Domains and Hosting

Recently, a friend asked me a few questions about creating a website for a family business. She's a pretty geeky type of gal herself, but has never ventured into the world of web hosting companies and domain purchasing. This is the foundation of having your own website, so if you've been thinking of branching out from blogger to having a .com address of your very own, this will help you get started. It's not hard to do, but the first time can be a little confusing.

There are three major components to creating a website. The first is to actually create the website--that part will require hard work and planning, and is a gigantic topic that couldn't be covered in anything remotely close to the size of this article. The second is to buy the domain name, and the third is to find a hosting company. These steps do not necessarily need to be done in a particular order, and in fact, you will probably work on several of them at the same time.

The domain name is the flashiest part of this process. The domain name is where your website will be located on the internet, such as mosaicminds.net. To register a domain name, you sign up with the name at a company that processes domains. This used to be a strictly regulated process, with only one company to "choose" from. These days, there are plenty of domain name registration companies out there, and most of them charge you less than that first company, Network Solutions, will. (I have had very good service from GoDaddy.com.) Domains are registered by the year, and you can buy one for less than $10 per year at some places. At the end of the year, you will need to pay them again if you want to continue using it--they are very insistent about this, for some reason.

The next company that wants money from you is the hosting company. Many domain registration companies will also offer these services, and that can be an easy way to go, especially for the beginner. For others to view your website, you need to put a copy on a server. A server is a computer that's accessible to the rest of the world that can send your pages to people upon request. You will pay them for an amount of space to put your site on, bandwidth (the amount of traffic your site will use) and whatever additional features they provide, such as access to scripting technologies, databases and email. There are lots of different hosting companies to choose from. If any of your friends have websites, ask them who they use and if they're satisfied with them, and do internet searches. Hosting companies typically want to charge you monthly, though many will be glad to take your money upfront for the year if you prefer. They will also typically charge you for any overages you use, such as bandwidth that exceeds the amount contracted for. Make sure you understand their pricing structures before you commit, because they can and will charge you for extras.

And then, of course, there is that final and terribly complicated step that takes huge amounts of time, money and computer skills--okay, actually, there isn't. It's as easy as that, and you're set to go. When your domain registration and hosting are taken care of, you're ready to upload your website and reap whatever benefits your site is designed for. Next up is marketing your site... but that's an entirely different bucket of worms.