The internet, a magical place, where bloggers roam free, techies abound and newbies frolic about. The internet really is the ultimate form of communication with the rest of the world. Places like Myspace, Facebook, Blogger, WordPress and other social networks or blogging networks have made it an easy 3 step process to sharing yourself with anyone else of your liking.

You don’t have to know how to code or have hardly any interweb skills :shock: Well, for some of us, that just isn’t enough. If you’re like me, you want your own domain, your own website or blog, on your own hosting server! :twisted:

Now, I have spent the time learning the coding and all the techie stuff but you would be surprised at how easy it is to get yourself or your business on the web. I have outlined a 5 step guide to the DIY website that just about anyone can follow.

1. Brainstorm & Establish - Most people want to just jump right in and get something, anything on the internet. Don’t do that, it will look like crap, function like crap and ultimately you’ll loose interest and it will just become another piece of crap in the internet junkyard. :evil: Here are a few things you should establish:

  • Content subject
  • Objective and goals for the site/blog
  • How you want the page layout
  • What colors you would like it to be

Go old school and write all this stuff down. Sketch out some ideas or layouts. I always loose anything I write down so I prefer to type everything up in notepad or similar but people seem to loose that just as easy. Whatever works for you! :wink:

2. Find Web Hosting - The most common hosting uses PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), MySQL for your database needs and Apache (Apache HTTP Server). If those sound like foreign words to you, don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything about them. :grin:

I did mention those however because you will want to make sure you find a host that supports those (easy). You might want to read “5 Steps to Finding a Quality Web Host“. If you want to keep reading to a minimum, be sure the one thing you DON’T DO is use a “Top 10 Web Host” list. You’ll end up using a web host not worthy of your hard earned cash. Here is a list of web hosting companies I would recommend:

Shared & Reseller Hosting Services

VPS Hosting Services

Confused on which service to go with? No problem!

  • Running a small personal site/blog? - Shared Hosting
  • Running multiple small scale websites for yourself or others - Reseller Hosting
  • Running medium/large scale website(s) for yourself or others - VPS Hosting

NOTE: Some web hosts offer a domain name when you sign up, before choosing a domain name/web address please refer to step #3 below.

I recommend using Cpanel for the web host control panel software. It’s easy, common and flexible. Control panels like VDeck, Plesk or others might be available and will likely work just fine.

A good resource to find more information on web hosting is WebHostingTalk.com The members are friendly and you’ll be able to find a solid, quality web host given you spend the time to research the companies.

3. Web Address / Domain Name - Once you have chosen and signed up with a web hosting company, it’s time to find a domain name. This is going to be the address people use to navigate to your website. If your web host offers a free domain name with your sign-up, you can do this step at the same time as step #2.

Tips for picking a domain name:

  • Pick a domain name related to your content subject or objective.
  • Try to keep it short so that it will be easy for people to remember.
  • Feel free to get clever (ex. del.icio.us, ma.tt, website.name) but don’t make it too complicated.
  • Type out your chosen domain name a few times to get a feel for how difficult/easy it is to type.
  • “I suggest not buying your domain from the same place as you get your web hosting, sometimes trying to change it doesn’t always work out.” - Simon Koldyk

Places to register your domain name (Domain Registrars):

Once you figure out what domain name you want to use and you begin the process to register it, you might be given the option to change your nameservers. It’s easier to do this now, rather than later (later isn’t hard just takes a few more minutes :? ). What are nameservers? Thats a good question, I wondered the same thing when I started out. You can read about DNS (Domain Name Servers) at HowStuffWorks.com or Wikipedia.org

Basically, your domain name points to your nameservers, which point to the IP address for your server (like your server’s phone number). When you sign-up with a web host they will tell you what nameservers to use, if they didn’t you can find them in your control panel or by calling your web host. Usually they are something like NS1.EXAMPLE.COM & NS2.EXAMPLE.COM - it doesn’t matter what order you put these in for your domain name.

Once you register your domain name it will take awhile to activate/process (usually anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours).

4. Setup Your Website / Blog: You’re almost there! - You have a couple options at this step. You could go get a website template and update the content yourself (which would require HTML editing) or you can setup your website using a Content Management System (CMS). By using a CMS you will only have to get things setup and from there you can use an easy control panel to update your content. This is the recommended way to go and what I will cover here.

Here are some CMS’s to consider:

If you’re just starting out, I would highly recommend using WordPress. It has probably the easiest install process of any blog software or CMS available. You can find an install guide for WordPress here. To make things even easier, you can have it installed FOR YOU, FOR FREE! (install4free.wordpress.net) It doesn’t get much better than that. :D

5. Load Your Content! Yay! You made it! - This is the easiest step and the most fun. All you need to do now is load your site/blog with content. There are a few things you might want to read if you installed WordPress to customize and optimize it for search engines and your visitors. “Ok WordPress is installed. Now What?“

Don’t worry, they are very easy steps and will help you get one step closer to a website you’ll really be happy with.

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