Website Hosting How To Get Up and Running For a newcomer to being a webmaster the process of getting a website or blog up and running can be off-putting. This article aims to help by addressing – website hosting how to get up and running. In fact with the services available today it is actually easy for anyone to get started as a webmaster. You need the following: Your Own Domain name You can choose between the many companies offering domain name registration services. Prices do vary so it is worth doing some research. These sites will help you find an unused domain name or in some cases you can purchase an existing name. There are some dangers involved in the latter so I would only suggest this if you know what you are doing. Bear in mind that international extensions like .com and .org will be most expensive and local ones like .au or .co.uk will be cheaper. In all cases paying for longer that a year will reduce the cost. Hosting Account The next step is to sign up for a hosting account so that your website can be available to the internet. There are lots of website hosting companies offering varying levels of service. However the principle is that you rent space on a shared server to host your website and the company deals will all technical matters. You then set-up an FTP account to allow you to upload/download between your PC and the server. You also usually get email for your domain and a host of other services which you access through your “control panel”. The website hosting provider may also provide domain registration services and may include a free domain on one of the less popular extensions. If you do not purchase your domain through your hosting provider you have to follow a simple process to link the two together. Website or blog You now have your own webspace which is empty. The next step is to create your website or blog in it. Most hosting companies will provide website building software which will enable you to generate a standard html based site. There is nothing wrong with this but I would recommend that you use Wordpress. This is free, easy to install and can be used to create a website, a blog, or a combination of the two without any technical knowledge. You can choose from a wide selection of themes (which determine the look and functionality of the site). You can also add a wide range of “plug-ins” which are add-on pieces of software
which add almost any functionality you are likely to want e.g. e.g. automatic backups, search engine optimization tools, site maps and many more. Whilst pages could be written on this subject I hope the above gives you a good idea about website hosting how to get started. For more information please see Website Hosting Plans.