In order to publish your website on the Internet and allow others to view your web site from anywhere in the world you need to upload your site to a server that is connected to the Internet 24/7.

Think of a server as a large computer and uploading your site as simply transferring files from your home or business computer to your server (downloading is the other way around - transferring files from your server to your own computer) and you’ll have a basic understanding of the process.

When buying small business web hosting plans you can opt to buy your domain separately from another company (typically known as a “registrar”) or with many you can both your domain and web hosting plan together from the same company.

Let’s look at this a little deeper:

As we’ve mentioned in one or two of our other articles, small business web site hosting is something you rent - rather than buy.

And there are so many different pricing options out there it’s easy to get lost wondering what the best way to pay is.

Some small business web site hosting companies will let you pay monthly, others quarterly, every 6 months or even every year.

In this article I seek to explain some of the technical phrases used when you are shopping for small business web hosting so you can “translate” what they are talking about into plain English and better understand what you will get for your money.

When selecting affordable business web hosting there are a vast number of factors you can consider but I think the main decision boils down to just 5 main points.

When you’ve worked these out just compare any other factors that are of real importance to you - but these points below will pretty much make your decision for you…

Uploading basic webpages, images etc. is nice and easy - you won’t need to change any file permissions at all.

Infact, you should only need to do this if you’re setting up a slightly more advanced small business website and will be using scripts (such as CGI or PHP scripts) to automate some of the management of your site and/or add extra functionality.

Even a small site can consist of dozens of different files - different static web pages, script files, images, downloadable files and more.

I have many sites which have over 100 pages each and probably another 200-300 other files making up discussion forums, graphics and more.