NLCurve

An analogy of this relationship would be a central post office and various business addresses. The mail that is sent to a business goes to the post office (registrar) where the request is routed to the correct business address (your Internet address at the company hosting your website). The steps to set up a simple, informational website are listed follow. There are four sections:

All sections cover the same information, with the only difference being the amount of detail. The "Quickview" section provides a quick understanding of the steps.

1. Register your Domain Name* - (Approx. $35/yr)
2. Write your web page(s) - (Free, if you do it yourself)
3. Select a hosting company - (A setup fee of about $50, then a monthly fee of $17 to $25)
4. Transfer your web page(s) files to your web site using any FTP program - (Free)

You can register more than one domain name and have the other domain names you own automatically forwarded to your main domain name for about $12.00/yr. per domain name.

1. Select a Domain Name and Register It: Come up with a name for your website (name.com, name.net, etc.), then register it with the primary registrar company Network Solutions. They receive information requests that are directed to your domain name and relay them to your numeric Internet website address. (Note: Network Solutions offers options to have a one page, or five page website with them. These require you to use their templates, but may be all you need, in which case, the following additional steps are not required.)

2. Write The Web Page(s) For Your Website: You can actually write your web page(s) before getting the host company lined up. (You can also have someone else write the web page(s) for you.)

3. Select a Hosting Company For Your Website: You will need to select a hosting company for your website. (Your web pages are designed on your own computer, but are uploaded and kept in a subdirectory on the computer of the host company you selected. This is similar to renting space in a strip mall.)

4. Upload Your Web Page(s) To The Host Company: You do this by transferring them with an FTP program (file transfer protocol). This quickly becomes a routine operation. (There are many FTP programs available. Windows has a My Network Places that enables you to quickly upload files.)

1. Select a Domain Name and Register It:

Go to Network Solutions at networksolutions.com, the primary registrar, and use their domain name lookup option to see if the name you chose is available. They will tell you if it is, and also, what other versions are available. (name.net, name.org, etc.)

You can register you name for a period from 1-10 years (even to 100 years). The cost with Network Solutions is currently about $35 per year. (The cost is less for multiple years) Once you have the name, you are the sole owner of it, whether you actually set up a website or not. The domain name is what people type in to get to your website. Your website address is actually a series of numbers. Example: 206.189.211.327 Your domain name and actual web address are kept at a registrar who receives requests for your website and looks up your web address number. They then send the requests to your site.

Note: It takes from 24-48 hours for the domain name to be in effect once you've purchased it. Often it is done in less time.

2. Write The Web Page(s) For Your Website:

You can write your web page in any word processor as long as you save it in a text only format and have an extension of *.htm or *.html. (It's best to stay with the *.htm extension since some older browsers may not be able to read files that have more than a three character extension.) Microsoft Word and most other major word processors allow you to set up a *.doc file, then save it in *.html format. You can use programs that allow your web page to be written in a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) view. I would recommend that you either use a web page writing program, or get the simplest book on HTML 4.0 you can get See the Recommended Books page for a list of reference books.)

Although you're writing a simple text document when you write a web page, the way the text appears on the screen is controlled by the HTML tags you included. This is true whether you wrote the document in HTML from scratch, or used a wysiwyg web page writing program.

What is HTML? Here's a simple explanation of what a web page is and why there is something called HTML, which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. (This is not a programming language, but should considered to be a text formatting method.) All web pages are transmitted as simple text documents without any formatting. (Such as bold, underline, italics, new paragraph, text centering, etc.) As a standard text document, any computer can receive the file (information) in this form. The text includes the information you want to have on your web page, as well as the way in which you want it displayed (format). The display is controlled by tags, which are in the document as text and surround the words and phrases you want to format, as well as new paragraphs, center, etc. (For those familiar with the original MS-DOS word processors, tags are comparable to the control codes used to format the document.) When a person goes to a web page to view it, their browser downloads the file as text only, then formats the display as the person intended it to appear, based upon the HTML tags in the document. Although web pages are getting increasing more sophisticated, as a result of additions and improvements to the HTML language, they are still, in reality, simple standard text documents. Actually, you could create a simple web page as text only (without any formatting), upload it, then add the tags later. (Update to this note: HTML continues to progress, and now there are interactive web pages. The basic web page principles still hold true, however, more options are available. Often, a web page can be designed for you for a modest fee by a college student learning to write web pages.)

Why would a person want to learn HTML? - If you use a wysiwyg web page writing program you are committed to that program, and future upgrades, since you are dependent upon the program for formatting your pages. As new version of HTML become accepted (currently HTML 4.0 is the standard) you will have to upgrade the program. Also, I believe that it's best to write your program in the lowest version of HTML that will still enable you to have the web page as you would like it. The reason for this is that many people still use older browsers which may not support the latest HTML version. By writing the program in the oldest version that still accomplishes what you want, you will be certain that everyone will be able to view your web page as you wrote it. Regardless of how you generate your web pages, you simply upload them to the host company. Make sure the page you want to appear first has the name index.htm or index.html. When someone types in your domain name, the first page to be displayed is one which has one of these file names.

3. Select a Host Company For Your Website:

They usually bill you at least every three months, and there is a set up fee of about $40-50. I recommend NTT Verio who has a low package that is $24.95/month; or Interland (previously HostPro) who has one that is $16.95/month. There are some differences in the features in these two packages. There are other companies, but these are the ones I use and can highly recommend. Don't worry about all of the features that are available, since by picking one of the top five companies, you should have available most of what you will ever need, when you need it. Fees are paid by credit card.

Note: It takes from 24-48 hours for the Host Company to get everything set up once you have paid for the setup fee and first three months by credit card. The time delay is the result of the time it takes to propagate your domain name throughout the Internet. Often it is done in less time.

4. Upload Your Web Page(s) To The Host Company:

Creating your website page(s) can be as simple as using a wysiwyg HTML web page writing program, or as complicated as writing directly in HTML. Once you have your domain name registered, and are set up on a host company, you can create a simple, one page web page, name it index.htm or index.html and upload it to your website. This page will be the introduction to your website. It can be anything: Under Construction, company name & address, etc. As you improve it you can upload the new versions of the index.htm pages as well as additional pages. You can keep you web page(s) simple, or as complex as you want.

Picking a host company is also easy. By picking one of the top five companies you can avoid having to spend a lot of time shopping around. Setting up the account is done quickly with a credit card. You don't have to even use the hosted website until you're ready to upload pages. Once you're set up you don't have to do anything with the Host Company except pay the monthly fee. They will bill you every three months, or at whatever other payment plan you select. (I recommend using either Interland or NTT Verio since I use both and am very satisfied with their service.)

Uploading your web page(s) using a FTP program (file transfer protocol) is fast and easy, and after the first couple of times, it becomes a routine operation.