Want to set up a website - um what do I have to do?!

[ImSoNotTelling]

Hello all

I am going to try and set up a website for my brother's business as I'm nice like that! Basically I need to get a domain name then build the site I guess - I know that some companies do it as a package...

Does anyone have a recommendation of where to go for domain name, whether to get one with a website building tool attached (or if not what do I do)... etc etc

Thanks loads for any help with this!

Wow. What a comprehensive set of responses. Thank you so much everybody who has taken the time to help with this.

I am going to have a good think about all these points - especially your questions lowrib - and make a start on getting some proper ideas together.

I may be back

just to add a few extras, hopefully before you go ahead with a purchase...

1. if he has a limited company then new requirements in the Companies Act 2006 mean contact details (company registration number and possibly VAT number) need to be shown

2. from a search engine perspective, I'd avoid using Mr Site (it would make links point to the MrSite domain and if your brother later wanted to have a major revamp and not use Mr Site then search engines would need to find his "new" site as the existing links would still go to the MrSite domain

3. on domain registrations and hosting...

If you choose to use a .com then they are generally cheaper from a firm outside the UK (GoDaddy.com, MyDomain.com or Name.com are all reasonably priced, and after 6 months you can transfer from one to another at a price below the renewal fee, since they offer lower fees to grab market share)

For a .co.uk I'd recommend 123-reg.co.uk, or heart-internet.co.uk (Heart are offering .com at 4.99 just to 'buck the trend' - most UK firms charge closer to a tenner a year).

You can get a web design package thrown in with some accounts, but the one from SimpleWebHosting and Heart Internet is Serif X2 which is only 19.99 direct from Serif.com so you could buy it and play before even registering a domain name. Just went back to check, and the link (on Google, searching for Serif WebPlus X2) says 19.99 but the website showed 29.99 - it might be worth complaining to Serif that they are misleading Google users... it may be a genuine mistake if they had a deal on some weeks ago though.

Heart Internet offers free hosting (with low data transfer limits, but no adverts) so you could create the site on your PC, then register a domain at Heart, try out your site on the free hosting, allowing your brother to comment (!) and then move on to upgrade it to the cheapest level hosting account (which has higher limits for web space, data transfer, e-mail accounts, etc), and if you refer a friend, you could earn a tenner (Amazon gift voucher) if they sign up for the Starter hosting account, more for more expensive accounts.

Meant to add that the Heart "Starter" web hosting account includes access to website templates and clip art, if you decide something they offer looks nicer than your first (second, and third?) attempts at designing... (not meaning to sound negative, but sometimes you will see a design that looks good and it may prove faster to adapt it than waste spend lots of time trying to get a design you and your brother like).

NN wrote "If you buy a domain from someone other than your webhost, you will need to learn about DNS records. "

Your hosting firm should give you two (or more) nameservers, and the firm where you registered the domain name should offer a control panel where you can set the nameserver names, eg
ns1.vfm-hosting.com ns2.vfm-hosting.com

You don't need to learn anything about the DNS records (they're going to be managed by the web hosting firm).

Keeping the hosting separate from the domain registration firm means I can switch registration firms whenever I want (eg if one has a low cost deal for domains to be transferred into their service) without changing the hosting arrangements.

While domain registrations are in periods of one or more years, web hosting can be had for much shorter periods and sometimes it is worth starting by renting hosting for a month or quarter (so you don't pay out a lot, and then find they are unreliable or don't offer some facility you want to use), so changing hosting company without changing the domain registration firm can be useful if you start to add extra areas to your website.

Say you wanted to add podcasts or have video clips for relatives abroad to see (hidden away in a subdirectory so only visible via web link you send in an e-mail). Some web hosting firms have limits or restrictions on how much traffic or what types of file can be stored, so you may wish to switchi hosting company part way through a year.

(Not really applicable to this thread, but for someone setting up a website to hold photo albums and video clips from holidays, or to show the new baby, for example, it can be worth thinking about flexibility).

Thanks webdude that heart place is really cheap - I think it could be a good place to start!

Have told my bro and he is having a think.

Thanks again all