Web hosting:
Web hosting is a type of service that basically let you store files (your web site) on their computer/server (host) which is made accessible by the world wide web. They often include other software and support that help you publish your website to the web.
If you’re new to internet marketing then you want to pay for this then set up a server yourself. It will be cheaper and easier than trying to do it yourself leaving you time to focus on your website.
Free V Paid: You can use free sites such as blogger.com to host your website however the big disadvantage is that you are limited in how much you can do with your site and they have control over your site and can ‘pull the plug’ at any time if they choose. Look at blogger if you want to know more about free sites. Usually your website name is also an extension of there website name so they look less professional.
I use paid Web hosting with Hostgator – Why? Because it was recommended by an expert to me. I don’t have time to try out all the different hosting platforms. I read some good reviews and compared to some other providers and they seemed both price competitive and generally had good reviews. To date I have not had any issues with them and have found them to be quite prompt at actioning a log in error I had. It probably took me about 20 minutes to set it up.
I started off with the ‘Hatchling plan @ $7.16 USD’ on a month by month agreement. You can get it for less than half that if you sign up for longer. Check them out here
Domain Name registration:
A Domain Name is simply your website address. Mine is www.instantprofitpeople.com. That’s it.
But to get the name of your choice you need to register with a company (there are many you can choose). You can also choose whether it will be a .com, .net, .org etc or all of them.
I use Namecheap.com Again an expert recommended the company. I briefly reviewed and was happy with the user reviews and the overall cost. I paid just under $10USD for my site. I googled “namecheap coupon code” and found a current coupon that gave me 10% off the registration cost. This is registered for one year at that price and you need to renew the registration at the end of every year. You can choose longer registration periods.
At that price they also included a free privacy protection for a year to help reduce spam from people who try and spam your website. They do this by hiding your contact details from the public but still allowing you to be contacted. Essentially they replace your email with one of theirs, filter the spam and send you the legitimate emails.
Check them out here
FTP Software:
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol.
What is it? FTP lets you transfer your website pages and other files from your computer on to your web hosts’ computer.
Why do you need it? Basically it’s a program that lets you transfer files from your computer to the host computer where your website will be. You need to do this to get your website on to the host computer.
The good news is you can get one of these for free. Go to www.filezilla-project.org
WordPress.org
WordPress is a program that lets you create a blog online. It is famous for being able to set up in 5 minutes or so but if your completely new expect it to take longer. It took me about half an hour because I had to download wordpress, change a file in wordpress, then upload it using the FTP program to the web hosting computer.
It was easy once you knew how but I had to read up on the how and that is what made it take longer than 5 minutes for me.
Again this one is free and I use it because all the experts seem to be using it so why break the mould now! I’d never used it before this site and it doesn’t look to bad right? So it’s not too hard to work out how to use it and there are heaps of free tutorials on the net and youtube. I suggest install it and just start playing around with it!
Check it out here