Create Your Own Website - Part I - Get a domain name and get web hosting

Posted on March 14, 2007 at 6:06 pm

Make sure to read other posts from the How to Build Your Own Web Site series!

How to Make/Build/Create Your Own Website - Part I - Get a domain name and get web hosting
How to Make/Build/Create Your Own Website - Part II - Free company logos, free web site templates, and free flash templates!

This will be the first part in a series of posts about how you can make/build/create your own web site without needing to spend lots of money! I’m probably shooting myself in the foot because I am a web designer myself, but I’m still banking on clients that need web sites fast and can’t afford the TIME to make it themselves. But if you’re interested and want to not only have more control over the way your web site looks but also save money, then this is the series for you! And remember, you don’t need to know any HTML either!

First I’ll outline what needs to be done in order to create your own web site so that you understand the process:

Step 1: You need to get a domain name (http://www.mysite.com/) and you need to get hosting for that site. A hosting company is where you would put all of your HTML files and have them dish them out to everyone when asked for.

Step 2: Next, you’ll need to actually get a design for your web site and have HTML pages that can be uploaded to the hosting company’s servers. This part is usually the most expensive for most people because they have to hire someone to design and put in all the content. Now these days you can do it yourself with free web templates and a free web page editor to add your content.

Step 3: Once you get the template, you can use a free editor to add your content and create more pages. We’ll walk through using the editor, loading your new template files, and creating your pages.

Step 4: After everything is created, you then have to upload your HTML pages to the hosting company’s servers and change the name servers for your domain name. "Name servers" sounds fancy, but it’s basically just a pointer to the server your files are residing on so that your domain name can link up with your web pages.

So to get started, let’s talk about getting a domain name and hosting. If you already do not have a name registered, go to http://www.godaddy.com/ and start searching for a domain that is still available. GoDaddy is my favorite place to get domains because they are very cheap ($8.95 for a year and they have a deal right now for only $6.95!!) and they offer lots of services for your domain.

Once you open their web site, perform a domain search by typing in the URL you would want into the "Domain Search" textbox (for example, I typed in "IWantThisWebSiteNow.com") and click Go:

If the domain is available, then you’ll get a nice big green check mark indicating the name is available! Once you find a name, make sure the .com option is selected and quickly click the orange Continue button at the bottom.

Don’t worry about configuring anything right now or getting all the extra services, just go ahead and get the name so that it’s yours and not someone else’s! The next screens you have to be a little careful because even though GoDaddy is cheap, they try to add on a bunch of stuff that you don’t need, including other similar domain names, etc.

UNCHECK the "Add these domains…" box and click the TINY "No thanks. Continue to checkout" link! I like how they make it so small you can barely see the thing!!!

On the next screen, if you don’t have an account, go ahead and choose the option to create a new GoDaddy account and type in all the information in the form that is directly below the three options.

On the Registration and Checkout options screen, choose the length of the registration (1 year, 2 years, etc) and don’t worry about email, etc unless you know you will need those things.

Finally at the bottom, click the Quick Checkout radio button (to avoid more "offers") and click the orange Continue button.

The last page reviews your shopping cart and if you got one domain for 1 year, your price should be $9 and some cents. Choose your payment method and click Checkout Now! You’ve just registered your own domain name! You should receive an email from GoDaddy with all the information about your site. Just make sure you get that email and then save it for now, we’ll come back to it later.

The next thing you’ll want to do is to get hosting. You can also wait till after you make all the pages, but I always get it beforehand so that I can upload my pages to the site and test them out to make sure they look OK in Internet Explorer and other Internet browsers.

Hosting has come a long way and there is one web site that’s just gone further by creating a hosting plan that gives you 75MB of space, 3GB of bandwidth (which is enough), and is only $25 PER YEAR!!! Yes, it’s about $2 a month! Drink one less latte a month and you’ll pay for the service!

So your total cost so far, other than your time, is around $32! And in the next post you’ll see that getting a web site template is either free or if you want a premium web site, only between $45 and $60!

Check out Part II on how to get a free web site logo, web site template, and more!

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» Filed Under Web Site Tips

3 Responses to “How to Make/Build/Create Your Own Website - Part I - Get a domain name and get web hosting”

bmxer said on : January 9th, 2008 at 8:48 am

nice

How to create your own web site for free using Weebly Says:

[...] without having to register domains or get web hosting. Previously, I had written two articles on how to get a domain name/hosting and how to get free web site logos and templates that you can check out if you’re interested [...]
October 27th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Uber - Create your own unique website for free Says:

[...] I had written two posts on how to create your own website, including how to get a domain name/hosting and how to download free website templates, however doing it yourself in this manner still requires [...]
December 29th, 2007 at 6:46 am