It is a good idea to get your web site as far along as you can before you purchase a hosting plan. In most cases you can create almost all of your web site, or have almost all of it created for you, before you actually have a host for your site. This should save you some money, espcially if you are creating the site yourself since it is bound to take much more time than somebody who does so for a living.
Depending on the tools you are using to design your web site and what you want to offer on your site the services you will need will vary. There is no need to pay for a more expensive service ify ou will never use the tools they provide. Just the same it is pointless to pay a host that cannot offer you all the services you need. There are lots of web hosting services out there. Compare and find the host that will make most sense for you. A few of the more common services to look at:

• If you use FrontPage to create/update your web site, you need to make sure the web host you choose has FrontPage extensions available for you.
• Having the ability to modify your account/domain online can be very useful. If you don't want to have to call up your web host or write them e-mail everytime you would like to change your account you should look for this. It is often times reffered to as a Control Panel.
• Check out the scripts they have to offer and make sure they have everthing you need. Really there are not many scripts thare are used, some of the more common ones that are used are traffic counting scripts and scripts to format the contents of a form into an e-mail.
• Most of the time you will want to use a program to help you design your site, or hire a web site designer to do so for you. You will want to make sure you do not have to use some online form to build your site. Very few hosting companies do this, but it is a good thing to make sure they offer FTP access (or FrontPage if that's what you use).
• Some hosting companies offer telnet access and the ability to install your own scripts. For most people neither of these are nessecary, but it does add more flexibility to your site since you can have custom scripts designed for you if need be. Although if a hosting company offers these services they do open themselves up to more potential security problems, so unless you absolutely need these services it is best to stay away from them. Or best of all, find a place that will add scripts to their system for you if they do not already have them.
• Web space is generally not a big issue, for most sites you will be more than fine with the space you get.
• Make sure you get enough e-mail accounts for your company. This is a personal decision. If you want to give each of your employee's an account, make sure they offer you atleast that many. One thing that you may need help understanding is the difference between an e-mail alias and an e-mail account. Each e-mail account stores it's mail in seperate locations and an e-mail alias just "looks" like a different e-mail account to whoever is sending you e-mail, but it is really going to an e-mail account that already exists. For example you may want the aliases info@yourdomain.com and sales@yourdomain.com both to go to your e-mail account bob@yourdomain.com, you would only check bob@yourdomain.com for email, which receives mail for those two e-mail aliases and the actual account.
• If you will be selling products/services you will want to find a web host that will help you get e-commerce set up on your site. If you plan on allowing people to add various products to a list before making their purchase, then you will need to find a web host that has shopping cart software for you to use.
• Web page statistical programs can be very useful. I would advise making sure your web host offers some sort of web page statistics for you to look at. By analyzing data shown with some statistics packages you can see what people are looking at the most, what sites most of the people are coming from, how your traffic is growing, etc. You can use this information to help you shape your website into a more successful and useful site.

Of course shop around for the best pricing for what you are looking for. Keep in mind, don't get too little and don't get too much. Watch out for hidden hosts, if the price seems low, often times a web host may be charging you for services that another host wasn't. Of course if you don't need those services then that is just fine. Be sure to look at the whole package, not just at the price they advertise.
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