It's no secret: the internet is the place to be. And there is no shortage of web hosting companies out there -- cheap hosting or otherwise -- all vying for the scads of business flocking to the internet to grab their share of the pie. You might say it's a Buyer's Market. eMerchants of all kinds know that consumers are all bargain hunters and as our appetites grow fatter and our palates grow wiser, we demand more and more from the companies that serve us at less and less of a cost to us. The result? These days, web hosting companies can't afford not to be cheap hosting companies.

To compete, cheap hosting companies have to provide an assortment of tools and services to make them stand out above the rest, and the least of these is website design and building. If your cheap hosting company can't help you design and build, publish, and edit and maintain your website, then it's too cheap. This article will lay out some of the most common and useful features you could reasonably expect a good, cheap hosting company's website builder/editor to have.

In brief, a website builder (whatever fancy name the individual cheap hosting company slaps on top of it) is essentially a point-and-click program for designing and building websites. These programs have evolved over the years to the point now where they are so simple that even a retired great-grandparent could do it. (You thought we were going to say a child, didn't you? -- and apologies to the tech-savvy great-grandfolks out there.)

The software exists, and has existed for a while now, to empower anyone at all to design, build, and publish not just a website, but a website that works. One that's error-free, that'll be search engine-approved, that's attractive and easily navigable, that encourages traffic, and that doesn't require you to know a whit of HTML code.

The foundation of any website builder/editor are these are predesigned webpages, designed around specific themes or categories -- sales, membership organizations, service provider, in-house, family scrapbook, self-promotional, etc. -- that you are free to use as your own. Simply fill-in-the blanks with your own information and customize the look and feel to suit your tastes. You see, a template is just a springboard for your website. Sure, you can use it as is; that's fine if it's a personal website for you and your friends, but don't expect an un-tweaked template to generate a lot of business. Templates are designed to be fully customizable, and that includes background colors, fonts, text sizes, graphics, backgrounds, borders, page layout, and more. You should exercise that facility to its fullest.

Cheap hosting companies' website builders/editors should include not only a wide variety of templates in a wide variety of themes/categories, but a wide variety as well of color sets, fonts, graphics/clip art/photo databases, backgrounds/borders, etc.

Templates may also exists for many of the most common and popular website tools that people use, like photo albums, event calendars, feedback forms, and user forums.

The cheap hosting company of today needs not only to be able to convert your vision into sensible HTML code, but it needs also to empower you to code Javascript and Flash-based content. These might not seem like valuable features at first glance, but without them, you might find yourself restricted to building websites that visitors find flat, uninteresting, and non-interactive.

There should also be a suitable Preview feature included so that you can see the progress of your website at each step along the way. You should be able to see exactly what your visitors will see once your cheap hosting company puts your site live.

Finally, crucial to any website that's not intended merely for personal use -- which is most of the websites out there -- is making a sale. And if there's one thing a cheap hosting company's website builder has got to have for you, it's a shopping cart.

Take a look at the shopping cart the cheap hosting companies you're considering offers. How customizable is it? Is it easy to use? Is it confusing? Does it support the major payment methods -- from credit cards to PayPal -- both online and off?

Armed with these tips, you'll be in a better position to make the right decision when choosing your cheap web hosting company.

******