Any advice on how to set up a website?

[mooncake]

Hello,

In a little experiment, I'm looking to set up my first website. But I'm finding it's all a bit of a minefield... so I'm turning to my most oft trusted source of advice, the ED Forum.

1. Where is the best place to buy a domain name?? I've googled this and opinions on this are scarce. So far I'm thinking 123-reg is probably a good bet, but to be honest I'm not really sure?

2. Once I've got a domain name, is it just that - a name? So then where do I then go for web hosting and what the heck am I looking for? Should I be going for one that both gives you the tool to build and host the website?

I'll eventually want to be able to do some slightly more complicated things than e.g. just hosting a blog and photos (although that is also a new thing for me and I've just set one up on Wordpress). Mainly that I want to run a searchable database, for people to be able to amend / add to it, and for there to be fill in forms which can email a variety of addresses (not just mine). So I don't know if that affects what sort of host I should be looking for.

Thank you in advance for ANY help or advice you can give. You can safely assume I know next to nothing. ;)

I will be eternally grateful / indebted / at your mercy etc.

[Jeremy]

> I want to run a searchable database, for people to be able to amend / add to it, and for there to be fill in forms which can email a variety of addresses

I'm not a web developer, but that sounds like quite a big ask for someone without programming skills... not sure if there's anything out there which will do want you want "out-of-the-box".

[bradley]

Hey Mooncake,

1. You can always go to the big hosting companies and domain providers like hostgator, godaddy, 5quidhost or 123-reg.

Personally I'd go with the biggest and best known - hostgator or godaddy.

2. First you should buy the domain you want and then look for a place to host it. In other words you can buy the domain anywhere and host it anywhere you like. If it's a commercial site that you want to build before you buy the domain make sure you know a bit about SEO and finding the niche you are targeting. Set up a google account for that domain in google.com/webmasters & google.com/analytics so that you can track what's going on with the site. Also remember to use google's keyword planner tool to find the keywords with the most monthly search in your niche so that you can target them and get customers.

If you don`t have any experience with establishing a site/blog my advice would be to go ahead and just make a free blog/site on one of the free platforms such as wordpress and blogspot. Just so that you can get to know what and how to do before making your site.

P.S Once you start your own site make sure to always make a backup of the data base before you make changes to it. Just in case you break something and need to go back to the version that's not yet been broken.

[bradley]

Oh, I just saw the searchable email data base part... It's quite tricky because there's a lot of things you must know about programing, how scraper & crawler bots work and how to make the emails data base hidden from them, not to mention the terms, conditions and legal stuff you must take care of before running such a site/service. There are a lot of things that need to be done and I am not sure that you will be able to take care of them all by yourself. Worst thing is that I can`t help you with that either because I`m not good at programming either.

[ukcomputers]

Hi mooncake,

I do not want to be negative but from what you have written so far it looks like your knowledge on web developing is almost not existant. For people who don't know what they are doing, creating a simple HTML website can be quite a task but it is safe to say that starting to program databases is definitely out of the question. If it's the project you need done I would suggest you hire the professional as trying to do it yourself is not worth the time and effort.

Should you wish to learn how to do it yourself and do not mind spending a lot of time studying you should start first with HTML/CSS and then progress to MySQL and PHP. It's not plain sailing tough so brace yourself for quite a lot of learning.

If you need any help please let me know.

Cheers

UK Computers

[Jeremy]

A few people have advertised themselves on here as web developers. You should probably approach a couple of them with a more detailed explanation of what you want to achieve, and get an idea of costs before deciding whether to go ahead with your project. Also make sure you discuss arrangements for support of the site after go-live.

Programming is not rocket science, but at the same time it's not for everyone and it would take a long, long time to get up to speed.

[DulwichFox]

You can build a web site with on line tools..

For a Database you will need to use something like MySQL and will need to learn how to construct databases

either manually in MySQL Not the best way or by using phpmyadmin.

You will need to know about HTML and learn PHP, a server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language.

HTML containing PHP code will not run in a browser and you will need to set up a Server like Apache to test

your programmes.

For Windows based machines a package called WAMP can be down loaded for free.

This stands for Windows Apache MySQL and PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

You will then need to open Port 80 on your router to allow access to your newly installed Server.

All this will require some knowledge and will take some time as you will need to understand how to

set up your Server PHP and MySQL to see each other.

The PHP element is needed to write code that will interrogate your Databases.

and to be able to read and write to/from them.

There are many tutorials on Youtube that will tell how to do all this and it's where I learnt it from.

DulwichFox

[mooncake]

Thank you for all of the advice so far, and the rapid responses. Firstly, yes I am willing to learn enough myself to do the basics, and secondly I absolutely *don't* intend to do the second stage with all the far more advanced workings without an experienced programmer and having some proper funding behind the project.

However, what I don't want to do is set myself up badly with the basics having not thought about the 'where next' question and end up in a difficult position later down the line... And that's what my question was specifically related to. Do I need to worry about the later functionality when choosing a web host right now?

The idea is to just start something off - this is more as a tutorial and an interest to get me started than anything else.

Some great practical tips from Bradley and DulwichFox which are really helpful, so thank you for those.

(Just for the record - I have written pages in HTML before when I ran a website as a teenager, back in the day when wysiwyg editors weren't really around, so whilst I am a newbie it's not like I'm totally technically incapable!)

[Jeremy]

Someone like GoDaddy can sort you out with both the domain name and hosting - so at least you have a single point of contact for support. You could presumably start off with a simple website builder/wordpress type setup, and then upgrade to a virtual private host with PHP and MySQL when you're ready to start building out your functionality.

[Jeremy]

DulwichFox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> You will then need to open Port 80 on your router

> to allow access to your newly installed Server.

Fox.. are you talking about actually hosting a website on your own home PC?

[DulwichFox]

Jeremy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> DulwichFox Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > You will then need to open Port 80 on your

> router

> > to allow access to your newly installed Server.

>

> Fox.. are you talking about actually hosting a

> website on your own home PC?

No.. Port 80 is required For the Apache Server where you test your PHP files before uploading

to your hosting site.

You have to be careful to keep the server off line.

PHP files would normally be in an Apache sub folder named 'www'

When on line 192.168.2.x:80 would give access to that folder. (Providing WAMP had been started)

Always best to START/STOP Manually

Therefore anyone within range of your server could gain access to your files if your router was not protected.

I do have a Home Cloud which can be accessed remotely with a separate Domain Name(Subscription Reqd)

Because non static IP's change the software on the Cloud Device sends your current IP to the Domain which in

turn translates your Domain name to your current IP address

That also requires another port to be opened on the router.

Files can be made Public and private folders require Usename/Password..

All great fun..

DulwichFox

[Amiracle]

Give me a call if you still need advice! I am a local web developer :-)

Amir 07722 089 357

[Costa B]

Html+CSS it will do

[pablogrande]

Have you looked at Squarespace? its a very easy way to build a quick website, a big feature is they work well on mobile devices as well. there are third party options for adding database functionality.

[Mark]

Don't bother will all the complicated stuff to do with programming to start with, there's no need and will make your head spin.

Get a domain and some webspace with Heart Internet https://www.heartinternet.uk/. With that you get one-click installs of things like Wordpress, Joomla CMS and you can get extensions to add to those that will create a searchable database e.g. SobiPro for Joomla.

You can direct people on your site to different areas in the URL which are run by different programmes e.g.

www.mooncakeswebiste.co.uk - Run by Joomla

www.mooncakeswebiste.co.uk/search - Run by SobiPro on Joomla

www.mooncakeswebiste.co.uk/blog - Run by Wordpress

They have tutorials on how to set things up and their customer support is excellent.