Web Site Basics
By Clare Lawrence
Posted Thursday, October 7, 2004
The web or internet is an exciting place, but can seem very daunting to the novice web designer.
You want to get a web site up and live, how is it done, and how can it be done cheaply?
Domain Names
The first step is to select a domain name, try and choose a name that is easy to remember, short, and if possible one that describes your website.
Nearly all the obvious domain name have gone, so you may need to use your imagination!
There are many domain name registration services such as my own site (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com) on the web. All domain names are created by the Top Level Domain providers such as Nominet in the UK so there is no great advantage in paying over the top for your domain name. Look for a company that offers telephone support, e-mail only can be frustrating.
Web Hosting
Next you will need some space on the web to publish or host your website. If you have a broadband or ADSL connection, you can use this to host your own site. It does of course mean that you can’t switch off your machine.
To point a domain name at a site hosted in this way you need to have a static IP address and look for an IP pointing option in your domain name registrars control panel. This is usually called the domains Zone Records.
Mostly everyone uses a third party hosting company; once again there are loads to choose from including my own service at (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com)
Select the hosting package that best matches your requirements and budget. It’s usually best to start with a basic package than upgrade, hosting companies make most of their money by selling you space which you then don’t use.
Your hosting company will provide you with a username and password to allow you to FTP, File Transfer Protocol your site to the hosting space.
If you’re using a hosting company other than your domain name registrar, you will need their Primary and Secondary DNS or Domain Name Settings, which take the form of domain names e.g.
Ns1@asdasdasd.co.uk
Ns0@asdadadsa.co.uk
Web Design
A great package to start out web designing is MS FrontPage; it follows the format of the rest of the Microsoft office suite and is very reasonably priced and easy to pick up.
Once you’ve progressed with FrontPage then a more professional and sophisticated package to try is Macromedia Dreamweaver.
Once you have designed a site then simply select the publishing option, enter the domain name, your user name and password, and your site will FTP to your web-server.
Summary
That’s all there is too it. Getting a website up and live can be done in a matter of minutes, its worth mentioning that a new domain name and DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to get picked up by the worldwide DNS system.
About the Author
Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd – A leading UK provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services. Please feel free to re-publish this article provided this reference box remains together with a hyperlink to (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com) Clare can also be contacted on clare@discountdomainsuk.com.
