If you're wondering whether or not you're in need of website hosting services the first thing you should do is find out as much information about website hosting as possible and then make an informed decision from there. Generally speaking website hosting is a service that makes websites available to users.

Websites are usually built by individuals or companies to be seen by others online and website hosting makes that happen. A dental clinic in South Edmonton for example, will want a dentist website designed to help promote their services. In order for that to happen with your website you will need to have your website run on a computer that's connected to the World Wide Web every second of the day, which basically means a 24/7 Internet connection is required for website hosting.

While you can host a website on your own you're going to have to have access to the right equipment like a web server, as well as a permanent Internet connection. You would also have to ensure that your Internet service provider would allow for that to happen, and you would also need to know your stuff when it comes to website administration and that would include knowing how to manage and configure a web server.

If you can handle all of that then you can host your website. However, not everybody can manage all of the above and in cases like that hiring a website hosting company is the way to go. Website hosting companies will take your website and host it on their servers so that all you have to do is focus on developing your website. Services that any good website hosting companies offer include 24/7 technical support, 24/7 FTP access so you'll always be able to update your website, e-mail accounts, an online control panel, and traffic statistics information.

Now that you know what website hosting is you can decide if it's something you website needs, whether or not you can do it on your own or if you should hire a website hosting company. If you decide that you do want to sign up with a website hosting company you'll come to find that there are many website hosting companies offering their services online like DreamHost, GoDaddy, PrimeHost, and Cirrus. Each website hosting company offers their own unique website hosting take and you should look at each website hosting package in detail to find the right one.