[Under Construction]

I'm sometimes asked how to get one's website started, so I'm putting together a list of things one needs to do.

This guide is oriented toward the person who is creating their own website with a unique URL (aka domain name), as opposed to someone who is using something like MySpace, Xanga, or Wordpress.com. For example, if you're a music teacher, you might want to have a website called nashuamusicstudios.com and put it on your business card. This appears much more professional.

Also, when you have your own web site, you have a lot more flexibility for customization. The downside of customization is the knowledge required to design and engineer a website from scratch; if you don't have the skills or the willingness to learn, you'll have to pay someone to do it for you.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Here's the basic steps in buying web hosting, which is what you need to do if you want your own website on the Internet.

Step 1: Pick a Domain Name

If you're not starting with a hosted blog, you'll want to carve out your own little bit o' heaven on the Internet by choosing a domain name. A domain name is kind of like the name of a city or country; my domain name, for example, is davidseah.com.

I purchased my domain name from a domain name registrar, which is a company that specializes in the buying and selling of domain names from a global registry. You can think of the global registry as a kind of massive phone book that associates your domain name with a particular location on the Internet. So instead of remembering a numeric Internet Protocol Address (abbreviated as IP Address), people can remember a name. The IP address of davidseah.com is currently 64.13.223.31. As you can imagine, remembering davidseah.com is a lot easier.

How much will I pay?

When you purchase a domain name, you should pay about $10-$15 a year. This fee is for maintaining your domain name in the global registry; if you let your registration expire, people will no longer be able to find your website. To make matters worse, someone else might buy your domain name and try to sell it back to you. Maintaining your domain name registration in good standing is as important as paying your taxes.

Where should I go to buy a domain name?

I use a domain registrar called DirectNIC, which is not the cheapest but they were one of the first reasonably-priced services available. There used to only be one domain registrar, Verisign, which charges $50/year. I did not like their marketing practices so I started using DirectNIC. Another popular and inexpensive domain registrar is GoDaddy, but I find their website confusing and heavy on marketing pushiness.

Oftentimes, you can acquire a domain name at the same time you purchase web hosting, which is Step 2. That's right, when you buy a domain name, you only buy the address of your future website. To make sure there is something there, you need to purchase hosting.

What is the process?

First, you need to see if your domain name is available. Popular words, names, and phrases have probably already been registered by other people long ago, unless you get really lucky.

Once you find a domain name you like that is available, you'll need a credit card. You'll be asked to create an account and fill out personal information that will be public. You will also need to provide some information about name servers and technical contacts, which you can usually leave to the defaults. You'll be provided with a username for your domain registrar account, so you can come back later and change those settings once you find web hosting. More on that next!

Step 2. Pick a Web Host

Every domain name points to a computer that is directly connected to the Internet. This computer is called a server because they "serve" information in response to requests from other computers on the Internet. There are many kinds of servers on the Internet, but the kind we are interested in is called a web server that we can rent for a few dollars a month. Companies that provide this kind of service are called web hosting companies, often abbreviated to web hosts or simply host.

What kind of hosting? And how much will it cost?

Web hosting companies are kind of like web server dealerships, and web servers are like vehicles. Some web hosts specialize in serving business, and the web servers they provide are correspondingly powerful. For a personal website, however, you'll be looking for something basic and cheap that costs around $5.00 to $10.00 a month. There are thousands of companies that provide web hosting services, but you'll want to stick with a host that's been around for some time with a good customer service record.

Where do I find a good web host?

Finding a reputable host is typically a word-of-mouth adventure that can be difficult to assess, like asking for recommendations for "the most reliable car" or "the best quality refrigerator". It also depends on what you need to do with your website, which is probably something you haven't figured out yet. You can rest assured that most web hosts will do what you need, so pick a host with a good reputation. If you choose to hire a person to handle the creation of you web site (a web developer), they may have some opinions on what the best host is, so ask them before you pick a host. Otherwise, you can just wing it and you'll probably be fine.

Recommendations for hosting?

Some web hosts I've used in the past and have liked are Pair Networks and FutureQuest. They both have excellent uptime and customer service if you're technically savvy. I'm currently using Media Temple because I'd outgrown my previous hosts, and it's costing me about $100/month.

There are some other web hosts that I've consistently seen as "good-enough" over the years: Bluehost is used by a couple of friends of mine, and it appears to be a good value. Dreamhost is another popular host, though I see complaints about its reliable spring up from time to time (everyone has these problems). Mediatemple has lower-cost hosting plans as well. There's a list of recommended hosts on Wordpress.Org for people who are hosting their own Wordpress blogs that I refer to to see what's new.

So, to pick a web host, visit one of these sites and pick their lowest-cost plan. Every one of these websites will throw a ton of deals at you and confuse you with "bandwidth" and "storage" options, but just pick the cheapest plan. You can always upgrade your plan with a reputable host (and you can downgrade easily too).

What is the process?