Setting up a web hosting account for the first time can be confusing and frustrating for the novice. This article will guide you through the steps of setting up a new web hosting account for your website.

Setting up your web hosting account will depend upon many things, the first of which is:

Do you already have a website built and ready to be hosted?

If the answer to that question is yes, then your next set of questions should be:

How was your website designed? Did you design it yourself using Microsoft FrontPage, or did you use some other WYSIWYG website building software? Did a professional designer build your site for you? Did they use Microsoft FrontPage, or did they use some other WYSIWYG website building software? Did your designer use a database driven software, such as Cold Fusion? Maybe they coded your site using a text editor ? you?ll need the answers to these questions.

If you have a FrontPage website, you?ll need a web host who supports FrontPage. If your site was developed with PHP, you?ll need a web host who supports PHP. This also applies to other design software not mentioned here. Check with your web designer and/or web design program?s documentation for further help with this.

Maybe you haven?t yet designed your website. Many web hosts offer online website building software that requires no programming or HTML knowledge. If this is your strategy, make sure your web host offers such software, and find out if there?s a cost for you to use it.