Before you can put up your company WEB site, you need an Internet Access Provider (ISP), an e-mail address, and server space to house your files.

Internet Access
You do not need your own server, or your own domain name, although larger companies will want the benefits of continued name recognition.America On Line, CompuServe, Microsoft Network, and others, offer world wide access.

Other on-line services such as Prodigy offer national access within the U.S. If you're looking for an on-line service outside of the United States, your best source of information is Yahoo.

Commercial ISPs can provide services to businesses that the major on-line services cannot: such as full WEB site support (including full directory structures, search engines, traffic statistics, cgi-scripting, etc.), domain name handling, larger file space on the server,multiple e-mail addresses, etc.Most providers offer a WEB Site Package with fixed monthly costs based on a set amount of server space for your files, e-mail,ftp access (to maintain your files) and a maximum level of throughput each month.You may encounter sur charges for addtional server space, throughput over the monthly maximum, additional e-mail addresses, site statistics, and in some cases for cgi access or other services.Please note: Charges for a WEB site are in addition to the normal Internet access account .

Throughput is the total size of files - documents and graphics - in Megabytes that are transmitted to your visitors in a given month.The larger the page size (including graphics), the higher the throughput.The more popular site becomes, the higher the level of throughput.

E-Mail Address
An E-Mail address is critical to doing business on the WEB.If you don't have one - get one. Once you have it - use it.Make sure it appears on your business cards, in your printed advertising, and on your WEB site - on every single page.