While the Domain name is the address that leads people to your website, the Host is basically a disk space that stores all your files to be accessed on the internet 24 hrs per day and 7 days per week.  You can actually host your website in your own computer if you turn it on 24/7. But then you will be compromising on the privacy and security of the contents in your PC.

There are basically 2 kinds of hosting: Shared hosting and Dedicated Hosting.

For shared hosting, you are actually sharing a common disk space with other domains. This allows the host provider to maimize on their disk space and therefore you pay a lower price. For dedicated hosting, you are allocated a certain disk space all to yourself and it is supposed to be more secured but your pay through your nose. It can costs more than 15 times that of shared hosting. Dedicated hosting is more for big enterprise.

For a start a shared hosting plan will suffice.

You can also choose between hosting your files in Windows server or Linux server. Whichever server you choose, make sure that it supports php files because WordPress runs on php files. I had a hell of a time setting up WordPress on GoDaddy Windows server because GoDaddy does not support php files on Windows server, they are supported only in Linux server.

Hosting plans varies widely in terms of price and features, so it is necessary to do a bit of research. Here’s a simple comparison for some of the most common host used by the internet community I know of:

Host                Capacity        Host Price               Domain price

GoDaddy          100GB         USD6.29/mth        USD9.99/yr       
Hostgator           50GB         USD6.95/mth        USD15.00/yr
Bluehost           300GB         USD7.95/mth         Free

You may like to note that Hostgator and Bluehost come with free softwares such as Fantastico to help you install or upgrade WordPress with just a few clicks whereas GoDaddy does not. There are a lot more features provided by each of these providers which you should go and check it out.

Out of the 3, my choice would be Bluehost and I am almost certainly going to switch to Bluehost pretty soon. Not only because it is value for money, user friendly but also one of the problems I had with GoDaddy is that sometimes I need a few refresh before I can get my site on the screen and sometimes my site appear as text only without the styles. This can be very frustrating not only for me but for any readers as well.

Next … download WordPress.