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HTML Tutorial: Web Hosting |
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You'll want a top-level domain (.com, .org, ...) that makes sense. Don't use ".net" unless you are, in fact, providing network services. If you are a U.K. company seeking U.K. customers, ".uk" is a good choice. In the U.S, your customers will expect ".com".
Then you want your own domain. You could identify who you are ( www.MartinRinehart.com ) or what your content is (www.easyHTMLtutorial.com). Or if you're confident that your site will grow to enormous proportions, pick any nonsense and let your success make it meaningful (www.google.com). Think of a bunch because the first choices are already taken.
At each you'll find a free service that lets you type in a domain name to find out if it's taken or available. When you find one that's available, each will then take you to some form of checkout process where you make a purchase.
Your web host will provide domain name search/registration service as part of a hosting package, so that is the way to go unless you simply want to lock up a domain name for possible future use.
A web host with a server farm of hundreds or thousands of servers can afford full-time security experts. It can also provide necessary disk backups, emergency power generation and all the other details that go into running a 24/7 web facility. Considering that a low-volume website can cost as little as $40 per year, there is no reason to even think of not using a web host.
From this point on, this tutorial will be IVC-specific. If you choose a different host, the process will be similar. (GoDaddy: love your SuperBowl ads. Get in touch!)
You see the "Domain Name" link near the top of the screen. That's your first step. It takes you to this page:
You type your first choice into the text field, click "Check now" (or press Enter) and you get here:
Domain taken. Darn. So you keep trying, until Lady Luck smiles:
You select a service. (If you don't know if you need the higher-cost Professional plan, you don't need it.)
You come to this bit of the form very soon:
Stop!
Get your pen. Write down the user name and password. Put them someplace safe. Do not write anything that would lead an evil person to figure out where this name/password combination works. (Guess how I figured out that this was important.)
By the way, you don't need to pay for search engine submissions at this point. Google "google webmaster help" and you'll be led to several excellent pages that tell you what to do, and what not to do, to get your site a prominent place in Google's results. (No, Google does not accept money for placement.)
Back to IVC. You have a form to fill out, and credit card data to provide. You're probably excited to be finally getting on the web. I know I was my first time. But give it a rest. It will be a while before your name is registered and your website is ready for work. When you get your return email from IVC saying that you're ready to go, you can finally surf to www.my-new-site.com, and you'll see a "there's no real site yet" message. You want to upload your beautiful "index.html" and your other pages.
If you have twenty or thirty pages to upload, FTP is the way to go. Ask Google about "free FTP client" software. (Beware of "free trial" software.) You don't need to buy the professional kind if you're just a part-time webmaster.
If you only have a few files, IVC has built-in admin software which you can use in lieu of FTP.
Fill in the requested items (which you carefully wrote down and stored somewhere that you'll remember a year from now) and click "Login". That will bring you to the "Control Panel":
One tricky bit to remember. File transfers are a subsystem under "Web Manager". Click the Web Manager choice, then in the menu on the left, choose "File Manager".
That will get you to the File Manager, here:
The file manager is fairly self-explanatory. Start by clicking "Upload Files". That leads to this simple dialog:
The secret here? Those funny icons between "Local File" and "Filename to Save As" are "browse" buttons. Click the first one and you will open the file selection dialog on your local computer. Go to your website directory and choose "index.html". You'll be here:
Leave the "Filename to Save As" blank. The default is whatever the name is on your local computer. Choose any additional pages, then click the Upload Files button. I get a "Do you really want to transfer files to the Internet?" query on my computer. You may or may not get one. I choose Yes, as that's exactly what I want to happen.
Pretty simple, no?
Two other points re the File Manager. First, I've never clicked "Permissions." You probably don't want to, either. Second, the Copy button should really be named the "Copy, Move or Rename" button as it handles all these via its "Function" dropdown:
Do you have your graphics in a "graphics" subdirectory? Use the "New Dir" button. To enter a subdirectory, click its name or click "Browse" in the Actions column. Here's my "graphics" subdirectory for this site:
Here you click "Parent Directory" to return to your root directory.
Is this stuff really real? Yes. In another tab, point your browser to www.your-wonderful-website.com. Bingo! There's your site, coming at you from somewhere in cyberspace. You and the rest of the world can now view your wonderful site.
Now off to google for "google webmaster help" and pay attention when they exhort you to keep working on your site to make it the best.
My commercial site www.martinrinehart.com didn't start in the top 40 if you googled "Martin Rinehart". Now it's number one. My record review site, www.CrackingTheSimonCode.org debuted at number 250 when you googled "Paul Simon's Surprise". Now it's top ten.
Good luck with your sites!
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