You need a web host so your blog or Web site can be seen by visitors.

A quick and dirty explanation of what a web host is: A web host is a place on the Internet where you put the files that make up your Web site, so they can be viewed in visitor’s web browsers as they visit your Web site. A web host is a company that will rent you web space to store the various files that make up your blog and/or Web site, and provide the bandwidth (the measurement of data and information sent from your web host’s server to the computers of your visitors) that’s needed for your Web site to be accessible to Internet surfers.

The computers of a web host are connected to the Internet all the time, that’s 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The computers that a web host uses are called servers, and they can be found by all the other computers that are also connected to the Internet.

You will perform what is known as an "upload" of the files that make up your blog or web site to your web host’s server. A server is a combination of software and hardware that makes it possible for web pages to be shown in a browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. A browser is also known as a client, so there is a client and server relationship needed for web pages to be shown to Web site visitors.

A web host will charge you a fee, usually on a monthly or yearly basis, for their services of storing your Web site files on their server and for making your Web site available for viewing by Internet surfers. The web hosting business field is very competitive, so there are many to choose from and more plans and offerings of web hosting than Carter has oats. There are good hosts with good plans, and there are bad hosts with bad plans … it’s a big city out there on the Internet. There are many, many, many, web hosts. A Google search for the term "web host" as I was writing this post brought up 209,000,000 results. There are plenty enough web hosts to choose from.

If you want to have a WordPress self-hosted blog or Web site, then logically it is going to have to be hosted somewhere so that your blog or Web site can be "live" on the Internet. To have a self-hosted WordPress blog or Web site, you will have to pay a web host for hosting.

When you sign up for an account with a web host, then you can upload all of the files that make up your blog or Web site to the space on the web host’s servers that you have as your space or territory. You will also set up your web hosting account, and your domain name registrar, so that your URL or domain name can be used by visitors to find and view your blog or web site.

Here is an oversimplification of how it works when someone visits this Web site:

• A visitor types in www.wpblogsandwebsites.com in their browser’s URL address input box or uses a previously set bookmark to surf the Internet to this Web site.
• Through Internet magic (I told you this would be an oversimplification!), the visitor’s browser and my Web host (I use PolurNET Communications) where I have the files that make up www.wpblogsandwebsites.com kept communicate with one another.
• The visitor’s browser downloads copies of my Web site’s files (from the PolurNET Communications server) to the visitor’s computer (a client) and displays www.wpblogsandwebsites.com in the visitor’s browser, which might be Internet Explorer or Firefox, or whatever browser the visitor prefers.

So, to sum up what a web host is: A web host is a place on the Internet where you put the files that make up your Web site. You need a web host so the files of your WordPress blog and/or Web site can be kept on a server. The server is made up of software and hardware that will send your WordPress blog/Web site files on to a visitor’s browser when he or she uses your domain name (URL) in their browser (a client) to visit and view your blog/Web site. There are lots of web hosts to choose from and they have lots of choices of hosting plans. You will pay a fee for the web host’s services, but web hosting is usually very affordable because there is strong competition amongst web hosts.

Here are some web hosts that I recommend. I like PolurNET Communications best, but they are all good, reliable hosts. If you are looking for a web host, then have a gander at the various plans offered by these web hosting companies:

PolurNET Communications

Arvixe Web Hosting

HostGator