Don't know WHAT you've gotten yourself into Jan but:
Web hosting refers to a service that puts your website on the Internet. In other words, it makes your website available to your users. In general, most websites are intended to be viewed by anyone on the Internet, at any time. If you want anyone on the Internet to be able to view your website at any time, you need to make sure your website is running on a computer which is connected to the Internet 24 hours per day, 7 days per week (24/7).
If you do not intend to do this yourself, then you need someone else to do it, the THIRD party.
This is the most common choice for web hosting. Using a third party hosting provider allows you to concentrate on developing your website (or whatever else it is you may do), and leave the hosting tasks up to a company who (presumably) specializes in web hosting.
A good web hosting company will provide at least the following services:
24/7 support
24/7 FTP access (so you can update your website)
A number of email accounts (eg,
you@yourdomain.com)
Online control panel for managing your website
Online traffic statistics (so you can see how much traffic your website receives)
A robust database management system, such as MySQL or MS SQL. This is so you can add your own database if required
If you require specialized server application software such as ColdFusion, SQL Server, or PHP, you will need to check that the hosting provider supports this.
Once you start looking for a web hosting provider, you will notice there is a very large difference in how much they charge. You will also notice that most web hosts have multiple hosting plans, each at different prices. Any good web host will allow you to upgrade a plan later on if required, so don't feel as though you need to start off on a plan that costs more than you need.