When you are starting out with a new website, your primary
concern with a web hosting company is going to be price. You do
not need to pay a lot of money for extra bandwidth or other
frills. By the time you need extra bandwidth, you will have the
income stream to pay for it.

Web Hosting Technologies

Your primary concern with web hosting technologies is to make
sure that the host you select supports the software you plan to
use to create and serve your web pages. You will also need to
make sure that any additional functionality you wish to include
in your website is supported by the hosting company.

• Server Technologies - You will need to make sure that your
  hosting company supports whatever server technologies you will
  require for your site. For new site owners this is usually not
  an issue since your web pages will be programmed in HTML that is
  supported by all web-serving technologies. However, if you are
  hiring a contract web developer to create a database-driven web
  application using PHP, ASP, JSP, or ColdFusion, then you should
  make sure your hosting company supports whatever language your
  developer is using. If you have questions, you can probably have
  them answered by the sales or support line for your prospective
  hosting company.
• Development Technologies - If you are using
  Microsoft FrontPage to develop your website, then you will need
  to select a web hosting company that supports FrontPage
  extensions. If you are unsure about whether your web host
  supports your development software, then the sales
  representative or support line should be able to answer your
  questions.
• E-commerce/Shopping Cart System - If you plan to
  sell products on your website, then you will want to select a
  web hosting company that offers a shopping cart system. Most
  shopping cart systems are customizable for your website.
  However, you may want to hire a seasoned developer to handle
  implementing your system to make sure everything goes smoothly.

• CGI/Perl Scripts - The most useful CGI script for new
  websites is for creating “email forms”. These allow you to
  collect information from your users via web forms and send it to
  yourself via email without paying the premiums required for
  developing a database driven website. Some hosting companies
  offer these scripts, while others do not. It is generally
  recommended to work with hosting companies that support these
  types of forms because collecting information from users is one
  of the primary purposes of most websites.

Different
Ways of Hosting Your Site

It is generally recommended that you purchase web hosting from
an established web hosting company. There are, however, several
options for web hosting.

• Shared Hosting - This is the
  recommended starting point for most websites. With a shared
  hosting plan, your site shares a server with a number of other
  sites. By far the cheapest way to get a site started, shared
  hosting is ideal for low-volume, low-bandwidth sites. Pricing
  for these types of plans can be anywhere from about $5 to $30
  per month. You have zero involvement in maintaining the server
  or it’s software. All you have to worry about is your website.
  The negatives about Shared Hosting are that you are limited in
  bandwidth, and you are potentially affected by other web sites
  on the server. If one of the other sites on the server suddenly
  received a lot of traffic, your site’s performance will be
  affected. It should be noted, however, that this is rarely a
  problem for most hosts.
• Dedicated Web Server - Once your
  site starts getting a significant volume of traffic (i.e. more
  than 3,000 unique visitors per day), you may want to think about
  moving up to a Dedicated Web Server. This is where your site is
  the only site on the server. The benefits of this sort of server
  are that you can generally specify what software is loaded onto
  the machine, you have access to 100% of it’s capacity and
  bandwidth, and you are not affected by other sites on the
  server. On the negative side, you will pay much more for this
  sort of service. Depending on the capabilities of the machine
  and the software that is loaded on it, you can easily spend well
  over $100 per month.
• Rack Space - Leasing rack space
  provides web site owners with the maximum level of flexibility
  and security by allowing site owners to purchase whatever
  hardware and software is appropriate. On the other hand, you are
  responsible for purchasing, installing and maintaining your own
  server. If your server goes down in the middle of the night, the
  hosting staff will generally reboot the machine for you (for a
  fee), but you will be responsible for making sure everything is
  working correctly. Web servers can easily cost $10,000 for
  hardware and software, plus you will have additional fees from
  your hosting company for bandwidth and other services. This sort
  of option makes the most sense for companies getting thousands
  of hits per day, or for those that require highly specialized
  server-side applications that must be custom configured.

• On-Site Hosting - By far the most expensive option, on-site
  hosting requires that you are very familiar with maintaining web
  servers and are available to fix problems 24 hours per day and
  365 days per year. With this option, you are your own hosting
  company, and you pay not only for the server(s), software, and
  technical support, but also for T1 lines, DNS services and other
  complex issues that are generally out of reach for small
  start-up businesses. The most compelling reason to host your own
  website is for security reasons. Sites such as transaction
  processing companies, online banks, or other online services
  that need to be able to audit their security measures for one
  reason or another generally choose this option.

Some web-hosting companies will handle mapping your domain name
to their servers, while others will instruct you on how to do it
yourself.

In conclusion, you can get a website up and running for as
little as $60 per year. The more bandwidth (website traffic) you
require, the more you are going to pay. You will also pay more
for higher levels of service, support, and software. You should
make sure your web host supports your development software and
any server technologies you are using. In addition, highly
specialized sites, sites with large amounts of traffic, and
those required to maintain certain security standards may
warrant dedicated servers that cost more than shared hosting
plans.