How Do I Get My Own WebSite Onto The Web?

Posted in: Blogging, Online money making, create a blog

No matter how many times I have answered this question before and even after writing the ” How To Create a blog” series I still get this question from some of my readers, “How Do I Get My Own Website Onto The Web?”

Building your own web site might have been a nightmare few years ago but now it is as easy as 1-2-3-4….

Step 01: Register a domain name

Domain name is your identity on the web. For example this web site’s identity is “antharjalaya.com”. You need to use a domain registrar in order to purchase the domain name. It will typically cost you less than $10.

I would advise you to buy a “dot com” name instead of other extensions. Try adding a hyphen and seperate the words if your desired name is not available in dot com format.
i.e
If startforextrading.com is not available try registering start-forex-trading.com

If it is impossible to buy your domain name in the dot com format try dot org or dot net. If your target market is limited to a specific country buying a country specific domain is also advisable.

I have posted a complete step by step tutorial on how to buy a domain name in one of my earlier blog post. Read it here.

Step 02 : Create your web site.

Make sure you present your web site with a high level of quality, functionality, and professionalism. You can hire a web designer if you you do not have any previous experience. This is the most common approach adopted by many web entrepreneurs and this is the easiest way to get your web site up and running.

Hiring a web designer will cost you approximately $100- $1500 and higher price web designers are not always the best. So, have a very good look at their portfolio before making any upfront payment.

Designing your own web site can be a quite entertaining experience
if you are a quick learner.You need to learn little HTML but it is not difficult considering all the resources available online.

You can use a simple text editor to write your HTML pages, or you can utilize on of the many free HTML editors available on the web.

I use Adobe Dreamweaver software as it does all the HTML coding for me. But you are still required to learn the basics of HTML. If you know how to use MS word, it will not be difficult to use Dreamweaver.

Website templates.

One easy way to get your website design is to begin with a template. Website templates are Semi finished web pages that have been predesigned and assembled with all the graphics and necessary code needed to get a web site online quickly.

The above is an example for a fashion/ clothing template. You can just edit the text and make it your own web design.

There are many places on the web where you can buy templates, or get them for free. An important aspect of using a template is to utilize as much customization as possible. For a startup company, a template is a good way to save some money and focus on keeping up a positive cash flow.

Many web hosts provide Free web site templates. Keep this fact in mind when you are choosing a web host. If you sign up with a quality host You will find many premium designs for free.

Step 03: Choose a web hosting plan

In order for your website to be available to anyone at anytime, you need to host it with a web host. It is a web server leased to you by a web hosting company. Basically, web hosting provides a way for people to access your web site through the internet. Without it, there would be no way for people to see the page.

There are several thousand web hosting companies out there to choose from. It’s best to chose a web hosting company based on a recommendation. You need to look for following details before making this very important decision.

1. Reliability and speed of access
2. Bandwidth allocated to you.
3. Disk space given to you.
4. Their Technical support.
5. Availability of FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH, and MySQL.
6. Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding.
7. Control Panel type.
8. Multiple Domain Hosting and Subdomains.
9. Price
10.Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans.

I have posted a complete step by step tutorial on how to set up a hosting account in one of my earlier blog post. Read it here.

The following are the best web host companies I can recommend for you to use. I have done an in depth analysis of all these providers and they simply meet all the criterias of a good host.

Hostgator

This is what I use for all my web sites. I bought one unlimited plan and now I am hosting over dozen web sites with Hostgator without paying anything extra.

Special Features :
One click blog/ forum and other scripts installation.
Excellent support staff.
45 Day Money Back Guarantee.
Beautiful and professional web template gallery.
Starting at $4.95 a month.

Blue Host

They will give you a domain name for free and Unlimited domains can be hosted for no extra charge. Starting at $6.95 a month.

Fat Cow

They will provide a Free Domain name, Unlimited disk space, Unlimited bandwidth and Point & Click Site Building Tools.
Other than that they will fix you with $75 worth FREE advertising.
They do not have a monthly payment plan and their service will cost you $66 a year. ($ 10 off for our readers for a limited time and your cost will only be $56.)

PoWWEb

Free Domain name, Unlimited disk space, Unlimited bandwidth and Script Instant Installer starting at $4.88 a month.

Step 04 : Upload your site to the web.

There are 2 ways of uploading your web site files to Internet. The most common method is via FTP. FTP allows you to quickly transfer many files and I am using the FREE software “filezila” for this purpose.

Another method is to use the File Manager within your cPanel control panel, which has an upload feature which allows you to browse your computer and select the files you wish to upload.

Time will not stop and wait for you

If you have an idea for a web site , start acting on it today. Don’t wait till you learn everything. That will never happen. You cannot learn to swim by reading a guide book. This is the same.

I did not know anything about building web sites until I start building one. My first web site taught me everything I need to build and run a web site.

It will not cost you more than $15 to start. ( $10 for the domain name and $5 for the first month hosting.) Allocate one hour from your day and you will end up with a rewarding web site in 14 days.

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How to create a blog/ Forum/ Classified site in few clicks- Part 01.

Posted in: money making ideas

I have been telling about how to make money online assuming my readers will figure out how to actually build a web site and proceed from there. But it seems I am wrong.

Most people still don’t know where to start and how to proceed. So these 2 posts will cover all the important aspects of getting a web site of your own.

moey making ideas 1. How To buy and setup a Domain Name?
1.1 Coupon Codes to lower your cost.

money making ideas 2. How to host a web site?
2.1 Add Forums/ Blogs/ Classified sites/ wiki/ polls/ Surveys in few clicks.

1. How To buy and setup a Domain Name?
First things first. You need to get a domain name if you want to create a web site. I am begging you not to go with a free domain which looks filthy cheap. No body will take you seriously and believe me when I say this. It will not cost you more than $10 so always try to buy a .com/ .org/ .net or a country domain name.

Country domains are bit expensive but if your market segment is from a specific country, this is a very professional option that you should seriously consider. If you are from Sri Lanka, I am talking about a dot lk name.

I use www.GoDaddy.com to fulfill all my domain name requirements. There are thousands of alternatives but to my knowledge they are the best in the business and the cheapest. So I purchase my domain names from them and host it elsewhere. You can choose any service but in this post I will use my service providers as examples. I have already talked about ” how to select a domain name” in one of my previous post and will put a more in depth post in a couple of days time.

Go to www.GoDaddy.com first and check whether the domain name you want to purchase is available.

Type the domain name you wishes to buy and hit the ” Go” button. If the name is available you will get something like this.

Scroll down the bottom and click the “proceed to check out” button. Do not play with other options if you do not know what you are doing. If the name you are looking to buy is not available they will give you a message and try few alternative names until you come up with a winner.

If they try to give you more options just click ” no thanks” and go to the next page. You can select the registration length, and add hosting plans from here. If I were you, I will not buy any hosting plans from them and just get the domain name only. But I must say, they give pretty good deals when you buy hosting plans together with domain names.

Once you select the registration length scroll down the bottom and select “No thanks. I’m ready to checkout.”

Now you are in the final stage of getting a domain name of your own and become a proud owner of a internet real estate :-) Review your shopping cart carefully, then select the payment method you wish to use, agree to the terms and select check out now.

And in the shopping cart, did you notice something called “If you have a promo or source code enter it here:**” ? Before doing anything here the shopping cart value states as $10.19. I went the extra mile and got some promotion codes for you guys. Copy and paste any of the following codes in the shopping cart and click ” update cart”. No need to thank me , Enjoy whatever the discount you get :-)

1.1 Godaddy Coupon codes.

cjc795dom $7.95 .com
cjcsave10 10% off
cjcsave $5 off $30

I do not think I have to explain the next part. Enter your payment and billing information and click the ” checkout now” button. In the process an account will be created at “go daddy” for you.

Now you have a domain name of your own. You can build whatever site you want by using that name. You can create a normal web site by using a software like dreamweaver or else you can build a script based web site. Examples for script based web sites are blogs, forums, classified sites, game arcades, polls and surveys, wiki sites, auction sites..etc.

I hope you know the fact that just by having a domain name you cannot go live with a web site. You need to have a server in order to host your web site files. Fortunately this is not costly nor it is not difficult to set up the system. I will explain you step by step on ” how to host your web site” on a 3rd party server. And also how to install blogs, forums, classified sites..etc in just few clicks without a sweat.