Sometimes people want to set up their own website, or a website for their business, but since they don't consider themselves tech-savvy, they're afraid of not asking the right questions, or of making a poor choice when it comes to choosing a host for their website. Actually, the truth is much simpler: anyone can make a wise choice for web hosting, by learning some of the basics.

First, let's clear up exactly what a web host is: it is a company that operates the physical pieces of hardware, called servers, on which all the data that makes up your website reside. Hosting costs range from next to nothing all the way to hundreds of dollars per month. Fortunately, most personal and small business websites do not require a big capital investment. Affordable hosting is more readily available today than ever before.

Many smaller businesses use what is called shared hosting. This simply means that they don't have an entire server all to themselves, and that makes sense, because it's the big, data-intensive sites with massive databases, hundreds of pages, and large quantities of data that need their own server(s). Shared hosting means you and several others share a server. Web hosts are able to virtually separate one server into numerous virtual servers that are separated by robust software. This means that if one site on a server crashes, it won't take down all the other sites with it. So it's "as if" you have your own server, but at a very affordable price - for just a few dollars per month.