So you want to setup a website for yourself, and try your hand at Online Marketing. Good for you! You’ve taken the first step of running your own business; definitely a daunting prospect for most beginners. If you haven’t checked out the list of definitions article I wrote for webmasters please Click Here to read it so you won’t get lost with the many different terms used when talking about website creation and administration.
Let’s jump right into the meat of this post. What do you need to do to get the ball rolling and the site started! First you’ll need to do some research, and get some things out of the way. Well, I’m a nice guy, so I’ll do the research for you! As is going to be my habit, I’m not going to tell you what to choose for any of these things, the choice will be up to you entirely, but I will give you the information you need to know to make the right decision for your website.
There are three basic steps to follow when setting up a website, and I’ll give them each a post of their own. These three steps are
- Get a Domain Name
- Get A Web Host
- Design the Page
Your first project is to get a domain name. If you looked at the Terms and Definitions for Webmasters you’ll see what a Domain Name is. There are quite a large number of places that offer domain name services. They allow you to search the net and can tell if a certain name is taken or not. Then they allow you to purchase the rights to that domain name for an entire year. The prices are very reasonable, and there’s no reason to not get yourself your own domain name when embarking on an online marketing career. Choosing a relevant domain name is a whole post in itself, and I’ll send one out for that later on so keep your eyes open for it! Now though I’d like to go into a little about the registrars so you can make an informed decision about who to work with.
First off I found a site that actually lists every one of the accredited registrars in the world, by country. This site also has a whois tool to find out who owns certain websites, and is very helpful if you’re looking for more information. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and I’ve also got some of the more popular registrars that I’ll review here.
GoDaddy is a decent service provider, and also provides web hosting (which we’ll talk about in tomorrows posting). So this is a good route to take if you want to have all your services with one provider. Just make sure that GoDaddy does indeed have all the services you require. The cost of name registering is pretty much the same across the board, so price shouldn’t be a factor when choosing Domain Name Registering services.
NameCheap is much like GoDaddy except they do not provide hosting; they simply provide the name registration and Domain Name Services. This is the one I use simply because it’s quick, and easy, and its 60 cents cheaper than GoDaddy. But depending on what you need, it might be better to go with one that has hosting as well.
Network Solutions is quite a full featured registrar, including Domain Name Registration, DNS, Web Hosting, Email Services, Online Marketing Services, Website Building services, as well as numerous website help tools. This place is pretty decent, and very respectable in the business. Their prices are little higher than other registrars, and if you’re looking for just a registrar, you might not want to go with these guys, but at least check them out because (having used them in the past) I’ve found them to be very good, with an excellent customer service.
So to sum up, Domain Name Registrars are numerous, and offer many different types of services. Don’t forget to check out the ICANN website for more information on domain names registrars. I have heard that some people like to keep their Web hosting services, and domain name registration services in different companies, and some like having them all together. Honestly from what I have found with most companies, there is no real reason other than personal preference these days. It used to be that some web hosts would go down but the DNS at the name registrars wouldn’t if they’re the same company, and you could have a backup site somewhere. These days that’s a thing of the past, and most hosts are very good about having redundancy and keeping their servers up 24/7. So it’ sup to you if you want to mix your hosting and name registration, it is certainly easier and you have to write down less passwords if you do it all with one company. Personally I used a different host than I did registrar, and likely that’s just past bias coming up to haunt me from my system admin days.
Ok keep your eyes out for Post #2 How to Setup a Website: Web Hosts
