I get asked a lot "What exactly do I need to have my own website". Typed this out in a PM and figured I'd throw it up publicly for a n00b's guide on what you need to buy to have a website.
The question was
The basic answer is : -
it varies a lot. You need to pay for a hosting service too.
Not sure how much you know about the internets, but basically, the URL (www.google.com) address tells a persons computer where to go on the internet to find that website. You still need to put the website somewhere, so you have to buy a host to put your files. To use an analogy: - the URL is a street sign and a number, and your host is your house.
Hosting can be from $2-3 a month up to a lot (100+)
I use ***URL.Removed.This.Isnt.An.Add.com.au*** for my hosting, I pay $10 a month and get 20gig of storage and unlimited bandwidth, I chose this ONLY cause it's hosted in AU. ---- U.S. hosting is a LOT cheaper.
The only difference really is that aus hosting is/should be a slight speed increase, and if you want to rank in google then aus hosting helps to make you rank higher for aus searches
If you dont care about ranking and just want cheap, the most reliable would be something like godaddy
hosts like them have starter plans for a URL and a host
for only $60 a year, and you get
10 GB Space
Unlimited Bandwidth
100 Email Accounts2
10 MySQL Databases (1 GB ea.)
*100 email accounts is basically bullshit, you can set it up to get infinate emails accounts so ignore that (providing you are the only one going to access them all), and you'd probably only ever use 1 SQL database.
Once you have a host, you will need to point the URL to your web space (if you buy both at the one company at the same time you most likely wont need to do anything). NOTE: It may take a day or 2 for the internet to update and have your new domain actually load your new host.
Then you need to set-up some sort of website. A lot of hosts provide pre-packaged bundles like WordPress for site content and image galleries etc. You can use one of these (very easy to setup) or write your own code... or pay me