It is usually best to have a place to put your pages, before you create them. They will need a home...they are called "homepages" after all. At least they are called homepages until "they" become more than "one". At that point, they are called "websites".
Finding a webhosting service is not hard. I would recommend that you sign up with a paid hosting company now that the costs are so low. You can get hosting now for around $15/£8 per year. Obviously the more features and space you need the price goes up - read on to find out what you should expect from web hosting.
There are many aspects you should look for when you are ready to pay for webhosting...especially if you are designing a business site.
The first thing you should consider is the amount of space you will need. You certainly won't want less than 30MB of space, and you will want even more than that if you can afford it. The next thing that should be considered is the servers reliability and speed. Is their guaranteed uptime at least 99%? Are they using T3 connections? These are very important considerations. If your site can't be accessed by your potential visitors half the time, or the pages take four days to load, you have wasted your time designing the site, and your money paying for webhosting. Ask these questions of potential webhosting services.
Next, you should see what extra features they offer. Some things to look for are:
- FTP transfer
- Free e-mail accounts
- Free autoresponders
- Use of a CGI bin Secure server for SSL transactions
- A lot of bandwidth
- Free registration or transfer of your domain name
- Web stats
- PHP or ASP scripting support
Every webhosting service offers different things...some more, some less. The important thing is to get what you are paying for. After taking into consideration the first three important things, space, uptime, and connection, you should go with the webhosting service that can offer you the most added features for the money.
You will eventually want your own domain name, if you haven't already gotten it.
A domain name is "www.yourname.com". It is your web address that you will use.
Your web site domain name is key to your web presence being easily remembered and found by visitors. After you have chosen your web site domain name, register it under your name with a domain name registrar such as Verisign.
As a part of learning how to register a domain name, you will need to choose the right web site domain name because this is how people will identify you and your product. Visitors may not visit your site if it puts them off in any sort of way, so pick a name that will be satisfactory to your desired readers and visitors. Your web site domain name should reflect your products, services or yourself. The domain name should also be something that can be easily typed by visitors.
A domain name that is unique, clever or gimmicky may work for your web site and can be more memorable to visitors. You can put words together or add hyphens or underscores between words in your domain name. Look around the Internet at what other web sites are named that are similar to what you want from a domain name and domain name style. Be prepared to try different styles as you brainstorm, particularly if there is a desired domain name that you want to use.
When you have come up with a list of potential domain names that work for you, you will need to check the availability of those names. Unless your web site domain name is named after you, chances are good that you may find at least a couple of names on your list will be already taken. This is why you need to have a list of different names and styles to check.
When you have found an available web site domain name, you are ready to register that name. You can register your web site domain name right at the Verisign or ICANN web site or you can find an affiliate web site who can provide those services. You will choose the length of ownership of the name as part of the registration process. You can register as many names as you like at once. It can be strategic move to register different versions of your domain name so that people can find you even if they do not remember the correct version. You can arrange to have the different names point to your main web site.
If you have ever looked at web hosts services, you may notice that some web hosts may offer to register your domain name for you as a part of their web host services package. You should not allow a web host to register your web site domain name for you. You want to have total ownership of your domain name without any strings. If you allow a third party to participate in your web site name registration, it could compromise the ownership of your domain name or at least give you problems if you need to choose another web host.
If you need to know how to register a domain name, remember that the right name will make your web site memorable so experiment with different domain names and styles. This shortens the time that it will take to check the availability of your domain name ideas. You also have to register the name yourself so that you will own the name that you have chosen for your web site.