Owning different websites is a must in this industry. On this list would be your WordPress blogs, which you will find is needed with each different niche that you pursue. Having a reliable yet inexpensive hosting service is a must. My personal favorite is Bluehost yet a lot of people seem to like Hostgator. A few other services that I have heard are really good are Monster Host, Just Host, IPage and Green Geeks.
Any hosting company is equipped to register a domain name - your URL or web address. But, if you register your domain with host B and then choose host A, you have to redirect your domain or migrate it to the new host. You get the idea.
Shared web hosting is the kind most people start off with. These review websites would often like to have you believe that there is actually a "top 10" list of web hosts. The truth is there are probably only around five quality shared hosting companies around!
There is of course the option of getting the targeted visitors through proper advertising on the major search engines like AdWords on Google and adCenter on Bing. You control the total cost of your ad campaigns, your daily costs, the targeted audience etc. The only drawback is that you pay for this traffic. It may take time before your onpage SEO and your backlinks start getting you the organic (free) traffic you were looking for. Till then, the advertising will at least get you the customers that you are looking for.
Customer or technical support - as a customer, you would surely be looking for a web host that provides efficient support, one that is available 24/7 and is able to respond to your problems at once. Many web hosts provide both phone support and live support. Others don't provide contact information at all, in which case you should be concerned when you come across such web hosts.
Thus, while building your own web site without spending a ipage account dime can be very enticing, you should carefully think about the pros and cons of getting free hosting services. Although you can get your web site online, it will actually be just a mere presence with no depth at all.