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Creating a website from nothing

L

[L]imey

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 9, 2009
Messages
2,046
Hello everyone, thanks in advance for your replies and help.
Here is the situation:

My parents are looking at buying a business, and as it stands, the place has no web site or presence on the internet at all. They've asked me if I can look into the processes by which we get something started. The website won't be anything elaborate, mostly used for marketing and informational purposes. Lot's of pictures of the property, links to FAQs and things like that.

I'm a little unsure of where to start. I understand that I'll need hosting from somewhere, and I'll need to buy a domain name. I've utilized web expressions to maintain an intranet site here at my job, would that work for what I'm trying to do as well?

Do you simply create the site and then upload it to your host?

What steps am I missing here?

Please help out a noob in this arena.

Thanks again.
 
Simple high level? Buy domain, buy hosting, create website, upload source files to host.
 
It sounds like you're just looking for something really simple.

I would start with the site design. If you're familiar with photoshop, you can design the entire thing and slice it from within the program. It's a really nice feature. I would start there, and improve the look of the site using CSS.

From there I would resolve hosting issues by comparing different hosting companies. If you're looking for something really cheap, I have used justhost.net in the past and was happy with their service. That is one of many cheap options, however. Also, most hosting companies will be able to help you with your domain needs.

After establishing a hosting company and purchasing the services, you will be provided with FTP information which you will use to upload your site.

Although the above is not incredible detailed, it should give you a general idea of what you're in for.

Hope this helps...
 
MACH_OnE said:
It sounds like you're just looking for something really simple.

I would start with the site design. If you're familiar with photoshop, you can design the entire thing and slice it from within the program. It's a really nice feature. I would start there, and improve the look of the site using CSS.

From there I would resolve hosting issues by comparing different hosting companies. If you're looking for something really cheap, I have used justhost.net in the past and was happy with their service. That is one of many cheap options, however. Also, most hosting companies will be able to help you with your domain needs.

After establishing a hosting company and purchasing the services, you will be provided with FTP information which you will use to upload your site.

Although the above is not incredible detailed, it should give you a general idea of what you're in for.

Hope this helps...
Click to expand...


Great, what about getting a domain name that matches what the business is called, and this is going to sound very stupid, but how do I make it show up on google?
 
[L]imey;1034295298 said:
Great, what about getting a domain name that matches what the business is called, and this is going to sound very stupid, but how do I make it show up on google?
Click to expand...

You will have to work with your hosting company to determine the availablility of domain names.

As far as google goes, you may want to look into SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are a variety of companies that will help optimize your website, but there is also plenty of free information out there that will help you do the same thing with a bit of research.
 
See last I heard, google charged folks for top billing based on search terms... is that true or did I misunderstand the concept? Otherwise you just look to include the most likely searched words in some of the coding that search engines pick up on, right? Going to have a look at SEO now. Thanks!
 
[L]imey;1034295327 said:
See last I heard, google charged folks for top billing based on search terms... is that true or did I misunderstand the concept? Otherwise you just look to include the most likely searched words in some of the coding that search engines pick up on, right? Going to have a look at SEO now. Thanks!
Click to expand...

This is for google, bing/yahoo/cuil/whatever probably have something similar, but like they say - if you're not on Google you're nothing. :D
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

As for getting a domain name, I'd say ~$10 would be the upper bound you should pay on a .com/.net address if you buy the name for a single year. Anything more is just highway robbery.
 
BillLeeLee said:
This is for google, bing/yahoo/cuil/whatever probably have something similar, but like they say - if you're not on Google you're nothing. :D
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

As for getting a domain name, I'd say ~$10 would be the upper bound you should pay on a .com/.net address if you buy the name for a single year. Anything more is just highway robbery.
Click to expand...

The name I want is available... at a premium of 1280 dollars. Yeah not so much on that one. Going to have to come up with alternatives.
 
There are many places that sell domains. I've always used godaddy.com and have never had an issue with them. As others have said previously, some places (cough register.com cough) charge 4 times as much for the same service. If you're paying more than $10/year you should shop around.

Depending on what you're looking for, it obviously may not be available, or may be one of those premium names as you mentioned. Sometimes you have to pay the price if that's the absolute domain you have to have, although I've only worked with 2 customers who have actually done that--the majority have found a suitable alternative. My only advice would be to avoid ones with hyphens in them... it's a lot harder to market (depending on your marketing medium; radio as an example) MY-NAME.COM.
 
Thanks for the feedback web. Honestly, the type of business is going to limit any other type of advertising I think. The website and word of mouth are basically it. The business is one of those things that guarantees to be mostly sold out during busy season every time anyway, but if you don't have a website with at least basic information, you're setting yourself up to fail.

What's up with getting something like a businessname.townname.com type of address? Godaddy didnt like it when i tried to search for that
 
That's a subdomain. A sub of townname.com. You'd need to own townname.com to have that URL
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
GoDaddy is probably your best bet for an inexpensive start.

I would get their Cheapest Windows Hosting Account and pick up a copy of MS Expression Web. Use the templates to get started that expression web offers.

You can have a site up in no time, with very little experience needed.
 
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