In order for your website to be seen online, you will need a web host. This is a company that will upload your website onto their servers so that it can be viewed on the internet.
There are some important factors to consider when choosing a web host provider.

1. Locality
It is a little known fact that search engines place relevance on the location of your web host in respect of your site. What this means is that if your website is targeting the U.S. market and your site is hosted in Poland, a search engine may place less importance on your site and more importance on your competitor that has their site hosted in Texas. Look to find a web host provider that is local to your target market.

2. Reliability
If the web host is unreliable, your site could spend long periods offline and therefore invisible to potential customers. Any new potential customer that locates your website in a search engine but receives a "404 Error: This site is not available" message is unlikely to click on your link again. It is also likely that your regular visitors would soon migrate to a competitor website if they could never reach your site, due to unreliable hosting. It is extremely important to your future success to ensure your web host is reliable.

3. What Hosting Package Do You Choose?
There will be a variety of packages available. Do not start of any lower that a basic business package. Ideally, you should choose the best option you can afford. Do not look to cut costs here, it WILL come back to bite you. Consider important factors about your website like file sizes, potential traffic to the site, image content, databases etc. The better the package the more room for expansion, think about the future rather than the now.
The best option, if you can afford it, is to opt for your own dedicated server or virtual server. This means your website is the only site hosted on that server. This eliminates any concerns about over-population problems, clustered servers or future expansion worries. If you can, find the money and go for a dedicated or virtual server.

4. Email Hosting
Having an email address, that is linked to your website name, looks more professional and trustworthy to potential customers and clients. You may have a great looking website, but if a customer goes to send you an email and sees a @googlemail or @yahoo.com email address they could be put off.
If you can, find a web host provider that can offer and manage an email hosting account. The provider will manage your emails and make sure they are safe from prying eyes and spam. Now you can have a @smithgolfshoes.com email address and not have to worry about advert-laden free generic webmail.
That concludes the guide on setting up a small business online. There are some important decisions to be made along the way, but if you follow these simple steps you should hopefully be on your way to increasing your revenue through online marketing. Remember, do your keyword research, choose a great domain name and lock in the alternatives, put up a professional looking site and make sure it can be seen, by opting for the best hosting package you can afford from a reliable local provider. Good luck.