How to Get a Com Website? Get a Website Domain Name

How to Get a COM Website?

This article is part of a series showing you how to create a website. The series will take the beginner or layperson, through the steps necessary for getting your very own website up and running.

I presume you know how to use a computer and how to surf the Internet with reasonable proficiency. I also presume (and this is the biggie) you are willing to learn. Getting online, creating a website and posting a few pages is remarkably easy but staying online as your website grows and becomes more complex will require the learning of quite a few new skills.

Get Your Domain Name

The first thing you need to do before anything else is to get yourself a domain name.

• What is a domain name? The domain name is the name you want to give to your website, the domain name of this website is “kingsolutions.org.uk”.

You cannot buy a domain name outright, you can only lease it through an accredited domain name registrar. This entails paying an annual fee to a registrar for the right to use your chosen domain name. Registering a website (domain) name does not get you a website, it just gets you the right to used that domain name for the registration period.

• Tip: Read my 24 tips on creating your domain name.

Okay, in answer to the question, how to get a COM website (or register any domain name for that matter), here’s what you need to do:

Register Your Domain Name with a Com Suffix

The first thing you need to do is find an available website name with a COM suffix. To do this go to any of the accredited domain name registrars in my article, Recommended Domain Name Registers and use their domain name search facilities to research your needs. The registration charge for a COM suffix is usually less than $10 per year but shop around, they are constantly changing.

• Tip: If you are only buying the one website name then host your website with someone like JustHost, they and most of the others in my list of recommended domain name registrars, provide free lifetime domain name registration with their hosting packages.
• Tip: When registering multiple website names to prevent others grabbing them, i.e., yourDomainName.com, yourDomainName.org, yourDomainName.biz, yourDomainName.co.uk, etc. Use GoDaddy, they provide a good registration service and they are cheap. Their hosting service is not as good as JustHost in my opinion and I personally would simply register everything through JustHost, but that’s a matter of personal choice.

Purchase Website Hosting

So, you’ve researched your domain name, now you need somewhere for your website to reside.

Your websites home is supplied by a website hosting provider (who may or may not be your domain name registrar) The charge for a hosting service is usually between $3 and $50 per month depending upon the package chosen and whether you select a shared or dedicated server.

What is a web hosting provider? A web hosting provider is the company which manages the dedicated or shared server (computer) on which your website will be hosted. All your public web pages, when placed on the hosting providers web server, will be available to everyone in the world to see. Just what you want.

• Tip: If your domain registration and website hosting is with the same company, the linking of the two will happen automatically.

Which Hosting Package, Shared or Dedicated?

If you plan to have just a few hundred static web pages for your company or a smallish CMS WordPress type site the hosting package required will be a shared hosting solution (this is much cheaper than a dedicated server). You can always upgrade to a dedicated server if necessary at a later date.

If on the other hand you plan to have several thousand interactive visitors per day then select a dedicated server solution.

• It is possible to run your own server from home, but, as you’re reading this article, I seriously doubt you have the expertise to do this. Stick with a good hosting provider, it’s what 99.9% of people do.

Change DNS Server Authoritative Record

Once you have your domain name and website hosting set up, you need to point your domain name at your website.

• Tip: If your domain registration and website hosting is with the same company, the linking of the two will happen automatically.

If you have elected to use different companies for domain registration and website hosting you will need to point your website domain to your hosting account. Information on how to do this can be found with your domain registrar or simply ask your domain registrar to point the DNS authoritative records for your website.

• The DNS basically links the IP address and domain name for your website, so pointing the rest of the world to your site. The Domain Name System (DNS) helps users to find their way around the Internet. It is used to translate unique dot delimited numeric addresses, known as an IP address (Internet Protocol address), in the form NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN into words and vice versa.

Construct Your Web Pages

Once you’ve registered your domain name and selected a hosting provider your site is ready and online. As you have no pages yet, if you surf to your site you will probably see the default page supplied by your hosting provider. You job now is to add excellent content to your website and you’re in business.

• If you are hiring a web designer you can probably skip this step.

As you’re reading this, I will assume you will be writing/designing your own web pages.

There are basically two routes you can take with your website at this stage, produce static web pages or use a content management system (CMS). The kingsolutions website uses the WordPress CMS.

Static Web Page Design

Static web page design can be accomplished with little more than a text editor such as NotePad or with highly sophisticated WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) editor such as Dreamweaver. Alternatively, if your pages are reasonably simple and don’t require database interaction then something such as the free KompoZer WYSIWYG editor maybe all you need.

Content Management System Solutions

A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content as well as maintenance from a central interface.

CMSs are often used to run websites containing blogs, news, and shopping. Many corporate and marketing websites use CMS solutions. CMSs typically aim to avoid the need for hand coding by using WYSIWYG editors but most provide for hand coding as required.

There are many web-page design software solutions available, see my article, Website Design Software Solutions for my recommendations.

How to Get a Com Website Conclusion

As stated above, you can research your domain name choices and hosting providers at any of my recommended domain name registers. Most of these registrars provide domain name registration, domain name hosting, free domain name search facilities and some even provide your domain name for free when you register for a domain name hosting package.

If you need a web-page design software solution then see my article, Website Design Software Solutions for my recommendations. Some of the design solutions presented are free, others, for a price, will solve every problem you’re likely to encounter.

Should you require more information on email marketing services (autoresponders), then you will find my article, top recommended email marketing service providers valuable. If you’re an affiliate creating an email list (the monies in the list) these are the services you need most.

If you’re trying to get an online business started and need a fast-track solution I would recommend you take a look at Chris Farrell Membership.

Well, I hope you found something useful and enjoyed this article, How to get a COM website.