want to start a web page

[pcraven123]

Been tring to figure out were and how to start a web page to sell off and maybe pick up some projects. any one have any Ideas :dontknow:

 

[Sandy Rose]

I use Microsoft's Office Live for my business website - it's not the best in the world, but it's free, functional and is really simple to use. The website is: http://www.officelive.com/free-website

 

[TracyP]

I use Yahoo for my upcoming page that my son and I are partners in. It is not free though, around 100.00 for a year. But everything is space unlimited. You can create a free store through ecrater.com. Really nice and functional.

 

[Shayne]

I came across this site recently although I'm not sure if it's really what you are looking for but it might provide some inspiration.

http://www.etsy.com/


If you have internet access through cable or DSL and use a router, you could also setup a website on your computer and just purchase your own domain for it. If you always leave the router on, then typically the IP address given to you by your internet provider doesn't change and thus you can set your domain to go to "your" IP address. It's not completely fool proof but I have done it for years and maybe had to update my IP address one or two times. You of course still want to use some software to create your content though. The nice thing about this is that you don't have to pay any monthly hosting fees.

 

[Brad Parsley]

I host a few sites through godaddy.com. Been with them for a few years with no issues.

What host to use depends on what you're looking for in the website and how much of the work you're comfortable doing yourself.


Brad

 

[DIYGUY]

The advantages of sites such as GoDaddy go beyond their inexpensive pricing. These sites typically do the back-end things that are a pain for the average do-it-yourselfer. The systems management discipline is usually lacking in most self-managed domains. Things such as backups, a disaster recovery plan, incremental maintenance, standards enforcement, firewalling/security, virus protection and more are all included by most hosting facilitators.

While the content creation is often a difficult challenge the additional burden of the above (and more) can prove overwhelming to many first timers. If you can afford it I highly encourage you not to host your own domain. And I have no ties to anyone in that end of the spectrum, just my own two cents.

As for tools - everyone loves the LAMP product set these days. That is Linux for an OS, Apache for your web server, MySQL for your DB and PHP for your scripting language. If that doesn't scare you then you are not a newbie.

There are many places that will sell you an entire package of canned everything for a DIY site, but you need lots of skill to tailor them.

Let us know how things go for you - it would be fun to hear of your progress ...

 

[Don Sorensen]

My service provider (Mindspring/Earthlink) gives us "webspace" but none of the bells and whistles that someone like godaddy.com would provide - like a shopping cart, interactive pages, etc.

Having tried desparately just to keep a simple website together, I'd recommend going with someone like godaddy.com, as well.

I have no connection with them, other than being an Earnhardt fan.

 

[pcraven123]

Thanks for all the information. You all are very helpful.ccasion1

 

[Matt Schnurbusch]

I did a bunch of research on this at a few small business forums. Here is what I found.

Buy your domain name from company A.
Buy your hosting package from company B.

Reasoning behind this is that some of the companies that offer both at a package price have been known to hold your domain name hostage so-to-speak. If you decide to move to a new hosting service, they can apparently make it very difficult. Don't understand how, but I read enough posts on several forums to make it believable.

I got my domain name from GoDaddy. My hosting is with this guy. He went through some growing pains this past year, and has set up his own server. I pay $53.88 per year for "unlimited" bandwidth and storage. The only real problem that i have with him is that tech. support is via email only. It has only been an issue for me once or twice, but when your site is down and you rely on it for business it's frustrating. Hasn't been a problem since he got his own servers.

As for building a site, there are many options. You can buy a template and use it or modify it. There are also free templates available with most of the hosting packages. Lastly you could build your own. There are many many tools for that. Several are listed above. I built my first site with MS Frontpage. I built my second and current site with Mozilla Seamonkey. Seamonkey is a free WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) editor, that you can get here. It's certainly not as powerful as some of the other WYSIWIG's but then again, it is free.

Last, but not least you could teach yourself about a dozen programming languages and build a site from code only. WYSIWIG editors are nice but they add an awfull lot of extraneous code. I opened one of my simple hand coded pages in MS Word (another editor option) and it went from 76 lines of code to 1256 lines of code. All the extra code isn't much of an issue until you need to debug something.

Good luck with it. No matter which route you decide on, the learning curve will be vertical for a while.