setting up a webpage

[weezergirl]

I think this topic comes up once in awhile but i'm still confused. sorry!

anyways, i want to set up my own webpage. i've been residing on free webpages but i've come to the point where i want to register for my own domain name and run a website on my own. i think i sort of understand what you have to do. 1. register a domain name. 2. get it hosted somewhere???? anyways, i need to find the cheapest place, and after searching the archives i've come to the conclusion godaddy.com is the cheapest and pretty reliable. (anybody want to advise against this?) anyways, i don't really know what it takes to set up a webpage. is godaddy pretty self explanatory? will i be able to do it on my own just by following their instructions? also, it says to register a domain name for one year it will cost me 8.95 a year, are there any hidden costs here? (i thought there was some internic charge or something or other that costs 35 a year...what's that?? does that apply here?) and then to host it is it is 9.95 a month no set up fee. so if i got that right to set up my own webpage and have it running for a year it will cost me a one time fee of 8.95 and then 9.95 a month right?? (sorry, just want to make sure i have enough money to do this hehe). ok lastly, am i in over my head? hehe. i feel pretty clueless with this stuff but i'm not a dummy, i just need somebody to point me in the right way and i don't wanna get hit with some other charges i didn't know i had to pay. (i'm a poor college student).

anyways, i'm kind of excited because i'm thinking of setting up my own line of clothing catering to nerd girls. (we're out there!) if it ever gets up and actually happens i want to show u guys and have u guys tell me what u think. wish me luck!!!

and thanks for any help with this

 

[RossMAN]

Bump for you.

It sounds like you're wanting to start an eCommerce website where you're selling goods, right? I'd say it's going to cost a lot more than just $9.95 per month in webhosting fees. From what I understand InterNIC has a monopoly and charges $70 for 2 years of domain registration which is a ripoff, you could get the same service elsewhere for half the price or less. Although it's not the cheapest I have always recommended DomainMonger.com because they do all the work for you and I believe it's only $18 per year.

Maybe $9.95 a month will cover your web hosting but once you start drawing more traffic it'll get more expensive for more bandwidth. So it all depends on how many hits you're getting and what kind of services you want on your website.

Also it costs a lot to design a website with credit card payment stuff plus you have to pay for some merchant Visa/Amex/MasterCard accounts, blah blah blah. I'm talking out of my a$$ right now and it's a beautiful day outside.

 

[Jothaxe]

<< (i'm a poor college student) >>



Why not just host the pages on your own machine? Its pretty easy, and this means you can do it for free.


If you are a college student, does this mean you are on the school network? If so, your bandwidth should be great for a webpage. And if you dont have a static IP, you can probably get your shchool to assign you one if you ask nicely (at least that worked for me.) Anyways, the software to run the webpage can also be obtained for free, so theoretically your grand total would come to zero dollars a year this way.

I dont know if this helps, but let me know if you have other questions!

-jothaxe

 

[weezergirl]

yeah, my sister can help me with the e-commerce part. she runs her own business. but right now i'm not even sure how popular this idea is going to be. i want to make a couple of designs and see how it goes. is it bad if i just start out having people pay me through paypal? i don't expect to make a lot of money through this. but if out of some miracle my idea does become bigger and i actually do draw customers (who aren't my relatives, friends, or neighbors ha!) then i would definitely make my webpage more professional etc. but as a just testing the water thing (and if it doesn't work out i would like to make the webpage my own personal site which wouldn't require much traffic) does godaddy work out?

thanks for your opinion.

 

[weezergirl]

<<

<< (i'm a poor college student) >>



Why not just host the pages on your own machine? Its pretty easy, and this means you can do it for free.


If you are a college student, does this mean you are on the school network? If so, your bandwidth should be great for a webpage. And if you dont have a static IP, you can probably get your shchool to assign you one if you ask nicely (at least that worked for me.) Anyways, the software to run the webpage can also be obtained for free, so theoretically your grand total would come to zero dollars a year this way.

I dont know if this helps, but let me know if you have other questions!

-jothaxe >>



actually i live off campus. i'm on dsl and i looked up on hosting it on my own computer which would require leaving it on 24/7. unfortunately my roommates don't like the noise or the fact that it uses up electricity etc so that's not the most economical way for me. thanks for the suggestion tho!

 

[d2tu]

I actually just set up a virtual server with 4 websites with domain registration and all the fun stuff. So, I assume you know some HTML but thats just the beginning if you're planning on doing a whole e-commerece site. At the minimum, you're going to need to know some Perl/CGI to set up all the back-end webpage stuff. Since it looks like you're setting up a virtual host, you probably won't need to get involved with Apache and Linux.

Anyway, you have 2 choices. You can set up your own server in your dorm which would take some figuring out or you can pay for the virtual host. Or, you can do the virtual host thing. I checked out godaddy.com and the hosting for 10 bucks does not support any CGI or anything advanced. Basically, this means you can only do flat HTML stuff. I don't think thats gonna work for your store.

From my experience, setting up a full fledged store is gonna take ALOT of work. Not to discourage you or anything, but if I were you, I would set up a server in my room and then develop the whole site on it. Then, find a good host and upload it to them.

Feel free to ask any more questions...this is actually one thing I know something about.

 

[Sonic625]

DO what I did, I went to fleabay and searched for web hosting and found a Premium service for $75 for a year. Just for some idea it comes with 1GB space, and 15GB transfers. They have been pretty good service and for the price and storage its hard to find anything close.
BTW, the service would normally cost $75/month if you go through their website which is Terrasite
Thanks,
Sonic625

 

[RossMAN]

yeah, my sister can help me with the e-commerce part. she runs her own business. but right now i'm not even sure how popular this idea is going to be. i want to make a couple of designs and see how it goes. is it bad if i just start out having people pay me through paypal?

I agree with d2tu to setup an eCommerce site takes a lot of knowledge and money. However this is going to start out as something small on the side sort of like getting paid for a hobby. I'd definitely go the PayPal way first then if you see business expand (beyond people you know) it might be justified to invest the time and money into accepting credit cards, etc. I'd check out some websites which are similar to your proposed site. Go to a good search engine like Google.com but don't look for something too specific or you might not find it. Best of luck!

About the hosting I'd say since you can't have your PC on 24/7 I'd go virtual hosting like with GoDaddy.com but once you start accepting credit cards it's going to cost more. But when you first start out accepting only PayPal, a simple HTML page should work just fine. Make sure to design the website with lots of pictures, information, sizes, pricing, shipping, privacy statement, the whole enchilada (with mystery green sauce included)!

 

[pulpp]

okay, hopefully this wont get long, but lets have a run-down step by step.


- first thing, are you familiar with designing websites? i am assuming you will do your own design, which is fine. things to keep in mind, is speed and readability. what i leanred from webdesign, is that people have very short attention span, so the message should be clear right away. pick a matching color scheme and stick to it throughout the site. its also better to develop a template model, so that you only need to fill content and everything on the site will look the same automatically. as for software, i personally recommend FrontPage, others swear by DreamWeaver, its a matter of personal prefrence.


- second, you need to register your domain, i suggest you do that on your own and not have a webhosting company do it for you, to insure all information is entered correctly. as ross said, there are places cheaper than Internic to buy your domain name. internic fee is $35 a year, the cheapist i seen is around $15 a year.


- then you need a webhost, i do not recommend hosting it from your home computer, the speed and reliability is much better at a webhost with direct connections to backbones. no one likes a lsow website. as to choosing a webhost, depends on your needs, space is usually isnt the issue, but bandwidth is. something like 5-10gb/months and up is fine for a starter website. always check the contract terms before signing up for what kinda of fees they might charge you if you exceed your bandwidth limit for a given month.

- as to choosing a webhost that matches your need, here are some pointers and recommendations in no particular order:

http://www.hostrocket.com/

http://www.aletiahosting.com/

http://www.rackshack.net/index.asp

http://www.communitech.net/

i personally, been using communitech.net lately, good service, and they have a great control panel to control your account.


- you will need alot of support from how to setup your virtual account to how to setup scripts, these are some of the best webhosting forums:

http://www.sitepointforums.com/

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/


- there will be times when you have something in mind, but dont know how to do it, before brainstorming, always check these places:

HotScripts

FreshMeat



- simple pieces of advice:

it must load fast.

it must be easily readable

optimize your graphics for god`s sake, if every webmaster bothered to optimize thier graphics we would have a much faster internet. not to mention you will save alot of bandwidth.

it should have a consistant look and feel

dont worry about being a perl/cgi or programming guru, you can do almost everything with minimal programming knowledge. take me as an example, i am an idiot when it comes to programming, but i had to trouble setting up anything on the servers i worked on.


as for fees, yes, its the domain registeration fee, plus a setup fee if your webhost charges you that, then the monthly fee, and again check thier policy on exceeding bandwidth.

i hope this cleared up things a bit, if you have any more questions, ask.




EDIT: SitePoint.com is a good place to learn about webdevelopment technology in general, toturials and such.

EDIT: my moronic spelling.

 

[RossMAN]

optimize your graphics for god`s sake, if every webmaster bothered to optimize thioer graphics we would have a much faster internet. not to mention you will save alot of bandwidth.

it should have a consistant look and feel

dont worry about being a perl/cgi or programming guru, you can do almost everything with minimal programming knowledge. take me as an example, i am an idiot when it comes to rpogramming, but i had to trouble setting up anything on the servers i worked on.


as for fees, yes, its the domain registeration fee, plus a setup fee if your wbhost charges you that, then the monthly fee, and again check thier policy on exceeding bandwidth.

i hope this cleared up things a bit, if you have any more questions, ask.

Wow great post, thanks for the information.

when it comes to spelling correctly[/i]

 

[kami]

You can get third party companies to accept credit cards for you through their system, then they just pay you (and i imagine you pay them a small fee). One I know of is CCNow. This way you don't have to set up an account with Visa, Mastercard, etc.
There's also places like here where you basically pay a monthly fee for an online shopping cart type thing that accepts credit cards.

good luck

 

[pulpp]

i corrected some of my moronic spelling mistakes. thanks RossMan


i forgot about taking credit card orders and such, as Kami mentioned you can get an account with a service that accepts them for you in return of a small fee on each purchase. this way you dont have to worry about setting up an account with a bank/credit, and you dont have to buy an SSL secure certificate yourself.

 

[weezergirl]

cool, thanks for all the helpful suggestions

 

[DamienVorlion]

When getting a domain name, you'll get the service you paid for. Register with some cheap $9 registrar, and forget about any kind of transfer service or anything else for that matter. Plus, don't assume that you will own that name, for $9 there will be something more to it. Go to register.com, pay the $35, and rest assured.