Original Document

Four steps to starting a website:

  1. Purchase an appropriate domain name
  2. Consider purchasing variants and misspellings of the URL.
  3. Choose a web hosting provider
  4. Forward the domain name, sub-domains, and email addresses to the physical server that's hosting the site.
1. Buy a domain name

Two popular, reliable, and easy-to-use providers are www.domaindirect.com and www.register.com. The two most common domain classificationsa are Domain Parking and Personal Identity. Domain Parking is ideal for reserving a name for future use. It does not include domain or email forwarding. A Personal Identity Account is a full-service account that allows these features. Regardless of which level you choose, make sure it includes a sufficient quantity of both sub-domain and email address forwards for your current use. However, you can upgrade to accounts with additional features at any time.

If your intended domain name is already owned by another organization, you could contact the owner of the domain name and offer to buy it. If a website is already active under that name, it's probably not for sale at all. If it is, you may have to pay high price for it. If it is not actually in use, the owners have abandoned the site or changed their minds about building a site. You can either wait for the domain name to expire or contact the owners to see if they want to sell it.

2. Consider purchasing variants and misspellings of the URL

Purchasing similar names may help people find your website even if they can't type it exactly.

3. Choosing a Web Hosting Provider

A larger organization will often host its own web site on its own server. Individuals and smaller organizations usually don't want the administration hassles of hosting their own site. Instead, they use a web hosting provider. Free web site hosting is often included with email and internet service and from some big portals like www.yahoo.com or www.geocities.com. For larger web sites, such space may be neither large enough nor powerful enough in terms of how fast the server delivers pages or how many hits it can process. In such cases, you'll need to go shopping for a web hosting provider. Many domain name providers can also supply web hosting. Google lists 213,000,000 results for web hosting providers.

Important Considerations: 4. Forward the domain name, sub-domains, and email addresses to the physical server that's hosting the site.

 




Recapping What We've Just Covered:

  1. Purchase an appropriate domain name
  2. Consider purchasing variants and misspellings of the URL.
  3. Choose a web hosting provider
  4. Forward the domain name, sub-domains, and email addresses to the physical server that's hosting the site.
MORE IN DEPTH»