Understanding how and where to host your website is very important to succeeding online. There are many options for hosting this facility. This review will cover the information you need to know. Read on for an explanation of how to perform this task and the full benefits to be gained by hosting your own online site.

Firstly, you build all the pages that will form your website and then you need a facility to present this website on the Internet. This is where web hosting comes in. The web host or web server is the facility that stores your website through an ongoing connection to the Internet so that your web pages will always be available on request when someone clicks on your weblink.

There are many web/domain hosting options available and just as many web hosting companies. However, the options boil down to whether you want free or paid web hosting. Both have their positives and negatives. The obvious benefit of a free hosting service is that it's free. But there is a catch. The majority of free web hosts require you to have advertising on your website so ultimately they make something out of the service. This has the potential to detract from your overall website and may also be a turn-off to visitors to your site. Another handicap is that you may find a limit in the amount of file space and bandwidth you are allowed.

On the other hand, paid hosting costs can be considerable but little or no advertising is required depending on the subscription fees. Generally you will get a better hosting package if you are prepared to pay for it. But be wary and don't pay too much for the service. You will find that the amount of file space and bandwidth are superior with paid hosting and you have the additional benefit of free sub-domains and blog features along with web creation, e-commerce and other tools included in the deal. This is part of what you gain when you learn "how to host your website".

You will find that the cost of hosting a website can vary. However, most people find that their website requirements would be a capacity to host a website of up to 20 pages of information including graphics and reasonable to moderate levels of traffic through the website. You will find you can get these requirements for between $US115 and $170 - $US180 per year. Most people would use no more than the following options:

• Up to 5 e-mail accounts;

• The forward e-mails to e-mail account at your ISP;

• Check out your bandwidth your site uses command; and

• View visitor statistics for previous months.

This level of provision should be adequate for most peoples personal or even business needs.

You will find that all the necessary information on hosting your website will be sent when you sign-up with the web hosting provider service. This should include the following:

• How to set up email accounts and configure email clients to receive email.

• How to upload your site using File Transfer Protocol

• Setting up Microsoft FrontPage

• Important information on how to setup and manage your domain.

It will be relatively easy to set up your web hosting service and it will be worth it long term. I would advise you to consider taking advantage of web hosting so you can use it to your personal or business advantage.