Website How To?

[Black Hydra]

I don't have a website, and seeing as if I want to do any commercial work I am going to need one, how should I go about making one?

I don't want to buy server space until I need it, as money is really thin right now. Can someone give me some advice on how to set up my own website. And, while this will be later down the road, how do you handle your webstore?

I may look like a complete noob, but my programming and project management talents are far greater than any of my web knowledge. So if someone could tell me what I should do to set up a simple website, and if possible a way I can store the website (assuming I keep it off-line until I have a reason to use it) so that I won't have to pay any server fees until I have a program I need to beta test or sell?

Also, how should I go about getting my website (when it's online) onto search-engines like google? I know that their search engine looks for webpages itself, however, there must be some way to help increase the effectiveness of getting your site higher up in the list?

Finally, does anyone have any suggestions for good server space providers. I have seen some offers for something like 2 gig's for 8$ a month or something? While 8$ is incredibly cheap, I doubt I would ever use 8 gig's of server space.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me.

[Holmqvist]

Well the first thing you will need to do is learn some html.. Search for some tutorials or get a book, maybe someone here has a recommendation. There are also programs where you can do websites graphically, Dreamweaver being my favorite.

I don't really understand what you mean by storing the website.. You write html documents in a text-editor and just store them in a folder of your preference on your computer.

As for hosting, you want as much space as you feel is necessary, but another thing you should look at is Bandwidth, which is how much traffic you can have / month. You'll want lots of that.

Edit:
Forgot about the search engines..
The search engines will find your site eventually, but you can submit the site to most search engines and that will be faster (months) some offer faster treatment if you pay them money (days). Google (which is one of the biggest) ranks the sites after "PageRank", which is mostly based on how many other sites are linking to your site.

/ Jacob

[mkovacic]

The search engines will find your site eventually, but you can submit the site to most search engines and that will be faster (months)
It definitely took less than a month for the major search engines to pick up our website when we first launched. We didn't even submit to them, they picked it up from shareware listing sites and/or our signatures in the forums.

As a curiosity, we launched on March 6th, 2003, and the oldest entry on the web.archive.org is from March 20th, 2003.

[Yossarian]

Speaking of,

Would there be any interest from people here for an "Indie Web System" that would be designed specifically for selling and promoting companies and games?

If several committed to it, I could certainly look at building a site with publishing tools (e.g. content management) for indie game companies that could be rebranded quickly for each design company.

[Sergey Komar]

1. I would strongly recommend www.cifnet.net from Chicago, IL. They have plans as low as 10$ a month (25 gb traffic) with mySQL, PHP and stuff. They host a number of shareware projects and are known as a very stable service. You may also discuss discounts, ask for a specific plan, buy domain names and IMPORTANT pay via RegSoft, RegNow, ShareIt, Plimus vendor to vendor transfers which is really convenient for shareware authors.

2. You don't have to learn PHP or HTML - they are simple but only at the very beginning. I would go for a free CMS (content management system) - many of them are free, require no knowledge of web-stuff and have everything one may ever need - templates (skins), forums, counters, guestbooks, mail forms & newsletter components, galleries an so on. I can name a few: e107 (the simpliest one I've found and the best one IMHO), MAMBO, ETOMITE. Google for them.

Good luck!

[Michael]

Good, free, powerful, online based site builder : Mambo
See http://www.mamboserver.com for more info.

You simply load it in on your server (afcorse you still gotta "rent" this one) and start building.
The mambo community is large so you can always find help in the forums,...
Also, lot of free mambo templates available to start directly ;)

Good luck

Michael

[MrPhil]

If you are more of a Microsoft person you should check out ASP.NET and the Starter Kit at http://www.asp.net/Default.aspx?tabindex=9&tabid=47.

[Black Hydra]

The reason I don't want to learn a web language, is because, at the moment, I don't need a big site. So learning html to make something that some web-tool could just have easily have done is a waste of my time.

If I decided I needed some more complex things like forums, newsletters, and the likes I may learn it, but right now I don't need that and there are more important things I still need to devote my time to.

I have been looking into a service called esellerate for my webstore. It charges 10-15% (based on your annual income) and it gives you the tools to set up your webstore, 20mb's of server space (although you can host the product yourself), it also handles many of the other financial things you would need to do. The only thing it doesn't do is market for you...

I'm looking to compare these rates against something like PayPal or ShareIt. Does anyone have any preferences?

Thanks for the help you guys.

[Black Hydra]

Okay, I checked out some of those. You'll have to excuse my blatant ignorance but I am still a little confused.

It seems there are Content Management Systems and Server companies. Just so I have this straight:

1) Could I make a website with Mambo, store it on my computer and then upload it when I'm close to publishing?

2) Server space deals seem to vary incredibly. Some also offer varying levels of support. The one mentioned for 25$ a month, does that also handle payment options? I was a little confused by your message.

3) Who gets to assign domain names? I don't quite understand how this works. Seeing as you have to rent domain names, who are you paying? A lot of companies seem to be renting them out, however, how the heck do they own them?

Sorry, I am completely ignorant when it comes to web development...

[Sergey Komar]

1. I doubt it. But why would one need it? I managed to setup my e107 web-site within ~10 hours with a slow dialup connection and I don't know HTML or PHP or APACHE stuff at all :) It takes a while to install the thing but then you will enjoy adding content, changing skins, adding components and so on with a single mouse click. No ugly tables, no crappy coding - WYSIWYG editors and stuff - high tech in all its beauty.

2. ops, my bad, It is not 25gb, it is 10 gigabytes for 10$ but it is more than enough to start and you can always talk it over, email them, say you pay 50 bucks for the next year and ask what you can get for the money, how much space, how much traffic etc.. As I said I really liked their service, today I emailed them with a question and got an answer within 5 minutes (no, I don't work for them :)

3. You need a domain name. There is a number of companies doing that kind of business but you may also get the domain name with CifNet for 15$ for a year. http://cifnet.ru/services/webhosting.php

Never take a domain name for free, nothing comes for free. Get it from a good place for a reasonable sum of money <20$ per year (gandi.net, godaddy.com or cifnet.net) and then you own it.

[Nemesis]

If your site is made up of static pages you could create it with any HTML design tool of your choice and store it on disk. Browsing and testing the site is simply a matter of pointing your browser to the main HTML file of your site.

If you want to build something a little more dynamic you could go for PHP. You can get the PHP server engine for free and either install it with IIS (if you're using Windows), or install Apache (also free) and install PHP over it. This will basically turn your machine into a mini web and application server.

If you're permanently (or almost) connected to the web you could register a free domain name such as with No-Ip.com. This will get you a domain with a form mycompany.no-ip.com but at least you'll get a name that's always pointing to your machine on the web, for free.

You could even go one step further and register a proper domain (www.mycompany.com (http://www.mycompany.com)) to point to your no-ip enabled machine, all for a small yearly subscription (~$15).

I think this is the cheapest you can go in terms of public hosting but relies on your machine being online most of the time and having the necessary resources to allow you to work with the machine e.g. developing. Obviously if you have a spare machine you could connect it to your DSL connection (if you're on one) and thus have a dedicated web machine.

[MrPhil]

Another tool you might be interested in is CityDesk over at www.fogcreek.com.

On domain names, I prefer to keep my names registered at www.networksolutions.com rather than the current webhoster of the day.

[exepotes]

- if you don't want to learn HTML, you should be using a WYSIWYG HTML editor. dreamweaver and frontpage are what people usually uses. but you have to buy them.
a FREE WYSIWYG HTML editor i would recommend is NVU (http://www.nvu.com) and is a very good one (windows, linux, and more). it's based on mozilla composer's source code and it is open source, too.
you can use tsWebEditor, too, but it's not WYSIWYG. it is very good for PHP editing.

- if you need an apache server to test your pages (just if you have some PHP/PERL/etc there), the best thing i could find is Apache2Triad (http://apache2triad.sourceforge.net). it's a server bundle wich includes Apache Server, PHP, Perl, Python, MySQL, and lots more. only works with windows.

- google will probably index your page by itself, but you can 'help' it going here:http://www.google.com/addurl.html and adding your page.

- i can't help you finding a host, but just because i don't live in your side of the world... hope it helps.

[Chris Evans]

If you're permanently (or almost) connected to the web you could register a free domain name such as with No-Ip.com. This will get you a domain with a form mycompany.no-ip.com but at least you'll get a name that's always pointing to your machine on the web, for free.


I would be very careful doing this. Most ISP don't allow you to host websites through your personal internet connection. If they find out (which isn't very hard) they can easily shut you down and you have no website and no Internet connection.

Also, if someone attempts to hack your website, they're essentially hacking into your personal computer. All your personal and work files could be compromised.

There's all kinds of cheap hosting solutions. Just go with one of those. You shouldn't have to take on the responsibility of being a Server Admin at this stage unless you already some experience.

However, if you do ever get some spare time, I do recommend learning HTML/PHP/MYSQL. It will give you the ability to track and record important information about your site visitors. I know it's uncool to say this, but I still use Perl extensively as well. :)

[Nemesis]

Well.. as long as the site is a personal non-profit one they'll pretty much close an eye. As for security, the machine can be locked down with a firewall if if one keeps the operating system up to date with the latest patches it is reasonably secure.

[Black Hydra]

While I am very cost-concious, from the prices and amounts you've listed I'd take ease over cost right now.

Paying 10$ a month is worth not having the hassle of keeping my computer online and everything.

I'll try out those wysiwyg editors and see what I can do.

I don't need a website yet as I don't have any products to publish, I'm mostly just preparing right now.

Thanks.