That's where a web hosting company comes in. These companies basically rent you space on their web servers.

Web servers are computers that are connected to the Internet 24/7, that have special software designed to serve up websites.

Web hosting cost is affected by how much traffic your website gets and any special features that your site may need. That said, for 99% of websites, you can expect to pay as little a $3.99/month.

It can be hard to find a good hosting company because there are so many out there. That said, I can suggest a few things to look for:

Quality of service:

A good hosting company will make it easy for you to contact them. So an easy to find phone number and an email address is important.

Reliability:

It is really hard to tell when it comes to reliability. So I would suggest calling a potential web hosting company and see how they are on the phone. You probably want to avoid the fly-by-night company, so look for one that is well established. Usually, if they offer a lot of services, they've been around.

Variety of services:

A good web hosting company should be able to provide a buffet of services and packages. This way, if your website's needs expand (shopping carts, database access, blog tools etc ...) you can be pretty sure that your host can provide everything you need.

I would just get the basics that you need. But be sure that your hosting company can scale up with you when and if you need too.

... Just check out the packages and services that they offer to get an idea. We offer a few great packages and provide plenty of support.

Check out our website hosting packages.

To get your site on the Web, you do need to buy a domain name.

To make things easier for you, some hosting companies offer domain registration services along with their hosting services. Remember these key points:

But sure that when you do register your domain name, that it is registered under your name ... you are the owner. At no time should the domain name be owned by the hosting company.

... Some shady hosting companies have been known to register client domains under their name, and then hold it hostage when the client tried to leave!