How To Setup Your Own Website

[ianjb]

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

hey how do i go about paying this ten bucks a year for my own url? also how much can i store on there?

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

Edited May 30, 2012 by ianjb

[25GTT]

Nice, and well put.

So how would you do a site that sells stuff, purely for example car parts? Eg what software would you use to allow the e-commerce transactions to occur within the sight?

Is "Thawte" still used?

[Sleepy_R34]

I'd have to recommend Hostgator for webhosting, i spent many hours researching and its unbelievable at how many bad hosts are out there, its a bit more then $2-3/month, i think im paying $11, but come on, thats about the price of a macca's meal, for peace of mind that your website is in good hands! Also beware of cheaper hosts, who hide the fact that you have to pay extra for any useful features.

To answer the question about e-commerce. There are plenty of e-commerce solutions out there at the moment, magento, zen-cart etc, but the problem is you have to build your website up using that cart, you can't exactly just "add" it to your existing website.

If thats okay with you, then you simply have to do a shopping cart search in google and you will have plenty to choose from. If you are like me however and really just wanted something that you could add into your own website, go do a search on Ecwid, it took me hours of searching to stumble upon it, and its the only solution for what i was looking for and its great, and its free.

[DivHunter]

We use Web24 a lot. Mostly co-located and dedicated systems though.

[luke gtr]

Nice and simple guide.

Still a little over my head.

But hopefully ill be able to use a website of my own one day.