This is a step-by-step guide to setting up your own easy-to-maintain website on your own domain (web address, like “example.com”).
Before you even read this, read “Do I Really Want A Website?“
Always keep your eyes on the prize! Be goal-oriented. Your goal is to build your business, not to build a website—even though building a website might be essential to building your business, sometimes it’s mostly a distraction.
So far, we have discussed how to
Find your domain name
Every word in the dictionary is taken. Someone even wanted “syphillis-dot-com”. But you can still find a collection of words and a domain extension (the bit at the end) that will describe what you have to offer, help people to find it, and fit on a printed business card.
Now we need to:
Find a hosting service
There are multiple cheap and reliable hosting companies. Sadly, they often get bought by expensive and unreliable ones. But here are a couple of cheap and reliable ones that have yet to sell out:
UnlimitedWebHosting
Unlimited offer straightforward point-and-click hosting for people who don’t consider themselves highly tech-savvy. If you are only going to host one website, you should choose their Solo package. This bundles a domain with hosting. [XXXX discuss trade-offs]
Opalstack
Opalstack is run by refugees from one of those good small companies that got bought out by a not-so-good large company. Their services are aimed at the more technically adept, but their support is second to none.
If you are skilled and/or brave enough to go for something a little more powerful than generic hosting, then pay for their Value Stack package.
Install some simple website software
Both UnlimitedWebHosting and Opalstack offer prebuild free software packages that you can use to run your Website easily, without having to know how to set up a webserver (a system that continuously “broadcasts” your website) or write computer code (like HTML, the original language of the Web).
One powerful and surprisingly easy-to-use class of software that stores and manages and delivers webpages to visitors (and potential customers) is that of the “Content Management System” or CMS.
No one makes websites in raw HTML any more. You want to create webpages like you would write with a wordprocessor. A “content management system” makes this possible. A CMS is also a powerful tool in your battle to be seen by buyers of your products and services.
The content management system we recommend is WordPress. It’s free, hugely popular, and powerful. (Don’t confuse WordPress-dot-org’s free software with WordPress-dot-com’s paid-for service.)
Here are Unlimited’s step-by-step instructions for installing WordPress on your website.