Web hosting is big business. Nearly every modern business seeks a web host to securely handle its online traffic flow and web content. Web hosts offer valuable resources that many businesses do not have the means to obtain or maintain
on their own. From ecommerce to bandwidth, a good web host can handle even the largest website needs for an established or growing business.

Website hosting doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

There are 3 elements of costs:
1. Domain name registration
This is usually a small annual charge, from $10-30, depending on the options chosen.

2. Web site hosting
Typically a monthly charge from $10 upwards, depending on the capacity and facilities required

3. Web site development and support
This is highly variable depending on the scope and purpose of the website, and the website development technology used.

A few web hosts offer a domain name for free. Some ISP's even offer free webspace, but this will have only basic capabilities, little space and retain little permanency. This can be useful for beginners though.

Not every web host is 100% reliable. Big business can't take the risk of downtime and needs a dependable web host who guarantees to always be running smoothly. Most businesses pay for their domain hosting each month and carefully monitor their use of the web host's resources.

Web hosts offer websites of various sizes. The more space available for a website, the more capacity for web pages and the information they can contain. Since not every business has employees who know how to program pages or
create intricate layouts with wonderfully arranged graphics, many businesses seek a web host that offers pre-made templates with easy to follow insertions that quickly
load new information. Another resource that many businesses want from a web host involves tracking visitor's movements inside their site. For this reason, many web hosts sell accompanying web statistic packages. Ecommerce is a wonderful resource needed to ensure that visitors can communicate with the website company, ask for
help, place orders or request information such as newsletter via email.

A business that wishes to design its own website needs also to understand which software is compatible with the web host's arrangements. Can you use a FTP program such as FTP Voyager? Are you to stick with FrontPage? How you
download your business' pages can be different from web host to web host. For instance, is there a particular file structure you need to adopt for your domain? Are there specific extensions which require to be used for tracking?

Learning to maintain your business' website can be elementary or highly complicated depending on the facilities provided by your web host, and the web development software you adopt. While many secretaries can learn to maintain web content after some beginner training sessions, some websites require a computer programmer onsite or additional support services from a web host.

Copyright 2005 Benny Pendle. All rights reserved.