Illo from Ben Schlitter

Ok, it’s a question I often get when I start designing a website for a new client. Since you now understand what is HTML, let’s tackle the actual website. What do you need to purchase and have done in order to have an online presence?

Got a house?

So basically, to have a website, you need to buy two things (other than hiring a web designer, if you have the budget): a domain name and a hosting plan. The simplest analogy I found to explain all of these shenanigans is the House analogy.

Domain Names

A domain name is like your home address. It’s actually your web address, as in http://www.roseflash.ca. Usually, you want an EASY TO REMEMBER domain name. There are several place you can reserve your domain name (you don’t buy your domain name for life, you reserve it for a determined period of time, getting discounts when you reserve for longer periods.), I use GoDaddy.com, but there is also register4less.com which you can use, among others.

You can reserve several domain names which will point to the same website: roseflash.ca, roseflash.com, roseflash.net, studioroseflash.com; I could buy them all so that if someone type roseflash.net instead of roseflash.ca (which is what is on my business cards), then it would bring her on my website anyways. You can even buy misspelled names (ie. roseflahs.ca) if you care to do so.

Should I buy a .com, .net, .org ? is another frequently asked, and really it doesn’t matter much, the promotion & content of your website is what will draw the traffic. The .ca is more expensive than the .com for some reason. When you will reserve your domain name, sometimes the one you want is already taken, you will know that when you do your search (it’s the first thing you do usually on the GoDaddy.com website), so you can pick in the proposed domain names from the registry.

The price for a one year domain name reservation (.com) is around $15 US.

Hosting

So the domain name is your address, your hosting is your house. The hosting provider will host your website on his server, so you «rent» a space to him. He is your web landlord!

BEFORE you buy any plan, you FIRST outta determine what kind of website you want. Do you want one page done in HTML? A shopping-cart PHP type website? A Wordpress blog? A high volume traffic website (I know, we all want that, but let’s be honest, will you draw a million visitors per day on your first year?)? Do you want a nifty ruby-on-rails site? If you are having your website done by a web designer, she will be able to point you to the right hosting plan and provider.

What you can do if you are unsure of what type of plan to buy, you can ask your questions to the provider, it will be a good way to check their customer service at the same time. You want also to check if they are up to date in their software versions (just google the software name with «latest version» in it: remember, google is your friend when you are seeking something on the net!), and you can also google the name of the hosting provider with «customers reviews» somewhere in your search (on a side note, I do this for EVERYTHING I want to buy online, you might dodge a bullet doing so!).

You want my hosting provider reference? I use Hostingrails.com : excellent customer service, excellent prices, up to date in everything.

The price for hosting plans (for one year) goes from $50 to 300$ depending on the plan you buy. It can be lower or higher than that, you have to shop around.

Websites

To recap, domain name= address, hosting=house, so the website is… well, what you put in the house, your home decoration. What you need to know when you purchase web design services is that there is a WIDE range of skills, thus a WIDE range of prices. What I would suggest is to seek websites which designs you like and contact the web designer or the design firm that created it. Sometimes their link is included in the copyrights of the site. Like any professionals which you want to deal with, read their recommendation or praise page (if they don’t have any, contact their former clients to have feedback.). Read closely their FAQ page and ask for a quote.

So how much does a website cost? A professional web designer with a minimum of 5 years experience will charge you anywhere from $1000 to $10 000, depending on the complexity of your website. Seems a lot? Well, it takes TIME people to do a website!

Here is my 2 cents: you certainly want to have a professional looking website, and as I would not DARE say go to court without a winning lawyer, I would advise hiring a winning web designer to take care of your website (which has more to it than a layout in Dreamweaver). Ask for a quote & ask for payment installment (most designer will accept that FYI). If you can’t afford the whole shebang, reduce the size of what you want to have done; instead of 10 pages layout with Flash intro and 50 images portfolio, how-’bout one page design in a system that will allow you to add pages as you need them? Ask for a Wordpress website, the admin is pretty easy to manage.

So, this was pretty lengthy! I’m sure you have tons of questions, I will answer with pleasure, just use the comment zone. Hope this helped you understand my job Speaking of which, I am open for new clients, if you digg my style and would like a website (or a logo, I love doing Logos!) drop me a line. Also, if you think this might help other, please use the share thingny below!