www.yourname.com

At a glance

• Hosting
• Domain Name
• Tools for creating your site

Introduction

Before making a website or any project for that matter, we need a PLAN.

You should ask yourself the following questions:

1. What kind of audience do you want to appeal to?
2. What type of website are you representing (E-commerce, News, Search Engine, Organizational, etc.)?
3. What is the overall goal of your site?
4. How dynamic do you want your site to be?
5. What type of technology will you need to implement your website?

After answering those questions, the next phase to consider is Hosting.

Hosting

Hosting providers come with a number of features but you have to decide what is most important to you. Here are some of the basic features to look for:

1. Price -  For good price you can get hosting for 7.95 or less (good price) unless you want a dedicated server when you trying to develop a pretty serious website.
2. Transfer  -  When users come to your website the server transfer the files to the clients computer to make it viewable
3. Disk Space – Most basic websites size is under 50 Megabytes, so disk space for the most part is not  big priority, but once again it depends on what type of website your doing.
4. Ease of Use – Always check the demo login to see how easy it is to navigate the hosting providers environment
5. Extra Features – Do they automatically submit your website to google or yahoo, multimedia features, shopping carts, etc
6. Customer Service -See if the have 24/7 support and how good is it (call the number on the site to see how things go)

Good examples of Hosting Providers: Bluehost, Hostmonster

Domain Name

Domain Names, represent an unique address for each page on a Web Site, which is interpreted as a name of your choice. Usually domain names cost $10.00 or more if no one else has that specific name. Now when picking a name:

1. It’s relatively short – Domain names don’t have to be flashy. Simplicity definitely goes a long way.
2. It’s easy to remember – Make sure it is easy to spell and contains keywords.
3. It correlates with what you are representing- Your domain provides a sense of who you are and an indication of the type of product or information you are delivering.

Tools for creating your site

1. IDE (Integrated Development Environment) – This is a tool is a fantasy code editor that can come with tools such FTP (File transfer protocol for uploading and downloading files off server) and can manage multiple websites. Good Example:  Dreamweaver 8 don’t use CS3 (memory hog) Free Program: Mozilla SeaMonkey, Aptana
2. E-mail client – Used for managing multiple e-mail accounts that you might create with your server. Example: Microsoft Outlook 2007 Good Example and Free: Mozilla SeaMonkey, Mozilla Thunderbird
3. Webmaster – You can always just pay for a web site designer and have him do the site for you.