The REALLY, REALLY easy guide to setting up your own website...

Ampalian · 12 February 2005 at 1:25PM

Building your own website is an often asked question here. Getting someone to do it can be very expensive but there are excellent ways of doing it yourself and getting good results. I've been building sites for 5 years and I've made some very costly mistakes so I'm writing this guide as a definitive answer to the question that will also save you a fortune.

First you need to decide whether your site will sell things or not. To sell things you need an ecommerce site. Scroll down for the ecommerce guide. For either ecommerce or standard you will need the following:

STARTERS

A domain name
Somewhere to put the files for your site called Hosting
A tool for getting your site files from your computer to the hosting space known as FTP

For domain names go here http://www.123-reg.co.uk/

Will you be targeting the UK or do you want word wide? If it's the UK get a .co.uk name, they are cheaper. You can target the UK with a .com name but check that your hosting server is actually in the UK in these circumstances. A .com hosted on a server that is sited in the US will be seen by the search engines as a US site. A .co.uk name can be hosted anywhere and still be seen as a UK site.
You can use .org, .net, .biz etc. but .com and .co.uk are best.
Whilst not absolutely essential try to get what you do into the domain name. i.e. lovelytshirts.com is better than lovely.com. A .co.uk name will cost around £6.00 for two years and a .com £20 something for the same period.

Hosting

For personal service contact paul@hostingduo.com Paul is a programmer and for small fees he'll help you set everything up if you need it.

FTP

http://www.smartftp.com/ FREE!

STANDARD SITE

This is best / cheapest web site creation tool in the world as far as I know. It costs just $5. That's right, I said five dollars! About 3 quid!
It comes with good instructions and you can make a really professional looking site.

http://www.tufat.com/script4.htm?PHPSESSID=41d9e12ff4323a09d222089edbe47c55

Ecommerce site

Anyone can have an online shop with this astoundingly cheap solution. It looks good and processes money via PayPal for you. All you need are nice products.

http://www.esmistudio.com/pp7.php

It costs on $30. For an extra $25 they'll even install it for you to your web space host.
Here's one under contraction http://www.dollshousestore.com

If you want a real heavyweight ecommerce site that is capable of processing payment with merchant accounts etc. you will need to spend a bit more. The best I know is x-cart here http://www.x-cart.com/ecommerce_software.html
This is $185 and can handle 20,000 items.

If you want your own merchant account talk to your bank. Set up fees are usually about £200.

Add Ons, tools and resources.

Want a forum on your site similar to this one? http://www.phpbb.com/ FREE
Pictures for your site? http://www.istockphoto.com/ CHEAP
Picture editing? http://www.irfanview.com/ FREE
Picture editing? http://www.pixby.com/ CHEAP (and brilliant)
A logo for your site? http://thelogoco.co.uk/logo-design-store/index.php CHEAP

Everything you need. Have fun. Oh! and please note, I do not get any personal gain from the links above.

Any questions? Just post in this thread and I'll be glad to help.

Malcolm

loafer_2 · 12 February 2005 at 1:39PM

I would recomend a 'cpanel host' like hosting-unlimited.net or ukwsd.co.uk (no links) - they do everthing for you as far as budget hosting goes and 123-reg are pretty good for domains (ev1 are cheaper for US domains but their service sucks when you have to deal with a human (IME)). Just ask if they support fantastico and then cpanel comes with a host of programs from blogs to guestbooks & forums to shoppingcart, and you can do most of it yourself - with installers built in.

Ampalian · 12 February 2005 at 1:41PM

Hosting Duo does provide cPanel hosting and you're right, it comes with Fantastico auto installers for many free add on scripts too.

http://www.hostingduo.com

loafer_2 · 12 February 2005 at 3:13PM

$9.99 a month! !!!!!!! £5.35 ish a month. That's not a good offer.

The ones I linked are £20 a year and run by UK firms.

E.g. http://www.hosting-unlimited.net/basic.php
500 MB of Unix Web Space
4.5 GB of Monthly Bandwidth
5 POP3 E-mail Accounts
5 MySQL Databases
5 Subdomains
Microsoft FrontPage Extensions Installed
Advanced Site Stats
cPanel & Fantastico Auto-Installer

Ampalian · 12 February 2005 at 6:31PM

Does quality of service mean anything to you?

loafer_2 · 12 February 2005 at 10:10PM

Yes - I have used both in the past. In fact I've hosted 11 sites with a host of hosts (pardon the pun) and these two are by far the most impressive.

Neither are one man bands.
Neither are single server outfits.
Both have forums where you can talk to other happy users.
Both have proper websites.
Both report the bad with the good.

bosey · 13 February 2005 at 2:38PM

thanx for those pointers ampalian & loafer. i have been thinking about this for a while & have regged a name with 123 and plan to take up the 20 squid hosting offer from hu.

as you guys seem to be hexperts in web stuff perhaps you can help.... i want to incorporate a 'panoramic view'-type thing into my site whereby you can pan around an enviroment; say a room or landscape. I have seen this on some hotel websites & wondered what went in to producing something like that.

any suggestions?

Browntoa · 13 February 2005 at 3:56PM

only thing I would like to add is about who your domain is with, look for a seller who's software allows you to control your own web forwarding , it's a lifesaver when you have problems with your web host and need to re-direct in a hurry to stay up and running...I'd recommend www.freeparking.co.uk

Rex_Mundi · 13 February 2005 at 4:27PM

Hosting For personal service contact paul@hostingduo.com Paul is a programmer and for small fees he'll help you set everything up if you need it.

I do not get any personal gain from the links above.

Can I ask. Do you have any links to the site above? Did you possibly build it and sell it on? I've had a look around and it seems to me this may be the case. I base this on postings in web developing forums that I've found that links your jewellry site with this one.

I wonder why else you would recommend the site for hosting. They are certainly not the best price for hosting, and the present owner hasn't even taken the time to fill out any background for the company. Looks very dubious to me.

loafer_2 · 13 February 2005 at 4:33PM

Browntoa wrote:

only thing I would like to add is about who your domain is with, look for a seller who's software allows you to control your own web forwarding , it's a lifesaver when you have problems with your web host and need to re-direct in a hurry to stay up and running...I'd recommend www.freeparking.co.uk

They are pretty pricy in comparison.

123 offer the following web forwarding options

No web-forwarding

If you select this option anyone typing blah.co.uk into a web browser will be shown the 123-Reg default page.

Framed web-forwarding to a single page

If you select web-forwarding to a single page the destination URL can have a specific filename on the end (e.g. index.htm).
It could just point to a directory (URL ends with /) in which case the files displayed would depend on the webserver 'directory index' settings.
The destination URL will be replaced by blah.co.uk.

Non-framed web-forwarding to a single page

This option is the same as above however the destination URL will always be displayed in the address bar of the browser.

Framed web-forwarding

The destination URL will be replaced by blah.co.uk

Non-framed web-forwarding

The destination URL will remain in the browser's address bar.

bosey · 13 February 2005 at 4:34PM

Browntoa wrote:

only thing I would like to add is about who your domain is with, look for a seller who's software allows you to control your own web forwarding , it's a lifesaver when you have problems with your web host and need to re-direct in a hurry to stay up and running...I'd recommend www.freeparking.co.uk

i am pretty techinical....on most things but web stuff! i have regged a domain name - are you saying i need to 'park' it somewhere? is this a distinction from the co that is hosting the site?

cheers

The REALLY, REALLY easy guide to setting up your own website...

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