I don’t know about you but I don’t think it is worth it to spend thousands of dollars to purchase a name. There have been many companies that have simply made up names to combat this, like google and twitter. There are many tools on the internet to aid in the creation of a name like domainsbot, nametumbler, and NameBoy just to name a few. When using these sites all you have to do is type in a few keywords or a phrase and the site will recommend some names.  Next to the name recommendations you will also see if the name is available for registration.

Many people wonder if they need a .com domain.  The short answer is YES.  The .com extension is the most widely known and trusted top level domain. The best case would be to purchase .com, .net, and .org to protect your name.  If you still can’t find a name try using a hyphen.  Breaking up a domain name into two words separated by a hyphen will net you two keywords in the domain name and help with your site SEO.

When you find a name that you love the next step will be to register that name.  There are many registrars out there and most are reputable.  The main thing to look for is if they are ICANN certified.  Two registrars I would recommend checking out are Namecheap and Godaddy.  Both of these registrars have been around a long time, offer competitive prices and have easy to use control panels.

Having your domain name separate from your web hosting is always a good idea unless your host provides you with a free one, then it’s a no brainer.  Keeping the domain separate will allow you to have total control over your name allowing you to point it wherever you want or sell it for a ridiculous amount of money .

Hosting your own blog gives you the freedom to keep your data and easily move it and back it up if you need to . Other advantages are that you can make your blog look the way you want, you can post ads and affiliate links so that you can earn money from blogging and not have ads forced from another company on your site.

Installing blogging software is as easy as signing up for a free account. If you have cPanel with your web hosting, all you have to do is go into your control panel and click on the fantastico link. Once you are in the fantastico control panel you will have the choice of installing three different blogging platforms. I would recommend WordPress, it has one of the larges support communities and more plugins than you can count. To install WordPress all you have to do is click on the WordPress link and fill out a form. When the form is complete click the finish button and view your new site.

After your site is  up and running you can go to your WordPress control panel located a yourdomain.whatever/wp-admin. From your admin area you can add articles, change the template, manage extensions, and upload media.

To add more templates you will need an ftp program like cyberduck.ch and a template you want to use. There are many free and premium templates on the internet I would suggest googling it. When you find a template you like simply open the ftp program, connect to your server, navigate to the wp-content/templates folder and upload your template. When the transfer is complete go to your WordPress admin and activate the new theme.

It is very easy to put ads on your wordpress site.  First you will have to go to google and signup for an adsense account and generate your code.  You will also need an adsense module for your wordpress site that can be downloaded on the wordpress plugin site for free and upload it through ftp to the wp-content/plugins folder.  When the plugin is installed go to your wp-admin and paste the adsense code into the plugin.

Hosting you own blog is really no more work than having a free account, but in the long run having full control over your content is priceless. For more information on hosting your own blog please view our blog hosting plans.  You can take control for as little as $4.95 a month.

When you look for hosting, the first thing you are usually going to look for is the amount of space and bandwidth that each hosting provider provides, for some people, this is as far as they need to look, for other people, they need to look further into the hosting provided. The server that you decide to use is in fact just a PC like the one you are using now, the only diffrence is that more often than not, a server will be much faster and possibly hold more space, it is when you realize this that you can apply the other aspects to picking the best web host, you just have to think about what makes your computer better than your friends(an example), we can then go into the realm of processor speed, operating system, RAM and the internet connection, these aspects are quite often the reason why one host may seem more expensive than another.

When choosing the best host for yourself, you may not need a fast processor or alot of RAM, you may only need 250 MB space, if you cut back on what you buy to as far as you need then you will get just what you need on a much cheaper budget, for example, if you need to host a website that is only 50 MB in size, you would be better off getting a hosting package with 250MB space, than a hosting package with 1,000 MB space. The same applies for bandwidth, RAM and processor speed. The operating system you use can also vary depending on how you want your site to run, UNIX and Linux servers are well known for having much better security than Microsoft servers, however, you may not need much security for your website, and there are other aspects to choosing the right operating for you. Diffrent operating systems also support diffrent languages that can be used in creating your site, all servers are able to support HTML but, some people are now looking to create dynamic websites.

HTML is a static language, it outputs information on your screen, and this information does not change, dynamic languages allow the content to change, there are also diffrent types of dynamic languages, these are server side, and client side, server side script execute on the server and then are able to output as HTML, for server side scripts to work, the server needs to have the correct software installed. Client side script exacutes on the computer of the person who is viewing the website, this means that the person viewing the website must have the correct software installed to be able to view it. When it comes to server side scripts, the servers operating system can play a major role in what scripts you decide to use. Microsoft servers support a language called ASP, only Microsoft servers can run ASP and Microsoft charge money for their software, linux servers equivalent is PHP, PHP is much more used and most hosting professionals believe it is much beter, PHP as well as linux is open source, this allows people to modify how the programs themselves work, another good point is that they are totally free!

The most common setup for a server is called the LAMP setup, this stands for Linux Apache MySQL and PHP. Apache is the server program that runs on the server and manages all of the requests by users accessing the server. MySQL is a type of database that can be used to store information on your server, you may need a diffrent amount of MySQL databases depending on the content of your website and some web hosts provide a limited amount of MySQL databases so it is essential that you get the right amount for you.

Other important factors when choosing a hosting provider are the type of control panel provided and the support provided by the web hosting company. Cpanel is the standard when it comes to linux web hosting, it includes many user friendly features like easy script installation, email account management and visitor statistics.

This is only a brief overview of web hosting and what you need to get started. It is always advised to discuss your requirements with your hosting provider. A reputed web hosting company will always guide you to choose the right plan for you or your business.

Web hosting is capable of working across all operating systems including Mac’s.  In this article I am going to go over what you will need to manage, build and maintain a website using a Mac.

The first step in working with web hosting is obviously purchasing a web hosting plan. There are a million web hosts to choose from and they all have basically the same features. They will include a control panel, web space, bandwidth, and remote access called FTP.

Once you have chosen your web hosting provider now it is time to create your website. You have many options to choose from. We will start with a basic static website that uses CSS and html. I would suggest going and downloading an open source (free) template to start out.

To edit a template you will need a few program, I would suggest a graphics editor called Gimp, a text editor called TextWrangler, and a wat you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) html editor Nvu.  All of these programs are free to download.  If you feel a little more adventurous you can start from scratch and design a site from scratch.  These three tools can do that also.  I would recommend doing any website modifications or design on your desktop and when it is complete and fully tested you can move on to the next step.

Your second option is to use the handy little program that came with you Mac called iWeb.  This is a great program for beginners, all you have to do is pick a theme and add content.  When your site has been created in iWeb you will need to publish your site to a folder and save it to your desktop.

Now that you have your site  designed and the content added and everything is working properly, you will need to put your site on the hosting server.  This is done through an FTP program.  There are many to choose from, but lets stick with free software.  Cyberduck is a great program and capable of transferring files with ease.  Once you have downloaded and installed Cyberduck all you have to do is enter the web address to your site and a user name.  This will take you to your ftp account.  Once you are logged in you will have to go to the public_html directory. In the public_html directory you will upload the contents of your website.  This will include html files, images folder or any other folders inside of your main site folder on your desktop. (Only upload the files inside the main site folder)

Now that the transfer is complete you can go to your web address and view your shiny new website.

This is only a brief overview of web hosting and and what you need to get started. It is always advised to discuss your requirements with a web hosting provider.  A reputed web hosting company will always guide you to choose the right plan for your business.

1. What is a web host?
2. What is a domain name?
3. What is a web page made of?
4. How do I get my website to my web hosting account?

What is a web host?

A web host is a company that owns and and maintains network, server, and security hardware  that is connected to the world wide web.  Shared, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated hosting are four basic kinds of web hosting offered by web hosts.

Shared hosting is when a servers resources are divided between a couple of hundred web hosting clients that all share a common IP address. This type of service is the least expensive of the four because the cost of the server is split between so many users. The only negatives for this kind of hosting is that all of the clients share the same IP address and it sometimes becomes slow and unresponsive because so many people use it at the same time.  Shared web hosting is the easiest type of hosting to use because it will come with a  control panel where you can manage your website, install scripts like joomla or wordpress, create email accounts, and view traffic statistics.

Reseller hosting is similar to shared hosting because it is basically a shared account that can create other shared accounts.  Reseller accounts are usually hosted on lower density servers so they may be a little faster during peak usage.

VPS or a virtual private server is a hosting account on a server shared between a few virtual servers, where your hosting environment is in separate virtual partition on a server.  This allows your hosting to be independent of other VPS servers on the hardware.  You are able to install your own operating system and programs.  VPS servers require more administration, but it is extremely customizable. You get all of the benefits of a dedicated server without the cost. VPS servers operate on dedicated IP addresses.

Dedicated server hosting is when you own or rent hardware and you are the only one to use it.  Dedicated servers can be customized to run just about any applications and have the best speed of all the other hosting.  This kind of freedom is the most expensive of the four hosting types.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is the name you type into your web browser to go to websites.  It usually ends with a “.com”, “.net” or a few others.  Domain names need to be purchased through a registrar.  Some examples of registrars are Godaddy and Namecheap.  Don’t  be fooled by registrars that try to charge you $25 or $30 dollars a year for a domain.  All domains are equal and there is no reason to pay that much,  A reasonable price is under $10 dollars per year unless you try to purchase a name at auction that someone is privately trying to sell.

What is a web page made of?

All websites are a collection of html text documents stored on a remote server that are reachable by everyone with an internet connection.  Web pages can be as simple as a text document and some images or can be a database driven content management system.  Either way you go there are already many free templates on the internet you can download and modify to your liking.  A good place to start learning to create web pages is at the w3schools.  This site will guide you through step by step on how to create and edit just about anything on the web.  If you are looking for a head start and want to start with an existing template I would suggest Open Designs, oswd.org, or free-css.com.

How do I get my website to my web hosting account.

Now you know how web hosting works and how to create a website, the next question is how do I get the site to the server so that everyone can see it.  Uploading your website will require an program called an FTP (file transfer protocol) client.  FTP clients are programs that links your computer with other computers so that you can transfer files between them.  I would recommend filezilla for windows and Cyberduck for mac.  To use the FTP client you must first install it on your computer and second connect with your hosting account using the credentials you web host provided.  Next all you have to do is select the files you want to upload and where you want to upload them.  When the file transfer has completed you can navigate to your domain through your web browser and view your site.

This is only a brief overview of web hosting and and what you need to get started.  It is always advised to discuss your requirements with a web hosting provider.  A reputed web hosting company would always guide you to choose the right plan for your business.