If you are an absolute beginner this is where you should start. if you already have your own domain name and web hosting you can fast forward to part 3.
First, there is the Shared Web Hosting. This type of hosting means a location is shared by many websites. All the websites in a shared server will share the resources such as space, bandwidth, IP address and so on.
Windows or Linux: Do you know if your site needs to run on a MS Windows server with FrontPage extensions or does it need PERL, PHP or MySQL? These things you will need to find out if you intent to run a successful small business Shared Web Hosting UK site.
Is the website you are hosting a private one? Perhaps, it is a family portal that is meant only for your family members, relatives and friends. Or, are they websites that you will promote to the general public to get as much visitors as possible? In that case, your traffic volume will be quite high each month.
Affordable Web Hosting company should provide a unlimited domains and unlimited sub domains hosting. Well, if you are not going to host more than one website than it is fine to select hosting with limited domains hosting but it should at least provide unlimited sub domains hosting. Most of the hosting companies provide unlimited domains hosting.
If you have time, search for comments by users of the provider on internet forums or elsewhere online. Or go for the larger more established hosting companies who have built a trusted reputation. Most good hosting companies have multiple server data and power backups. A few also promised 100% and they do that by guaranteeing refund of fees in the eventuality that any downtime might happen.
99.99% more active: Many web hosts are to ensure the time to 99. 99%, but then they are more expensive and must be chosen if required as commercial web sites.