A detailed guide to what you need to host a website, plus the six essential steps to hosting a website.

A website is a basic necessity for any small business, but you don't have to employ an army of IT pros to make it happen--let a web hosting service do the heavy lifting.

For more web hosting tips, check out The 6 Best Free Web Hosting Services for Tight Budgets and Linux vs. Windows: How to Pick the Best Server OS for Your Website.

A web hosting service is what allows your website to be accessible online. When you type in the web address, the hosting service directs traffic to your website.

CNET@Work: Picking a good hosting provider boils down to three S's -- speed, support and security. For good measure, scale may be another S-word to ponder.

There are various ways in which you can host your Web API, and you need not always have to host your Web API in IIS. You can host it in a separate process as well.