- Register your own domain name!
We’d be happy to help you decide on the best domain name to choose from, yet the most important thing to understand is this – you should always register a domain yourself to insure retention. Sometimes web developers might register a domain name for you, for whatever reason, but know that this is a company asset if you’re a business. It costs less, and you’ll be in control of it.[UPDATE MARCH 2024] – By far the least expensive domain registration (and now hosting as well,) is namecheap.com. Holy smokes they are cost effective. I doubt you’ll find a better option. Their hosting includes a free SSL, which you’ll need. Your recurring costs will then only be 1) your annual domain name registration fee, and 2) your monthly hosting fees.
I’ll leave the following paragraph which is still relevant.
We can still recommend using www.godaddy.com because of it’s excellent customer support – but we do NOT recommend purchasing the many options they will try to up-sell you during the sign-up/registration process. Make sure auto-renew is enabled so you don’t accidentally lose your domain name when the registration fee expires. If you need help, call Joseph at 503-391-4801.
Before you register the domain – see item #2 below.
- Hosting:
All domain names (websites) need a place for their website to reside. This hosting fee is the only other recurring fee necessary to run a website besides the domain registration fee. You can either host with us and we’ll setup everything for free including email addresses, or you can choose any hosting company that suits you. Again, namecheap.com is the least expensive and provides excellent services so I’d go there first. GoDaddy is not the cheapest, but they’re reliable and have excellent customer support. Both hosting services now include an SSL certificate with their shared hosting plans. You need an SSL for the lock icon and the https protocol. It used to be a separate fee, now they’re including it. GoDaddy used to have unlimited hosting space, now it’s large but not unlimited. Namecheap still offers unlimited.Note that we’re not associated with these companies and receive no compensation for mentioning them. And note again that there are many hosting companies, but most are resellers and can’t compete. Like our own hosting, which is a reseller account, and isn’t worth the hassle but we offer it as a service for clients that prefer maintain everything. The most widely used hosting is the PHP/cPanel hosting plan, which will work perfectly for WordPress or any other non-ASP driven website platform. Contact us if you have questions .
- Email:
After you’ve registered your domain name and purchased a hosting plan, all cPanel type hosting accounts come with free email accounts – so you don’t need to buy additional email plans. Many hosting companies will try and sell this as an extra service. Login to your hosting account control panel, look for the email icon and click it, then add any emails you might want such as info@yourwebsitedomainname.com. If you are on a plan with limited hosting space, such as our own, you may wish instead to setup an email FORWARDER instead. A forwarder is an alias which can function as a mailing list as well. Example: info@yourwebsitedomainname.com can be created as an email forwarder and it simply forwards that email address to whatever email you’d like, such as your Gmail or Proton mail address. - DIY Website:
If you want to create your own website – it’s EASY! Even if you don’t know web coding nearly every hosting account (including ours) comes with a “one-click” WordPress installation that will install this excellent content management system. ATTENTION: For all WordPress installations be sure to use a very complex, very long password including random characters. DO NOT FORGET THAT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. FYI, there are legions of scriptbots out their scouring the web attempting to hack EVERY website, using a weak password WILL result in regret. If they get in they will auto-insert malicious code which can cause you more trouble than you know. and cost you money to fix.WordPress automatically installs a “theme” which is basically a skin for this database-driven app, and there are many free themes available online starting with the official WordPress site. But – we recommend Elegant Themes which offers an inexpensive theme called Divi. It is an excellent theme with a visual drag-and-drop layout editor, it’s easy to learn, and they have great support and documentation. Read more about WordPress near the bottom of this post > Here are a few starter links to get you going with WordPress:Getting Started with WordPress
A beginners guide to using wordpress
WP beginner videosALSO: If you do use WordPress be sure to install the following security plugins ASAP:
Limited Login Attempts (typically can be selected during your “one-click” install.)
WordFence Security
Anti-Spam
 | About the author: Joseph Hill has over 20 years experience in hands-on web & multimedia development, interface design & architecture, production management, search engine indexing and marketing efforts with a list of over 200 web projects he has worked on including GE, FinishLine, Levi's, MTV, Sony, HBO, Showtime, Wrigley, Williams-Sonoma, Starbucks, YMCA and the San Diego SuperBowl Host Committee. He has an Associates Degree in Graphics Communication and refers to his metal detector as his "search engine". His favorite hobby is gardening and favorite pastime is swimming and drifting across rivers and lakes exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. |
