Starting a Brand New Site

Diving In

To own your own website really boils down to simply having a domain registered and pointing it to hosting space somewhere. The hosting space is where the website actually is – where the folders and stuff “live.” If you want to consider SEO, analytics are also going to be necessary.

This next section explains a little about setting these things up following some basic steps. By the end of these few pages, you will forever know how to set up a web site with confidence.

Domains

The first thing to ask is whether or not you need to own a domain. The answer to that is no – you don’t. You can actually get a site going without owning the domain. (Not recommended though.)

For example, you can go to a site like Wordpress.com, and register a site name with them. This allows you to get started and be blogging for free, online, immediately. You piggyback the name of your blog on their domain, like “newbloggingideas.wordpress.com” but you don’t really own it. They can turn it off or on if they want to, because “wordpress.com” is the domain here. They actually control it, not you.

If you register a domain, no one will be able to turn it off (unless warranted by specific actions). Once it is pointing to the right host, you really don’t need to do much more than update registration fees, which you can do for years at a time.

If you are serious about your website, register your domain. At the time of this writing, domains range in prices starting around $8-10 USD per year, which is affordable. Affordable control taken over simple, yet powerful things like your domain name registration make smart business moves.

Registrars

There are lots of places you might register a domain, and it is a simple process. Most often, you visit a site that registers domains (called “registrars”) and search for the name you want. If it is available, you follow through to the checkout.

Word of warning if this is your first domain transaction: you are only trying to register the domain. If it is not owned, this is a simple registration fee. Right now, this is an annual cost between $6 and $10 USD. Anything over what the going rate is reflects individual mark-up and add-on costs, and it varies tremendously.

Registrars are pretty free to charge whatever they want. Many of the larger, well-known registrars (like GoDaddy.com or NetworkSolutions.com) will offer a low, competitive price for simply registering the domain name for a year, perhaps offering discounts if you register for more than one year at a time.

Many of the smaller businesses or independent operators offering this registrar service might charge a range of prices for the same thing, or bundle it to you with other services, so buyer beware.

And beware of the registrar up-sell. Most domain registrars – even the good guys – will offer hosting packages, and some are good, some are not. It depends on your needs. But many domain registrars will bombard you with sales and deals and offers that sometimes make it difficult to just register a domain. It is easy to get confused, so stay focused on getting through to the check-out.

To avoid confusion, remember that you will register domains and host your sites, which are two separate things.

And to reiterate, in buying domains for inexperienced buyers, buyer beware is a great rule of thumb. Know what you are paying for, and why. If someone wants $50 to register your domain, you have a right to know why, if you know you can register the same one for $10 or less elsewhere.

Choosing a Domain

There are two basic thoughts behind choosing a domain: make it easy to type and remember, or make it strategic. In a perfect world, your domain is both.

If you are starting from scratch, think about what people might be typing to find your website. Is it a service or a brand name? Is it product or a location? Which combination of these is likely to be the most commonly searched?

Often, it is easy to get the domain you want. Many businesses (Google, comes to mind) take an obscure, or seldom-used word, and put meaning into it as a branding play. Since the words are new or seldom used, they are typically available as domains. If you are after names like “Digitex.com” or “Roboticular.com” or something similar, these names might be easy to find as domains.

Some themes or names are going to be very competitive, like “ChicagoPizza” “Cosmetics” or “Plumbing.” There may be some nice variations available here if you think creatively (and like a searcher) or many times, regionally-specific domains could have value for you when paired with one of these more generic terms.

Strategic domain buying is covered later in the optimization section of this guide, but don’t be afraid of registering a few domains – it is a low investment that can often pay-off very well. It’s best not to go overboard, but if you have the budget and find some good domains, go ahead and have a few on hand.

At this stage, simply purchasing the domain from a reputable registrar of your choice is all you need to do.

Now you decide where you want to host it.

Hosting Your Website

In the first step, we covered how to contact a domain registrar and register your domain. Once this has been done, you need to determine where you will host the site.

Sometimes you’ll host at the same place you register your domain. Often, it is registered in one place but hosted in another. It is up to you as a site owner to decide what is best for you.

Hosting a site and what you need from your host depends mainly on what you want to do with your site. If you are installing shopping carts, blogs, and simple web pages, most hosts today offer plans that can accommodate your needs efficiently and cost-effectively, too.

You will need server space, some type of known operating system that will accommodate your builds, and some allotted bandwidth at a minimum. What you need from there, such as databases, email servers, secure connections, etc., depends on what you want your site to do.

Don’t worry – a deep technological knowledge is not necessary to understand the basics. Today’s technology also makes complex functionality relatively easy to install and manage in a short period of time.

Server Space: The server space refers to the amount of room you have for your site files. It stands to reason, that the larger your site is or more sites you have in an account, the more server space you will need for the account. So if you are hosting videos, live streams of audio or video, have a large online catalog, or a very image or resource-heavy site(s), you may require more server space.

Most sites require very little server space to run perfectly well. If your site is small, say less than 100 pages and limited files to support, 10G of space (a common small offer) is going to be PLENTY of room…2 Gigs would be more than most would ever need.

The key is to choose a place for hosting that allows you to start small, and scale upwards as your needs determine it to be necessary. This helps you manage costs.

Some businesses buy servers and host it themselves. Although this is certainly an option, remember, this means you must keep power and perform full maintenance to this server, 100% of the time. You must keep it secure and current, and ALWAYS online. Some people find this to be a good business decision, while most people find it easier to simply pay for space. It depends on your needs and available resources.

As mentioned, most hosts will allow you to start small and scale upwards as your server needs increase. So think about what you need in terms of getting the site running smoothly, and you can always build more, or increase your account’s power as you come to feel more comfortable on the web.

There are also shared or dedicated servers to consider. The names imply what happens: if you choose a dedicated server, you’ll pay more to get a server dedicated completely to your site. A shared server is one that shares its settings for a number of sites that are usually not related to each other.

Dedicated servers become more important for sites receiving a lot of traffic or sites that need extra protection or special efforts taken to ensure or refine performance.

Shared servers can work well for smaller sites, or for sites where you are not concerned about the competition. If having a steady web presence is the main thing for you, shared servers would probably be fine.

Operating System (OS): The OS in this case, refers to the type of functions the server accommodates. Finding out what you can do on the space before you try to do it is a good idea.

    Getting a Little Geeky
    There are generally two types of servers used – either Windows or Linux. Linux is becoming far more common, due to stability and flexibility but there are still many Windows servers being used today.
    For the most part, you can do anything you want on either type of server – but not completely. If you have an idea of what you want to do on the site (say, a blog, a static site, and a shopping cart), it might help to ensure the server specifications will be conducive to the code you’ll be using.
    PHP sites run better on Linux, while .NET sites take better to Windows. Not to say you can’t work your way around either one {refer to the optimizing tips}, but it is best to make things easier on yourself. Matching the server capabilities to the website’s functionalities is a small, but helpful step to ensure.

If you will not be building the site, discuss it with your developer before you agree to a hosting package…it could make a difference to you. Flexible options are not hard to arrange today, and flexibility is what allows you to remain stable, competitive and start growing.

Bandwidth: Bandwidth here refers to the amount of information you can transfer all at once from your website to the people using it. Think of it like the hallway connecting your site to the users, and that there are different sized hallways to accommodate more people if you need them.

Most general web packages offered today are going to allow you plenty of bandwidth to enable normal performance of mid to low-weight functions. By this, it means unless you are doing something that is known to use additional resources (live interaction, use of large video files, etc.), bandwidth is not typically an issue.

If a site wanted to have music playing, or a video that loads when you land on the home page, this is obviously going to use more resources than a static home page with 500 words of text in it. Loading a video might not matter if a dozen or 40 people hit it at the same time. But if 40,000 suddenly click on a video and try to download it all at once, bandwidth will be an issue.

Most reputable hosts will include a reasonable amount of bandwidth for sites to run without issue in their most basic packages, and an ability to scale seamlessly as needs increase. If you have a lot of increasing traffic, you may need more bandwidth. It is a good problem to have, and always worth paying for as a webmaster.

What Have We Learned?

  • You can get a site started on a shared host, like a blogging platform, and use a shared domain, but it is not recommended for a serious website or one that wants to benefit from SEO
  • Domain registration is a low yearly cost, unless the domain seller decides it isn’t
  • Beware of add-on costs, and extras that registrars might try to include in a domain purchase
  • Domain registration is different than site hosting, and both are necessary for a live website
  • Hosting can be relatively inexpensive, and most sites need very little space or bandwidth
  • Make sure that the hosts servers are operating with systems compatible with the site build
  • Most reputable hosts allow you to start out small, and scale seamlessly as your needs demand it

Where Can You Go?

For Domain Registration and/or Hosting:

Pair.com, Domain.com, NetworkSolutions.com, Moniker.com, and GoDaddy.com

You should now understand the basics, and be able to set up a domain and hosting for your site. At a minimum, those steps are all you need. However, most site owners want their sites to be competitive, or have a purpose that requires tracking.

The next section of this guide will look at Analytics packages: why they’re important, where to find them and how to implement them.