So you know how to build a web site? Great. You’ve learned a lot, grasshopper. (Now catch the fly with a chopstick!) HTML and Java, embedding and graphics–you’re good to go. But, wait!

Where do you put all of it? That’s like getting all the materials for building a house but not securing the lot. All of a sudden you’re complete with the house in the middle of a busy street, but you forgot to either purchase the land to fit the house; so you send a chopper to lift your prized architectural feat and whisk it toward your dream land, like in Disney’s “Up”. Only it’s not that simple.

Repeating like shampoo in the shower this phrase: first find a web hosting service before even thinking about creating the site. Period.

What a web hosting service does is allow a smart individual such as yourself to actually build the web site, complete with specialized URL. It’s your foundation. Without it, you can’t actually build anything. You need a ‘place’ to build it.

There are several types of web hosting. Here are two:

Free Web Hosting: A rather fortunate advantage on the internet, being free to secure a space for your site. Most companies offer this. However, the downside is, because it’s free, your web site when finished is usually inundated with ads up the wazoo.

Shared Web Hosting: Also free, but with neighbors, basically. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. Although sometimes shared web hosting services will expect certain conformities you wouldn’t get from free web hosting sites.

There are many, many more. But this is the start of it. That’s just a key to the door of the wide world of web hosting. It’s a big place. But remember to bring that digital housewarming gift when you’re done, because it’ll be a beautiful day! Happy hosting!