How to get yourself a website!

This is intended to be a general guide on how to get started with your own website. It will be updated little by little and stuck once completed. Everybody's opinion is welcome.

For starters here is what you will need.
Domain (ex: yourcompany.com)
Hosting
Layout plan
Content
Domain:
This is nothing more than a name that points to your hosts server. They are cheap enough to come by, I personally own about 20 now. Registration runs anywhere from $5 to $20 a month. Popular registrars include GoDaddy (http://www.godaddy.com/), 1and1 (http://www.1and1.com/), and NameCheap (http://www.namecheap.com/). There are literally hundreds of different registrars out there. They aren't much different from each other except registration price and included features. I use 1and1 because I've found them to be almost the cheapest and include the most features. For instance, 1and1 includes private registration where as others up-sell it for $7+ per year.


Hosting:
Your host is where your website actually resides. In short it's a hard drive that's accessible via the Internet. There are thousands of hosts out there for the most part you get what you pay for. The main things you will need to know when doing research


Disk Space:
Is normally expressed in gigabytes (GB) or megabytes (MB). For the average website you don't need a lot of space probably less than 100 MB. Keep in mind, if you plan on using lots of pictures or being a DJ uploading your mixes you will want to look for a plan with more disk space than the average user.


Bandwidth Quota:
When someone visits your site, files are copied from the server to the visitors computer for viewing. Transferring the files uses bandwidth.. Bandwidth is normally expressed in gigabytes (GB) per month (GB/mo). Don't even bother with hosts who offer less than 1 GB per month.


Say 100 visitors come to your site and download a picture that's 1 MB in size. You've just used 100 MB of bandwidth.


Always make sure you get a plan with more bandwidth that you need. Why? Depending on your host once you reach your bandwidth cap they will either shut down your site or charge you per megabyte over your quota for a medium to large traffic site this can add up very quickly.


When all is said and done for most DJ and personal websites most budget or economy plans will be just fine.


Additional questions to ask


Support:


Is there a phone number you can call when you completely screw things up? Do they charge per call? If I email support will they ever get back to me?


Expandability:


Does your host let you easily upgrade your plan should you website become super popular?


Setup Fee:


This is my line in the sand I simply will not go with a host who charges a setup fee. Why you ask? Now a days almost all hosts have an automated provisioning (rationing you out disk space and bandwidth) system it's done automatically and requires little to no human intervention. What am I paying a setup fee for?


Email Addresses:


You own yourdomain.com you of course want yourname@yourdomain.com as an email address. How many mailboxes do they allow you? Are the mailboxes pop-accessible for download via outlook? Are the IMAP accessible (for advanced users)? It there server-side spam filtering? Can you setup catchalls, auto responders and forwarding addresses?


FTP access:


This is how you put files on your site by uploading them via FTP. How many accounts do they all you to have? You'll need more than one if someone is going to be helping you.


Telnet access:


This is for more advanced users basically it's command line access to the server, it makes managing multiple websites much easier.


mySQL database:


Are you doing to run a forum, blog, or photo gallery? You'll most likely need at least one mySQL database. Is there a cap on the size or number of simultaneous connections?


Backup schedule:


Does your host regularly back up their servers? They should any computer can crash. Do you have access to these backups? If you completlely screw up your site will they restore a back up for you? if so How much does it cost?




When shopping for a host if it sounds to good to be true it normally is. Many hosts over sell, this is a big problem when you're on a shared server with 100 other sites and the server it to busy to handle page requests.


That's my writing for this morning feel free to comment. I'm always open to suggestions and will be adding more shortly.

Now you've done the research, bought a domain and found a reliable host. Great! That's only 1/8 of the work. You have no website yet. The quick and easy way to get a website is just hire a professional designer, but this can run into big money depending on what you want. Since we would all pretty much fit into the small business category; You will probably want to save a few bucks and do it yourself. You may find No more templates (http://ourdjtalk.com/showthread.php?t=216), of interest.

On to the geek stuff:

Setup Email boxes:

First thing you'll want to do is setup three mailboxes for your domain. admin, webmaster, and postmaster. admin & webmaster at two internet standards. If I visit a domain and want to contact the owner I automatically email admin & webmaster.

Postmaster is a different beast you should have it as some domains won't accept email from your domain if a postmaster mailbox doesn't exsist. This was done when the net first started out as a check for valid domains. Every spammer and scammer got smart and setup a postmaster mailbox, thus this was fazed out yet some smaller providers still do this check so it's better to be safe than sorry.

Building the website:

There are many ways to build a website. You may want to learn HTML and build it by hand, Html.net (http://www.html.net) has an excellent tutorial. Basic HTML is always good to know.

What you probably want is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor. Basically you use it like you're writing a letter in MS word and it automatically creates the HTML code. This is the easiest way to go.

There are many, many HTML editors out there, some free, some very expensive. A popular paid one seems to be Mircosoft Frontpage, which requires frontpage extensions stored on your server, check with your host if you plan on using frontpage. I've never used frontpage so that's the last you'll hear from me about frontpage.

An excellent open source (free) HTML editor is NVU (http://www.nvu.com). It has a built in FTP client (FTP client actually puts your work on the internet), which negates the need for a seperate FTP client. I personally use it for static HTML pages. It's simple, easy to you, and generates clean HTML.

To be continued..

I kind of forgot about this post.. Anyone want/need more information?

I Do, I am Currently using a Template (Sorry)
I just really need something Different
I have Purchased Domain & Hosting on Rogers/Yahoo (Geocities)
Until I get what I want with the Page (The Look)
I don't want to have any Paid Hosting

I would Like to Get Ideas on what I should Change/ or If you think it's fine
Obviously Content is my Biggest Issue right now)

I Do, I am Currently using a Template (Sorry)
I just really need something Different
I have Purchased Domain & Hosting on Rogers/Yahoo (Geocities)
Until I get what I want with the Page (The Look)
I don't want to have any Paid Hosting

I would Like to Get Ideas on what I should Change/ or If you think it's fine
Obviously Content is my Biggest Issue right now)

Hey Al,

Even though you're using a template, I like it. :icon_thumleft: One of the best templates I've seen in a while.

Your hosting package has no pop up ads so I see no reason to go with a bigger/better package unless you want to. In that case, paid hosting is a dime a dozen, for a static website (HTML pages) any entry level package should be good for you.

If I was you, I'd build my content first then worry about making it look pretty. I have a few websites sitting on the back burner that are just shells until I put up content then I'll worry about styling it.

I tried to hook up with wedj & they ask for me to place a banner on my Page
Issue I am having is that my page is done in Frames


btw - if you use IE you see a small popup

Firefox here, no popup for me. I'll check in IE later.

i'm really not familar with WeDJ's system but do they require it on every page? If so the easiest way would be to create third footer (bottom) frame and stick it on there.