Setting Up Your Own Website (Part 1)

Posted by David | Filed under Web Design Tips

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Setting up your own website is less difficult than you may expect, and it’s getting easier and easier as the Internet progresses. I think if you feel you are competent with with using your computer normally, and are not afraid of clicking things when you don’t know what they do then you are capable of making your own website.

There are a few things to decide when setting up your own website. The first before you do anything is what are you going to put on it!

Step 1 – What is it going to be about?

This step involves basic planning on paper, what are you going to have on your website? Is it a blog? Is it a company website? If you don’t know what you want then you are not ready to start a website, but perhaps you could consider some free hosting such as Angelfire or Lycos Tripod and have a play with some web software.

Step 2 – What do you want out of your website?

This step is again on paper, this time you have to decide what you want to do with your content, and what you want your website to be able to do. Is it going to be a simply HTML website you build in FrontPage? Or is it going to be a more complex website which has a discussion board or a shop?

Step 3 – Choosing a Domain Name

Now that you have planned your website carefully its time to think of a Domain Name. This can be a company name, keyword domain or blog title domain. Be careful not to get a domain name that might get you sued (e.g don’t put ebay in the domain name!) or one that could easily be misspelled. For example don’t get one that has a commonly misspelled word in our when you put two words together you get a double letter formed. Try and keep it short, memorable and try not to use non alphanumeric characters if you can. A rough price guide for a domain name is approximately £7 for a .com or .net per year and £4 for a .co.uk (you can only buy a .co.uk on a two yearly cycle). If you find yourself paying much more than this you are being ripped off! There are some hosts who will try and scam you, don’t fall for it!

Step 4 – Choose a Host

Choosing a host is a very important part of setting up a website, you want a host who will be supportive and have good customer services, as well as a good up time of 99% or over. Depending on your website you will also want one that can supply all the server features you desire. This can include MYSQL databases, PHP support etc. Ensure that you check with the host first before buying that it will work with the software you intend to build your website with. Hosting prices can vary, but for an average website built solely in HTML it can be as little as £25 a year, in PHP with MYSQL around £30-40. The most costly thing is bandwidth, and make sure your host is generous with it. If you are not getting much more than 10GB consider changing host.

Choose a host that installs cPanel.

The more controlling a host is the more you will want to avoid as well, certain hosts will try and get as much money out of you as they can by charging extra for features such as extra email and extra subdomains DON’T fall for this! These things don’t cost them a penny to set up! I would recommend using a host that pre-installs cPanel for you this is a great webmaster tool.

Bandwidth

You can always buy a cheaper package when you first start your website and upgrade as it gets more and more popular, in the beginning days it is unlikely you well get to use all your bandwidth, but the more successful you are and the more content and visitors you have the more bandwidth will get used. Bandwidth is the amount of data that is allowed to be uploaded or downloaded from your website in a month. Videos and music take up significant amounts of bandwidth, while text takes up relatively little.

In my next post I will talk about what software to choose for your website, justifying how much to invest in your website and whether to consider paid advertising to get things going.

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Permalink | Comments (1) | Wednesday, 13th Aug 2008

One Response to “Setting Up Your Own Website (Part 1)”

  1. Setting Up Your Own Website (Part 2) | David's Blog Says:
    August 14th, 2008 at 12:12 am

    [...] I covered the first few stages of starting a website, up until buying hosting in Setting Up Your Own Website (Part 1). For this part I’m going to go back in time slightly, because really you should decide what [...]

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