After you feel comfortable with the level of support a provider offers, consider what features are available. A basic understanding of what you know (and what you don't) will help direct your choice. If creating a site from scratch is intimidating, look for a provider that offers free website building software. This will save you from knowing html. You will also need a domain name to get your site up and some Shared Web Hosting providers even offer these for free. A free domain name should not be the main selling point for which provider you choose. After all, you can purchase a domain name from anyone from $2.99 - $12.99/year.
This is going to give them a great opportunity to see what the whole process is and rent the space to have their website up and running so that customers have a new option. It does not matter whether or not the website is going to be used strictly for informative reasons or if it will be selling a product, there are many options that they will have. The price is going to be a factor sometimes.
Which all brings me back to what is Affordable Web Hosting? I have my pages hosted at GVO and I pay a higher monthly cost than if I used certain other cheaper hosts.
SMTP is Simple Mail Transfer Protocol which is used for outgoing Email Server. Most hosting companies do not offer access to SMTP servers as they can be difficult to maintain and defend and the want to cut corners with their customers.
Web Host Country - Depending on your market, this could be the most important consideration, and often the most overlooked. The physical location of your host servers can have an impact on your business if your target market is in your own country. Google UK, for example offer the option of either a UK only or a world-wide search. If you want to feature in the UK only searches it is far better to have your website hosted by a company who has its actual servers in the UK. Be aware that some Shared Web Hosting UK hosting companies who appear to be UK based companies actually have their servers located in other countries. Always ask!
Where do I buy a domain name? Don't worry. Nowadays, many hosting providers will give you free domain name just to sign up with them. But if you like to build many websites, then you will need to register domain names. I would suggest Moniker, Godaddy etc...
Finally, we have the hosting that is based on the operating system. Two of the most popular ones are Unix and Windows hosting. There are good and bad on both hosting and users should choose according their expertise because each will have different technical abilities in order for the users to run it well.