In today’s online world there are billions of websites. Each and every one of these websites, whether they are dedicated to blogging, sports, software, Pokemon or Jessica Simpson, all have one thing in common: web hosting.

Web hosting is provided by companies far too numerous to name, with products and services individualized to match the needs of their individual niche markets. With so many web hosting companies to choose from, and each one of them providing different services and options at different prices, how do know which one to choose? It seems overwhelming at first, but once you can identify with what it is you want to do with your website, you can start to narrow down the choices of web hosting companies quite a bit.

Before signing up with a web hosting provider, ask yourself a couple questions:

• What is it exactly that you want your site to do?
• Will you be hosting a blog or forum?
• Will you be selling products and services?
• Will you just be putting up pictures and news about friends and family?
• How do you want to administer your website?
• Do you want to make changes online in real time?
• Do you want to make changes offline so you can upload them to the server later?
• What software do you want to be working with while running your website?
• Will it be Windows based, Unix based, or something else?

The first thing to do is figure out exactly what it is you are trying to do with your website. If you are only putting up a site dedicated to friends or family, and not expecting a lot of traffic or to generate sales, then you can choose almost any web hosting provider available. Simple web pages can be generated by a host of free html web page building software, and will work quite well for small, individualized web sites. There are still plenty of companies offering free web hosting services which would work well for a website of this type. Just type in “free web hosting” at your favorite search engine and you will see a ton of companies providing this service.

If your website is going to be attracting a lot of traffic, and therefore utilizing a lot of bandwith, the you will probably want to do some more research and look into companies that are more tailored to hosting websites of this type.

One thing to consider is what type of software your website will be running on. Will it be Unix, Windows, something else? There are several companies offering web building platforms that run on ASP.net, a somewhat newer type of code for building and maintaining websites, which will only work on certain types of servers.

When choosing a web hosting provider, make sure you start by asking yourself these types of questions before you rush out and sign up with a provider. Identifying exactly what you want your site to do, and how you want to do it, and with what software before you sign up for a provider will save you a lot of time and headaches in the long run.