3 Steps to Launch a Website

For those of you interested in entrepreneurship, we try to run articles from time to time to help you in that venture. Without a doubt, setting up a website is essential to your operation. Here are a few ideas on how to get started.

Launching your own website does not have to be as complicated as people make it out to be. In fact, you can knock it out in a few simple steps:

Pick a Domain Name

Your domain is the address people will visit to reach your site, YourName.com or MyPlace.net, etc. The domain should give a sense of what you do and be short enough to remember, and yes, this is most definitely a case of do as I say and not as I do. At nineteen characters, I sometimes wonder if AlphaComm Strategies was the brightest name for my own freelance business.

Notes:

• You can used parked domains to point to your main site. Parked domains are alternative URLs that can point to a specific address. If you want JoeSchmo.com, JoeSchmo.net, and JoeSchmo.org to all point to JoeSchmo.me, well, that is your prerogative.
• Domain registrations can range from $6 to $15 a year.
• Privacy registration at an average cost of $10 a year hides your mailing address from Whois records.
• Whois records give contact information about the website owner and date the domain registration expires.
• The .com extension is still the most popular despite the avalanche of new choices.

Pick a Web Host

It is possible to host your website on your own server. Here's a great article detailing the process, but for the rest of us, paying someone else to maintain the stability of your online business is well worth the cost.

Notes:

• Your web host should count on more than one data center for redundant backup of your data.
• A good web host will give you at least one free domain registration.
• Features such as one-click installers are great, but the up-time guarantee is more important.
• One-click installers are things like shopping carts and content managers.
• My personal preference for the backend management of a website is CPanel.
• The worse backend management system I've had the distaste of using is that from GoDaddy.

Pick a Content Management System

Once upon a time web developers used a basic text editor like NotePad to manually design their web pages. I suppose you still could, but it's more efficient to use a CMS to organize and publish your information. A good CMS provides a web interface that guides you in plain English through the process of creating static pages, blogs and accomplish more advanced tasks like setting up an online store.

The two systems I've used and can personally recommend are Drupal and WordPress. Both are free, and both are a little bit of a pain to set up the first time. I prefer Drupal for no other reason than it was the system I tried first, but there are hundreds of great websites using one or the other. Here's a good comparison article to help you decide which CMS is right for you.

If you have any questions, send me an email. Your website is too important not to be a part of your business operation, and with so many opportunities out there to set one up, there's no reason why you should not have your own space on the web.