After you feel comfortable with the level of support a provider offers, consider what features are available. A basic understanding of what you know (and what you don't) will help direct your choice. If creating a site from scratch is intimidating, look for a provider that offers free website building software. This will save you from knowing html. You will also need a domain name to get your site up and some Shared Web Hosting U providers even offer these for free. A free domain name should not be the main selling point for which provider you choose. After all, you can purchase a domain name from anyone from $2.99 - $12.99/year.
Type host operating system: If your website is based on technologies such as JSP, ASP, etc, and require others, to complement or Microsoft MSACCESS MS SQL database that should go for windows hosting. On the other hand, if the user is using technologies like cold fusion, then you can run on Linux and Windows platform.
If this is your first website and you are just getting started on the Web (Internet) you may be confused by all the web hosting offers on the internet. A good rule of thumb would be to do a web search for the term Affordable Web Hosting and from the results returned, go to each company and see what they have to offer and then use the company which you feel has the most Affordable Web Hosting package. It is that simple.
So, you have a name, a plan and a place for your site to live. Finally, it is time to start designing! The choice here is to try to build yourself, "self-build", or find a professional to do the job for you. A half way house some use is to find a family member or friend who dabbles in web design and will do the job for as little as a case of beer. I would strongly advise against this route as the design process can be quite intense and is apt to place some strain on any personal relationship if significant redrafting is needed or the design is not all you had hoped for. If your first designer is not up to the project you can fire them and move on. Letting go of a family friend can present far more issues.
Don't get me wrong though, there is still a bit of work to do, you will have to manage and approve what content is to be put live but an hour approving 20 or 30 pages of new unique content must be a good thing. Can you think how long it will take to create that amount of content hours if Shared Web Hosting UK you write as slowly as me!
Windows or Linux: Do you know if your site needs to run on a MS Windows server with FrontPage extensions or does it need PERL, PHP or MySQL? These things you will need to find out if you intent to run a successful small business web site.
Find a web hosting provider that will satisfy your business needs. In today's competitive market, there are plenty of affordable providers that offer excellent hosting services and premier customer support. Don't go for a service that isn't up to your standards. Aside from looking at the price, make sure you consider other factors as well such as memory, bandwidth, control panel, technical support and etc.