This article describes step by step everything you need to know in order to set up a shiny new web site. For this example I make the following assumptions…
Assumptions
domain name = mysite.com
domain name purchased from firm A (fxdomains)
hosting with firm B (bluehost)
This article describes step by step everything you need to know in order to set up a shiny new web site. For this example I make the following assumptions…
Assumptions
domain name = mysite.com
domain name purchased from firm A (fxdomains)
hosting with firm B (bluehost)
Part 1 : Get a Domain Name
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The first stage in creating a website is to register a new domain name.
What is a domain name?
Every website has an associated unique identity number called an “IP address” The IP Address for Google is “173.194.33.4”. Since numbers are difficult to remember, every website is given a more memorable unique name known as a “domain name”. Some examples of domain names are niceworldnews.com blackboxtest.net willpowermedia.co.uk wordpress.org.
You will notice that these domain names are made up of two or more parts separated by “.” dots. These parts are known as domain levels and are organised from the top level domain on the far right of the domain name to the lower level domain to the far left of the domain name.
Top level Domain (TLD)
The right-most part of the domain names are the com, org, uk and net labels. These are known as top level domains and are the top of the hierarchy in domain name identification. There are “com”, “org” and “net” are some of what are know as the generic top-level domains. “uk” is an example of a country-code top-level domain.
Second level and lower level domains
To the left of the TLD is the second level domain. With the niceworldnews.com example, “niceworldnews” is the second level domain. With the willpowermedia.co.uk example, “co” is the the second level domain and “willpowermedia” is the third level domain.
Think of a Domain Name
When deciding on your domain name you need to think about two main things.
1. What the second level domain should be, i.e. what name should appear at the start or to the left of the first dot of the domain name of the site to reflect the name of your business or the common subject of the content of your website.
2. What top level domain do you want. Do you want a generic TLD such as a .com or a country-code TLD such as a .uk?
Pick a generic TLD if you expect a global audience
Pick a country-code TLD if your site will target an audience restricted to a specific country or you want your audience to know that you are based in a particular country.
Register Your Domain Name
Once you’ve decided on what domain name would be perfect for you, you’ll need to register and pay for it. To do so you’ll need to find a domain name registrar. There are hundreds of registrars to pick from, all offering different prices and deals. Some registrars charge more for a “.com” than they would for a .”net”. Some registrars offer bulk discount whereas some registrars may offer free hosting. To find the most popular domain registars, do a search on the internet for “top 10 domain name registrars” read the reviews, read the comments and then have a look at the provider’s site before deciding who you feel most comfortable with.
Once you’ve found a registrar go to their site and then find their Domain Name Search page which normally appears on the homepage. Once you enter that perfect domain name that you spent so long thinking about you’ll probably be very disappointed. The chances are that the name has already been taken by someone else. Don’t dispare though, you’ll just have to keep trying different names, coming up with variations and be persistent. Eventually you’ll find a name which hasn’t yet been taken and you’ll just need to go through the process of reserving and paying for the domain name to make it yours – all yours!
Part 2 : Setting Up a Web Hosting Account
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Now that you have your domain name you’re going to need somewhere to keep all the webpages and pictures associated with your website. This place needs to be on-line and accessible to anyone, anywhere on the Internet. You could in theory use your own PC for this however if your site is that popular that it has 1000s of visitors every day your internet connection would get totally clogged up. Also, if you turned your PC off, no-one would be able to access your site. The solution then is to purchase a web hosting account.
A web hosting account gives you access to space on a powerful, fast and large server which is owned by a hosting company. For a monthly fee you get somewhere to store your webpages, somewhere to set up email accounts with your own domain name, your own database and a “host” of other tools and features depending on the hosting firm you use and the hosting package you buy. Cheaper packages generally allow you host a limited number of domains, databases and email accounts and provide a limited amount of disk space to store your web pages and images etc. The most expensive packages offer unlimited domain hosting, unlimited space and just about unlimited everything as well as far greater ability to handle huge volumes of internet traffic, i.e. lots of users downloading stuff from your website.
If this is your first website, I recommend picking a well known host provider with a basic to mid-range package offering umlimited domains and disk space. This should be pretty cheap i.e. £6 / $10 per month and you’ll have the flexibility to try the numerous features on offer and add new domains if you choose to do so in the future.
Steps to setting up a hosting account,
1) Pick Your Web Hosting Provider
Do a web search for top 10 web hosts, read up on them to weigh up the pros and cons of each one including price and features. Pick the one that best suits your needs then check the details further on their website.
2) Purchase the Hosting Account
Go to the website of the firm you decided to buy your hosting from and follow their instructions for making the hosting account purchase. This will be different from site to site so I won’t go into any greater detail here.
And that’s it – so far, so good. You’ll now have a domain name and somewhere to store your website, the next step is to add your domain
Part 3 : Adding Your Domain to Your Hosting Account
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So you’ve bought yourself a domain name and set up a hosting account from two different companies. If you type in your domain name into your web browser now you’ll see a page saying something like “Coming Soon” and will probably have a few ads on it that have nothing to do with you. Your domain name provider is basically using your domain to earn money from advertising and you won’t get a penny. To put a stop to this exploitative act you need to bring your domain onto your hosting account. Doing so will allow you to start creating webpages with your own content, products, blogs, images and ads which is why you’re reading this.
The steps to bring your domain name to your hosting account are as follows…
A) TAKE NOTE OF HOSTING ACCOUNT NAMESERVERS
1. Login to the account you wish to use for hosting your website
2. Go to the domains list page and open the name servers summary window / page
3. Take a note of the two name servers listed e.g ns1.webhost.com, ns2.webhost.com
B) CHANGE THE DOMAIN NAMESERVERS TO HOSTING ACCOUNT NAMESERVERS
1. Login to account where domain was purchased
2. Go to your domain list page
3. Go into nameserver settings for the domain you want to create a site for
4. Customize the nameserver settings by changing the nameservers to reflect those noted from the hosting account
C) SET UP YOUR DOMAIN ON THE HOSTING ACCOUNT
1. Login to the account you wish to use for hosting your website
2. Go into the Assign Domain page
3. Select Use a domain not already associated with your account and enter the domain name
4. Since you already tied the domain name to the nameservers associated with the hosting account a message should inform “Ownership verified…”
5. Check that the domain and nameservers displayed are as expected
6. As you are adding a new domain to a shared hosting accoun, select “Addon Domain”
7. The directory and sub-domain will be set automatically. The given details should be fine so just take a note of the new directory to be created and click “Assign this domain. Your new domain will now be listed in the domain list within the hosting account
Part 4 : Creating a Test Domain on Your Hosting Account
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A test domain is a subdomain of the new site where you can make changes to your website before applying them to the live site. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of setting up a test site as part of your main website creation process
The steps to set up a test domain are…
1. Go into the Domains/Subdomains page and select your new domain from the domain list box.
2. In the box prefixing the new domain name enter “test”
3. As you may have more than one subdomain named “test” for different primary domains on the same server, edit the the Home folder by adding a “/” and then the name of the primary domain e.g. if your new primary domain is mysite.com then the home folder name to enter for your test site would be test/mysite.
4. Click “Create” and a message should inform that your test site (i.e. test.mysite.com) Subdomain has been created.
Part 5 : Creating a Database
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If you’re planning on using a CMS such as WordPress or Drupal then you’ll need to set up a database
The steps to set up a test domain are…
1. Go into Hosting/Databases and enter a name for your new database. Try to give it a name with some relevance to what you’re using it for e.g. “mysitedb”
2. Click “Create Database” and a message should inform that the database is created.
3. Go back to the previous page and scroll down to Add New User
4. Enter a username (something similar to the database name e.g. mysitedbuser) and a password.
5. Click “Create User” and a message informs that the new MySQL user is created.
6. Make a careful note of the username, the password and the database name for future reference
Part 6 : Set Up an Email Account
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Part 7 : Install a Content Management System
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