there can be a lot involved in just setting up a webpage. even a simple one. depends on how far you want to go with branding/marketing issues.
1. Finding a good name.
How do you want to market yourself? If you have the means
you may want to acquire a good name. Good names are becoming very expensive, but with enough digging you might snag a good deal at a domain broker.
Otherwise, the general rule, is to get the shortest possible name you can find available, that somehow still brands your website. Ideally, its best if it can be remembered without having to write it down. Avoid dashes, and numbers in the
domain name. Dot com is always best. Dot net isn't bad if its a good name.
www.directnic.com has some nice features for searching for names. It will help with a conceptual search, related words etc. They are not the cheapest, at $15 a year, but they provide a lot of services free, that other registrars with lower registration prices will add on fees for.
2, Hosting
Assuming you are planning to put up tons of images, you will need to know
something about hosting packages. Your hosting package will set limits on
how much disk space you are allowed, and how much bandwidth you can use.
If you don't get much traffic, this may not be an issue for a while at least.
But if lots of people view your images, and you are posting large files, it
can become an issue in a hurry. Free web hosting packages will put ad banners on your website you may not want.
here is what webhosting packages look like http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml I'm not recommending them, maybe they are good... I use a different company, but they have an easy website to learn from, and are probably a good company.
3. Name Servers
Once you have registered a domain name, & you have found a web host, then you will be assigned nameservers by the webhosting company. Then at your domain registrar you will set the nameservers to your web host's specifications, so that
you can upload a web page to the webhost, and the domain name will route traffic to your file. The domain registrar is where you set this up.
4. Building a Web site.
You will need software to do it. Maybe you just want to buy a template to get started. There are some cheap ones, that look nice, and you can literally get a page going in a few minutes.
Zillions of places on the net that sell templates:
http://www.adamssite.com/dreamweaver/best-sellers.html
(never heard of these guys, just found at google on a quick search. no
clue if they are good or not... just an example)
Or you can hire someone. Or you can learn to do it yourself. There is a lot involved in learning to design. I have very limited skills, but I'm learning slowly.
Dreamweaver seems to be a commonly preferred web design software that
lots of cool designers use.
http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/
5. Uploading your site. Once you have registered your domain name, signed up for a hosting package, set up your nameservers at the domain registrar, and designed a webpage, then you have to upload the files to your webhosting company's server. an easy to use program is CuteFTP:
http://www.globalscape.com/cuteftp/compare.asp?sessionid=3axt0bv2cqwrsa45gnbhu4nt
its cheap, and easy to use. Then once your site is uploaded to the webhost's server, someone can actually type in your domain name and see your webpage. Have i talked you out of doing it? Hopefully not!
mark www.stills.com
At 08:25 PM 3/29/2005, you wrote:
Russell Baker <rebphoto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Hi Gang..................... > > Well a week or so ago a few of you kind folks > gave me info on where to go to build a web page. > > I haven't started that yet............. > > > > Now..... > > At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot...... > (hmmmm...that never seemed to bother me in the past) > > Doesn't one have to register a domain name (?) someplace. > > And then one has to get a host. > > What exactly is the proper order to do this in? Russ
Many hosting packages include a domain registration, so it's at least possibly a mistake to go register the domain before choosing the site to host it at. Generally speaking, you need to tell the domain registry to point the name at the hosting company, so you should make your arrangements with the hosting company first.
(I said "generally speaking". I can probably get as technical as anybody here on these topics, but I'm trying to give a short and useful answer to a question from a first-time user of the technology, so going into all the unusual corners did NOT seem like a productive approach!)
Some hosting companies will let you have a subdomain of their domain name for free; for some purposes that might be good enough, and it's free. A company that offered that might let you have, say, rbaker.powweb.com (I do not know whether powweb actually offers such a service).
You can easily pay three times as much to register a domain name
through one registrar as through another. On the other hand, that's
only about $20/year wasted even if you make the worst possible
choice. Registering through your hosting company, even if not free,
might be enough more convenient (you don't need to be personally
responsible for coordinating the actions of the two companies)
especially for your first time as to be worth paying something for.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@xxxxxxxx>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
