Need a Website Don t Know Where to Start

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Once you have a domain you are
class="cap">Do you      going to need somewhere to ‘host’
want a website but don’t        your website. Hosting is where
know where to start. This article     you are paying a company to store
will inform you exactly what you      your website on their servers
need. I will try to explain in        (servers are the computers that
the simplest terms so pretty much     actually run websites). You
anyone understand.                    cannot have a website live unless
First thing you will need is a        you have hosting. Some Domain
Domain Name. A domain name is the     Companies offer web hosting;
www.domainname.com bit that can       others will give you a free
be seen at the top of a webpage.      Domain Name if you buy one of
In the very early days of             their hosting packages. You
computers and networks, they need     normally pay yearly for hosting
a way of identifying each             and it could be as little as £10
computer. They started by using       a year to over £100 per year. You
numbers known as IP (internet         can also host your website
protocol) numbers. As the numbers     yourself by turning you own
of connections grew a more            computer into a server, but I am
effective system was needed. In       not going into that here.

1985 it was replaced with a

If you buy a domain from one
simpler and easier to remember        company and hosting from another
system called the Domain Name         you will need to phone your
System. Rather than having to         domain company and have them
remember a batch of numbers like      point your domain at the address
121.222.300.2, all you had to         of your hosting space provided by
remember was www.company.com'.        your hosting company. This can
Now you can buy your own domain       get confusing so I will not go
from a Domain Registration            into it here, but if you want to
Company.

save yourself some grief, but the

domain and the hosting from the and add the settings.

same company.

If you built your website

Right, so you have a Domain        yourself using some kind of
Name and you have Hosting so what     software there should be a way to
is needed next? Well for one you      add these FTP settings to the
will need one or more webpage’s       publish area of software. Some
to put up. Let’s say for that you     work better than others. The best
have a website built by someone       professional web development
and you have all the files in a       software like Dreamweaver
folder on your computer. Well,        sometimes causes problems when
you will need a way to transfer       uploading files so you are better
them to your server space             off getting your own FTP
(hosting space). When you signed      client.

up for you hosting you will have

Now if you have uploaded your
received some hosting access          files and you can see them all in
settings, probably named FTP          your directory in your own server
settings. Now FTP stands for File     space on your domain but cannot
Transfer Protocol and you will        see them when you type
need the FTP settings to access       www.mydomain.com into a browser
your server space. These settings     what is wrong? You have probably
should have come with a username      made the mistake of not naming
and a password. An FTP client is      your home page index.html. Every
a piece of software that’s sole       home page is called index.htm. or
job is to connect to server           index.php depending on what
(hosting) space and upload and        programming language your site is
download webpages. I would            built with. If you have the home
recommend FTP Surfer but there        page called index then you have
are plenty of others and all          probably uploaded them to the
completely free. You just need to     wrong directory. Check the
download one and create a profile     details that were sent to you

when you set the hosting account      Company as it is not their fault.
up as you were probably told what     Sites that come up on the first 2
folder to publish the files in.       or 3 pages have been optimised to
It could be something like            do so. Search Engine Optimisation
public_html or mywebsite_html.        (SEO) is the process of making a
There may be a few folders in         website come up in the search
your hosting account so it’s          engine result pages (SERP’s).
important to know which one you       This is completely different to
need to publish your files too.       web design. Very few web
If you’r sure your files are in       designers have SEO skills and
the right folder but the site is      only build websites for
still not coming up call your         customers’ according to their
hosting company up for                needs. If you want your site to
assistance. It will probably be       be found in the search engines
something very simple. Once you       you need to find an SEO company
have done it right you will be        to do the specialised work for
well on your way. It’s just the       you.

first time that will seem strange     >About the
and unknown. Web developers are       Authorusing FTP all the time to publish     id="authorbio"
websites and it becomes second        class="membersnoticewhite">Caroly
nature to them. As it will you        n Clayton is the webmaster for
once you have done it a couple of     Discount Domains Ltd offering times.

href="http://www.discountdomainsu

Good luck with your website.       k.com/webhosting_gold.php">profes
If you managed all of the above       sional hosting packages at
but can’t find your website           affordable prices with telephone
through the search engines don’t      customer
go ringing up your web hosting        support.