You've been thinking about this website thing for a long time.  The greatest domain name in the world is spinning in your head and is AVAILABLE!  You want to take ACTION before somebody else locks it down and steals your thunder.

What's next?

The first step is going to be the registration of your domain name.  (and its permutations, but more on that in a bit)  This locks the name for YOUR use, exclusively.

How?

There are hundreds of companies that can register domain names, they are called Registrars.  Some are original registrars, and others are companies who by the registrations, then resell them to you.  We'll have more detail on the domain registration process in a later post, but for now the following items are important considerations in chosing the company to do your registration.

• Cost, there are a wide range of prices for domain name registration, from about $9 US per year to over $60 US per year.  Be sure to completely understand the services included in that price.  Research the options regarding privacy in registration (many companies charge extra for this) and understand what is provided and what you gain for the addtional cost.
• Make sure that your registrar will NOT require you to use their hosting services.  You should always have the option of managing your domain name registration separately from your hosting plan
• Research and understand the options regarding forwarding and masking
• Remember that the lowest initial cost may not always be the best value.  some companies come at you with a really lowball price on registrations, but the fine print says THAT particular price is based on the purchase of non-domain services, such as hosting, email, etc.

Once your domain is registered, or if you are unable to settle on a Registrar until you have chosen your hosting company, you should download the following document Website Planning Checklist from our downloadable archives.  Complete the checklist for help in looking at the following items regarding a potential web hosting company.

• Does the company provide free, or low cost blogging (weblog) software?  Will they help set it up, or do they provide scripts (like Fantastico) to set it up for you?
• Does the company charge extra for use of MySQL or SQL Server databases, or are a number of databases include in the hosting charges?
• Does the company charge extra for environments like FrontPage extensions and PHP, or are they included in the hosting charges.
• How much control does your hosting company allow you to have over your website?
• Does your hosting environment support authoring tools like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, or are you required to use their tool.
• Is a shopping cart included in base services, or is it an extra charge?
• Does your hosting service offer either dedicated or shared SSL certificates for transaction security?
• Does your hosting company offer both Microsoft and Non-Microsoft (e.g. Linux, UNIX) environments?

Once you've put that all together, you should be close to a decision on selecting your hosting company and getting started.   The most important step, once you have your domain name, and have decided on your hosting, is to get SOMETHING set up that visitors can take away information from. 

DO NOT display an "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" web page.  There is a chance that visitors who run across it may never come back.  If you don't have the time or resources to build a complete site right away, then use the site building tool provided by your hosting company to create a "Business Card" type of single page website.  On this page you need the following information:

• The name of your company and the URL (address) of your website
• A brief description of what you do, what your product is, or the services that you provide.
• Physical address and contact infomation.  (PO Box or Street Address, and who to contact)
• Telephone information
• e-mail address (preferably attached to your new domain name)

If you run into a question or two along the way, check back here for more posts, or send your question using the our Contacts page.

Ok then... You worked in Adobe Photoshop for 6 1/2 hours to perfect that buttonized logo for your new dog washing service.  Save it, loaded it carefully, and opened up your web page.  The bold enticing title of the page is Dog Washing Service!  The text is carefully edited, spell checked and formatted.

This page looks HOT!!!!!   Except.......

THERE IS NO FRIGGING PICTURE!!!!  THE PICTURE YOU SPENT HOURS ON IS NOT THERE!!!!!

What'dya do?

First, you need to see what your browser THINKS is supposed to be there.  Right Click on the red X and slide down to Properties.  About the middle of the page it says Address (URL) followed by something like:

http://www.yourdomainname.com/images/New Dogwash Logo.jpg

Yup, that's right... why the red X?

• Most Unix and Linux servers don't understand spaces in filenames.  SOMETIMES the program you're using to publish the page (e.g. FrontPage, Dreamweaver, NVU, etc.) might insert underscores when the file is published.  Most of the time, they don't.  Even so New Dogwash Logo.jpg is NOT the same as New_Dogwash_Logo.jpg.  Either the name of the picture file, or the code for the page must be changed.

Ok, you change the code and the filename, and republish.  Still a red X.  Now the properties show...

 blahblahsiteinfo.com/images/NewDogwashLogo.jpg

• You look in the images directory on your webserver.  It is EMPTY!  When you publish a page containing images, you have to be sure that you also publish the image directory...  If you publish the ENTIRE SITE at once, this will happen automatically.  But if you only publish one page, or a few selected pages, it won't.

Ok, you publish the picture file to the images directory of the server STILL a red X!!!!  Grr-r-r-r-r-r-r!

• You look in the images directory ON THE SERVER, sure enough the file is there... RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU!

newdogwashlogo.jpg --- WHY THE RED X?????????

• Because your CODE says... NewDogwashLogo.jpg NOT newdogwashlogo.jpg....  HUH?????
• On most UNIX and Linux systems, upper case and lower case are NOT the same!!!!!

You change your code ONE MORE TIME... newdogwashlogo.jpg and VOILA!!!!!!!  YOUR LOGO IS ON THE PAGE!!!!!

OK  run out to celebrate...  CHAMPAGNE IS ON YOU!

 more soon,

Ron