It seems like everyone has a website these days, whether for personal reasons or to support a business or an organization. Also, by promoting online affiliate programs (131 hits), you can earn extra cash from your personal blogs/websites. There are so many options when it comes to webhosting that it can become overwhelming. The type of website you are building can narrow the search down but there are still thousands of hosts and multiple ways to get your presence on the web.

If you are new to the whole website world and just want to be visible on the web, a free host might be for you. This way you can learn how to get started and play around in the proverbial sandbox. Sites like Geocities still offer free websites with modest bandwidth and space in exchange for an ad placed on your pages. If you are more computer savvy, you can find a free shell account that will host your website but you need to know a little bit of Unix and have some computer knowledge.

For business owners, the question isn't whether to have a website but rather how to set one up. You have a few types of hosting to choose from depending on what your needs are. A small business or personal website would be fine with a shared host. This route is simple to set up and the prices are very affordable. For as little as $5 per month, you can have your site up and running with decent bandwidth and disk space. Bigger companies might prefer a virtual private server (VPS) or even dedicated hosting. A VPS is shared with only a few other websites and you get your own server inside a server to run. With dedicated hosting, you get your very own server that you have full access to, but the downside is that you have to handle any problems that come up.

If you are paying for a webhost there are some other key features it should have. Many hosts have a web interface that you can manage your website from, including a file uploader. However, you will want FTP access to transfer files much quicker and easier. Make sure you have access to robots.txt so you can specify which pages will be crawled by search engines. Also, you need access to .htaccess so you can set up error pages such as 404. Any good host should have a good stats package so you can see where your hits come from and logs which should be archived and available 24/7. If you have multiple websites, you might want to look into a reseller account which can save you money and even make you money if you sell any hosting packages.

Every webhost and potential webmaster is different, so make sure you do your research and know exactly what you will need when shopping for a host. Before you know it, you'll have your own space on the web.

Related: Interested? Learn More Read: Establishing Your web presence (90 hits)