A quick guide on setting up a website

Top of your list when putting up a website should be the reason for having one. Is this for your business to showcase the services you are able to provide? Is there a new product you are launching in the next day or two? Some are non-profit. Most will setup a site to inform others about a cause or an activity. Knowing the purpose will get you onto the next step.

If I tell you Google is your friend then you probably are in the WTF-mode right now. I thought I was about to learn or be guided on how to setup my site and suddenly you advise me to google?! You're absolutely right! Several guides and articles up there were made since the 1980s on how you can do such. But I might be of help if I give you the keywords that you need. After all, setting up one is no rocket science if you are persistent about it.

A domain is the first few words that you see in the address bar at the top of your browser. For telecommunications, it's like your phone number, for snail mail, it's your house address. A domain is where others can find you. So to find HubPages, you can simply type hubpages.com and voila, HubPages will show in it's all glory.

A domain is owned by purchasing it somewhere. Your first keyword is registrar. Popular registrars are Godaddy, Namecheap, etc. Some are resellers of them. A .com domain typically costs $10. Once you own it, you may have something like something.yourdomain.com. A domain registrar will allow you to set the DNS records for your domain.

A domain is just a wrapper for humans to easily remember how to access someone else's web files be they images, videos, scripts, html, etc. FYI, computers/servers use IP addresses like 66.211.109.13 to locate other computers. 66.211.109.13 is the address of the server that houses/serves the web files for hubpages.com. And this server is your next concern.

A web host is someone who manages the computer where your web files are stored. Most will opt for shared hosting. Doing so frees you from spending time securing your server. You don't have to worry any ISP or electric cost. Best of all, you usually get free technical support when problems arise or in case you need general help. Popular ones are GoDaddy, Lunarpages, Bluehost, HostGator. I strongly recommend you check HostGator as they provide the best value. I haven't encountered any major hiccup with them. I think domain registration comes free with their plan just like most providers. For some discount, try PU25Discount as your coupon code.

Last but not the least is the web application. It may be as simple as having a few html files to present static content. But most of the time, you will have several information to tell others and content management system (CMS) is called for. Free applications abound. Most notable are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, phpBB, OSCommerce. These are simply collection of html and some other files(scripted by programmers) allowing you to do dynamic stuff like editing texts, articles, posts, product pages easily. All you need is to pick one or two that will be most appropriate to what you need. WordPress is best for blogs, while phpBB is for forums. Joomla and Drupal are more like the do-it-all type while OSCommerce is for shopping-based sites.

Those are the important ones to consider when you want a website setup. If in case googling is taking some of your time and if paying someone else to do this for you while you concentrate on your product or ideas makes you more productive, then all you need to find is someone who can manage this for you. A freelancer will gladly help you if you shell out the right amount. In all these, the outcome is dependent on your effort or what you pay for.