Before you do anything, you need to pick a domain name. For example: bgallz.org.
You want your domain to be simple, obvious, effective. Think of what your website is going to be about, think of all possible searches, keywords, and most commonly used phrases or words when talking about your “niche.” A niche is a specific/special idea or description to your site. Like any website can be about cute puppy dogs, but your site is about… “Where to adopt cute puppies!” Try to keep the domain name short as possible. Something like “adoptapup.org.”
You can register one at any of the following domain registars:
- Namecheap.com
- Godaddy.com
- Networksolutions.com
There are plenty of others, these are just some I know of, however I recommend using Namecheap. Select the domain you want (that’s available) and register it with a registrar. This takes some time to get configured and defined on the registrar’s side.
After you have decided on domain name, you need to get space to put the site on. This is where web hosting comes in to play. When searching for hosting you want to consider your needs, ask yourself – what do I need? Think about how much disk space you will need, bandwidth, required server applications and languages, etc. You want to find the best price that meets your requirements. Also, know the difference between web hosting and VPS (virtual private servers). VPS is needed for things like managing your own small web hosting business, running certain server-side programs, etc.
Web hosting is not something to just pick any cheap possible option for. Your website is going to be hosted on the place you order from, so make sure it is reliable, dependable, stable, and yeah – a good price. At bgallz.org you can get 250 GB disk space and 10 TB bandwidth for just $3.99/mo. Web hosting is usually set up very quickly, and once you have your host paid for and cleared you can put your domain on it! You do this by either transferring your recently bought domain to the web host, OR by changing the nameservers to point to your new web host.
You can change the nameservers on your domain at the registrar you just registered at. In your account somewhere under each domain you have there, you should find a link to change domain nameservers or domain name setup.
Here is a screenshot off Namecheap where I have mine:
Then you can enter your nameservers that are provided from your new web host. They are usually like ns1.webhostingsite.com and ns2.webhostingsite.com. These tell the registrar where to load your website’s files from.
Here is an image:
Now that your domain is setup with your new nameservers, you are ready to load your site’s files onto your new host.
Don’t have any files or web design? Check out my web design packages. This is where the programming comes in to play. I recommend using Dreamweaver or something of similar power to program your web code into a beautiful working website. Please contact me for all your web programming needs! My email: support@bgallz.org.
With the purchase of your web hosting you should receive login details for your FTP and cPanel (or whatever system they are using).
I like to use Filezilla as my FTP program, download it here.
Here is my FTP screen once logged in:
Once you are connected to your FTP you can upload all you want. Well based on whatever your limitations are as far as disk space. Usually you connect to ftp.yourdomain.com with the username and password your host provides you with. You want to upload in the /public_html/ directory, this is the main directory for your website.
So when people access your website, such as http://yourdomain.com/images/image1.gif – this would be uploaded to:
“/public_html/images/”
Your done! Once your files are uploaded and your domain settles into its new nameservers, everything should be accessible and ready to go. Enjoy.
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