Any kind of website needs to have a website hosting service. If you want the website to be available online for every minute of every day of the year then you have no choice. Some people do this from home, but the best option is to go for a website hosting service as they have the hardware as well as the secure and reliable internet connections to make this happen.

Most website hosting companies will have hundreds, if not thousands of websites that they host and these will be done using several dedicated servers (computers). All of the information, coding and pictures are stored on the server/computer, and when people access the website they are in actual fact accessing the information stored on that server/computer.

It is important that the company you choose to do your website hosting can prove to you that they are reliable, have a stable internet connection, and well-trained, experienced staff that will be able to deal with any problems that might occur. If you are putting up a website which will serve as a retail outlet then it is vital for you to be able to trade at any time of the day. It should, in fact, be a 24/7/365 service. The last thing you want is for a potential customer to go to your website to find that it is offline.

When making your choice of website hosting company, look at their portfolio, see how many websites they are hosting and get a feel for the company. It is important that you feel comfortable doing business with them.