Creating a Website

This is from a speech I did at the club and I’ve had a request for the information, so I’m posting the text of my speech.

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SETTING UP YOUR OWN WEBSITE

Tonight I’m going to show you how to create your own website.

When it comes to setting up a website you have three basic choices.

You can create a professional site which does take extra time and investment,
but if you’ve got a business or you want complete control of your website this is the way to go.

Your 2nd option is what I call the cheap and easy option.
This is especially attractive to people who want to create a personal or family website, maybe an organization like Toastmasters or even a small business
This is for people don’t want to spend a lot of time and/or money.

Your 3rd option is what I call middle of the road.
It’s in between professional and cheap and easy.
There are thousands of businesses, which for a monthly charge
allow you to use their software and space to create web pages.
I’ve tried a few of these sites in the past and have never liked them much.
I think they’re too expensive and too limiting
So I’m not going to include them in my discussion.

Now let’s start with step #1 – You Need a Name
People need to be able to find you on the web
and you’ll want to put some time into thinking about what name be and what’s right for you.
In general try to make the name simple and unique – simple and unique
so it’s easy to remember..
Tom Terrific is easier for people to remember than Thomas Joseph  Krauska Jr..

The place I use for websites is godaddy.com
You just type in the name you want and select the type of extension you want
.com, for commerce or.. org for organization, etc.  and then you just click on SEARCH.

So lets just try this out  – I put in BarbSapienza.com clicked on search and low and behold it’s available. and the cost is only $11.99/year – a dollar a month.- pretty inexpensive.

Now my tip at this point is Just say No – what that means is this.
Godaddy is going to try and sell you all sorts of other junk
and your $11.99 purchase might balloon into four hundred dollars.
You’re going to have to go through 6 other pages
where they try and get you to upgrade your $11.99 purchase
– but what do you say – NO!

TIP#2
Get it Today!

I googled Tom Terrific
and I found  762,000 results –
Yet somehow “I” got the website TomTerrific.com
How did I get it?
I was the first one to register the name – about 9 years ago.
the general rule is – the early bird gets the website.

Here’s also what happens if you do wait and someone else gets your name.
People get confused.
I looked up billcollier.com and I found this.(try it yourself)
Is this the Bill collier we know – business consultant? in jail?
I don’t think so.

Again -get it today

Step #2 – You Need a Place for Your Files
If you google “web hosting services” you’ll find 115 million links.
Why so many?
It’s very lucrative, especially if you deal with uneducated consumers.
Let me give you a couple of examples.

SquareSpace is one of the hot web-hosting sites these days and you can see that they charge any where from $12 to $36 per month.
If you go with the cheapest – $12/month – $144/year, they limit you to ten pages.

Here’s the web-hosting company I use and have used for many years.
ixwebhosting.com
I use is the $3.95/ month plan on the left.
The reason is that they have
UNLIMITED – disk space  – you can put as many files out there as you want.
UNLIMITED – bandwidth – it doesn’t matter how many people come to your site.
UNLIMITED – domains – and this is a big deal. Most web hosting companies will charge you a monthly charge for each website you have. I own 9 websites and they all use ixwebhosting –
I still only pay $3.95/mo.
If I used Square Space they would charge me $108/month

Now there is one other place to host your website that I recommend.
Wordpress.com
You have two options – one is Free and one costs $12/year.
The Free option doesn’t allow you to use your Godaddy name that you bought.
You’re stuck with something like barbsapienza.wordpress.com
and that’s a bit hard for people to remember.

But if you pay $12/year you can take your Godaddy name and use it with your WordPress account and your wordpress account will look like barbsapienza.com.

Step #3 is you need to create the website.

In Google –  if you type in “web design software”
You’ll find 117 million links, but
the number #1 link you’ll see is Dreamweaver – that’s the program I use and that’s
the one most professionals use.

While Dreamweaver can be a bit expensive,  if you signup for a class at a local community college you can get it for $125 or less.

Now let me give you a few of the advantages of using a professional program

First off it Includes plenty of free designs.
You don’t have to pay a web designer.
All you have to do is select the design you want
from the Dreamweaver list .

One of the best reasons to use Dreamweaver
is that it can update 500 files in one minute
here’s what i mean.
Say you to change your phone number
and you want it to show up on all your other pages – 15 or 500.
Dreamweaver can do that in one minute.
If you had to manually go to each page and change your phone number
on each page, it would take hours of work.

Now I realize that not everyone has the time and money to invest in dreamweaver
So there is an easy way to create websites.

WordPress.com
While wordpress was intially set up as a way for people to blog,
it can easily be used as a website and many people do use it that way.

I really like WordPress.com
It has over a hundred different templates you can use to design your website.
You can add pages, pictures, and videos.
It’s a very easy way to create a website.
The one big disadvantage is that being free – if it starts losing money,
it can easily go out of business tomorrow.

Also don’t be confused by WordPress.org – it’s a different setup and takes a lot more work on your part.

In summary let me put it together – there are just three basic steps
Step 1 – Get a name with Godaddy.com
Step 2 – Find a place to host your website.
Step 3 – Create your web pages.

You can create a website in 5 minutes or 5 hours – the choice is up to you.

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ANOTHER OPTION

Having just helped another person setup a website, I realized that there needs to be another option. Some people want a website to sell a product – you can’t do that with WordPress – they don’t allow advertising.

YAHOO

Here is that option for around $10/month
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting/details

For around $40/month and 1 1/2 % sales, they have an eCommerce setup.

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Note – below is a link with a number of web hosting companies which were recommended by members of Speakernet News.

http://www.speakernetnews.com/post/webhosts.html