I was looking to get a website up for a small business, I tried messing with a comcast personal webpage but it doesn't looks right. Maybe add some music when the site opens and be able to show what I am selling. I can't seem how to figure it out on the comcast page, Plus I want it to be found in a search engine when someone types something related in. A personal webpage won't come up when typing www. whatever .com.

Anybody have any experience with getting there own website. Do you have to pay for the domain name or something like this.

I was thinking maybe AL or someone here may be able to help me out here.


Thanks a TON....

I know a little about this.

Yes, you need to register a domain name. Lots of places to do this, I've been using GoDaddy (http://www.godaddy.com) for a while. They can also host your website.

As for creating the actual pages, there are lots of tools. I've found Microsoft FrontPage to be a decent blend of functionality and ease of use.

Getting your site listed in search engines is easy. It will happen automatically after a while. Getting it listed correctly, so that you come up near the top when people search on words relative to your site is a whole other art form. Some things to consider are:

Having good titles on all of your pages
Having good keyword and description meta-tags on each page
Having a page dedicated to each potential search word or phrase you hope to encounter, and tailoring that page to the expected search.
Trying to get a bunch of other sites to include links to your site.

There are businesses you can pay to help you optimize your search engine placement. I know some folks who have used them with some success.

Final comment and then I'll shut up. I hate it when music starts up as soon as I hit a website. Especially when I am at work, but to me it's always annoying...

I have a .com web site for my band. It was $4 a year for the domain name and $14 a month for the space. It gives me 2gig of web space 5 email addys and Yahoo page builder is pretty easy to use. If you want music you gotta have it in wav format. It doesn't support mp3. Check around, you may find a better deal. IMO it wasn't that much $$$. Take a look. It's not the gratest, but I'm still working on it.

<a href="http://www.owensburn.com" target="_blank">www.owensburn.com
</a>


My resto page: www.geocities.com/eosupersport65 (http://www.geocities.com/eosupersport65)

gigem,
I'm not crazy about the start up music too. If it's soft and kind of quiet I don't mind it's that loud, in your face stuff that is a turn off (unless It Metalica or something and i'm driving in my car graemlins/thumbsup.gif )

BAD415,
Wow you did that yourself? Nice !!

That is very reasonable I would have never guessed it would be so cheap.

Thanks for the heads up guys, keep the idea's coming.....

I think there's also a service that reroutes links with a certain name to whatever URL you want. For example, if you type "www.aclineman.com", it will be rerouted to "www.comcast.com/users/webspace/~aclineman" or whatever your real URL might be. That way, you can still use the free web space your ISP provides, and only pay for the rerouting.

MMMmmm, Interesting.

Thanks Olle

Harry, check this out. www.onrails.net (http://www.onrails.net)

A little something I threw together.

It costs me 9/mo for 5GB of storage, 25GB of bandwidth, and 25email accounts. I beleive the cost goes up to 11.95/mo if you do not use SBC DSL already. It also includes a program very similiar to Frontpage.

I'll add that it has been proven most folks get annoyed with music attached to the page or special effects for page transitions. Keep it simple and easy to navigate.

When I read Dennis' post, I realized that I forgot to mention that you can run into bandwidth limitations if you use rerouting together with "free" web space. For a small business, it could work anyway.

you need to register a domain name. Lots of places to do thisCan't you register a domain name yourself? It seems to me there should be a way, afterall, how are these companies registering your name?

I heard that some of these companies ask for the name you want, then THEY register it (but keep the rights themselves) so you HAVE to go through them indefinitely (not sure if its really true, just what I heard)...

That GoDaddy iste is $3.99 to register and $8.95/year... Once the site is registered, why does it have to be re-registered? Seems like a scam of sorts...

I thought it was like putting your name in the phone book. Isn't that free? I don't know cause i'm not listed.

I figured there would be a charge for someone to "host" the site , But I also heard others pay you for putting ads on your site too???

Still green at all of this.....

Originally posted by BAD415:
I have a .com web site for my band. It was $4 a year for the domain name ................

How did you go about getting a domain name that cheap?

I think I am paying 70.00 for three years for each of mine through namesecure.com

Originally posted by Dean:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BAD415:
I have a .com web site for my band. It was $4 a year for the domain name ................

How did you go about getting a domain name that cheap?

I think I am paying 70.00 for three years for each of mine through namesecure.com </font>[/QUOTE]GoDaddy.com has registration of domain names for cheap, check them out. Other companies charge too much.

Godaddy is the way to go for nomain names.

www.bigblock67chevelle.com (http://www.bigblock67chevelle.com)

www.ikvgloryhunter.com (http://www.ikvgloryhunter.com)

www.movinontv.com (http://www.movinontv.com)

I am a Who's Your Daddy customer too.. oops I mean GO DADDY! Purchased my domain there!

www.mysterychevelle.com (http://www.mysterychevelle.com)

Sounds like where I'll be heading. Do they help idiots like me get started on building a website??

Hey Harry, I just got my domain name registered through godaddy... real easy to do, as of right now I haven't done a website, because I get one for free through my buying group...

I just wanted my work email addresses to be @interiorfinishes.net, so I registered the domain name, & purchased an email package..

The email package cost my 30.00 a year, & the domain name was only 4.24 per year because I baught the email..... Otherwise, I think the domain name by itself would have been like 15.00

Scott

Originally posted by Olle:
I think there's also a service that reroutes links with a certain name to whatever URL you want. For example, if you type "www.aclineman.com", it will be rerouted to "www.comcast.com/users/webspace/~aclineman" or whatever your real URL might be. That way, you can still use the free web space your ISP provides, and only pay for the rerouting. GoDaddy calls that feature "domain forwarding". It's very cool.

For example, type "www.ls6registry.com" into your browser and see where it takes you smile.gif

Once you have a domain name, you can also do email forwarding that will forward email to your real email address. For example, you could have info@ls6registry.com forward email to your real account, maybe joeblow@aol.com or whatever. One huge benefit of this is if you move ISP's, you just update your email forwarding to point to your new real email account at your new ISP. You never have to tell all of your friends a new email address. It never has to change...

Do you have XP office? It has Frontpage on it and is a great "dummy program" for web building.

I'm not knocking godaddy.com but I have seen some registration companies come and go. Years ago when I first got a domain (barefootdave.com) everyone had to register through Internic. I personally would pay a little more and go with a company that has a history and been in business for awhile for the registration. I personally use www.discountdomainregistry.com (http://www.discountdomainregistry.com) As far as server space you can do a search and find hundreds of places offering cheap space, some as cheap as $4.95 a month for a couple gigs of space with minimal bandwidth. Again, if you like 100% uptime and redundency/backup it may cost you a little more. I currently use inmotionhosting.com and have been very happy!

Actually making a webpage is a little tougher but anyone with a little knowledge in MS Word can do it. MS Frontpage makes it even easier.

BTW Harry...last month 500 DIFFERENT people accessed your file on my server and downloaded it 954 times! A good hosting company makes it easy to get stats like that!

Let me know if ya need help.

Thanks guys !!!

My wife works at the school and she spoke today with the computer teacher, she too mentioned this "front page" she will tell us more tomorrow.

I'm still doing my homework on this and THANKS for all your input.

Barefoot Dave,
thanks again for helping me out and hosting that for me....Downloaded 954 times? Not bad for as some here said a "Lame A$$ burnout" graemlins/thumbsup.gif

We go through worldwidemart.com in a package deal that gets us a domain name registration, web hosting, email addresses, and a whole lot of stuff we don't use.

Originally posted by ACLineman:
....Downloaded 954 times? Not bad for as some here said a "Lame A$$ burnout" graemlins/thumbsup.gif 954! I'd be surprised if it was downloaded 9 times! :D

Why YOU !!! graemlins/angry.gif

The devil made me do it! graemlins/beers.gif

Pay att to what they said about OWNING your own name. If you dont some sites steal it out from under you.

I have a couple of my sites hosted by globat.com. $60 a year for the first year, $90 a year after that I think. 5Gb of disk space, 75 Gb of transfer, 5000 email accounts, 24/7 phone and chat support. Unlimited subdomain hosting for $20 a year meaning you can host more that one domain name as long as they fit in the space/transfer allowed.

I've used both namesecure.com and dotster.com for domain registration - like $15 a year but I usually get a 10 year deal for $75.

FrontPage has become pretty sophisticated over its life span. If you can use other MS office software, you shouldn't have much of a problem with FrontPage.

Well I went with GoDaddy and bought the domain name for 2 years and they are hosting it for a year all for 100 bucks. The website should be up and running real soon.
Thanks for all your help everyone. Is there nothing you guys DON'T know about???

Seems like anytime someone has a question about ANYTHING there is always someone here to help out. That's why this is my favorite site on the net !!!!! We'll until mine gets up and running that is......J/K

Thanks Again Guys..........

Well it seems like the teacher my wife knows started setting up my site and she sent me this
http://www.geocities.com/lpurnell74/index.htm

So far so good. She said she has to fix the scrolling up problem on all the pages but the home page, and I requested some other changes, plus we asked to add some more pictures.

All seems good and she told my wife it would be up and running soon but she keeps putting it off. God I wish I had frontpage or some knowledge of this stuff. Hate having to rely on other people.......

Well if you checked out what she set up for me so far whattda think ??????

Thanks

Tiki Bars! Neat idea! Best of luck with everything!

- John...

Bandwith exceeded I guess :confused:

Go here if you're interested in learnig some simple HTML coding.
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

You can see examples and copy and paste them into your editor.

Dean one of my problems is I don't HAVE an editor.
I DO have a computer but it's kind of stone age at 6-7 years old. I'm running windows 98 for crying out loud and don't have front page, an editor, or anything else I suspect I need for designing a website, Heck i'm lucky to have solitire, HeHe.

Thanks Jgoggan,
I built ours last year any got ALOT of requests for making more for friends ( I also built 3 last year and sold them almost before they were completed) and was told I should build more and sell them. After thinking long and hard about it I figured what the heck.
Building them is the easy part, getting my tax forms , paper work and all the stuff for starting a business (like this website up and running) is a Royal Pain in the Arse.

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words.......

Looks good Harry, now if you can figure out how to do them in kits to be able to ship all around the globe.

:thumbsup:

Looks good Harry, now if you can figure out how to do them in kits to be able to ship all around the globe.

:thumbsup:
Thanks Dean, And believe it or not some guys do send them out as kits, But I don't want to get into that this early into the game.

We got the site almost complete with just a little more tweaking to do.

Please check us out @ www.IslandTikiBars.com and let me know what you think of the site.

We want to add a vistor counter and maybe a guest book or something like that. Also how do you get the site set up in a search engine such as yahoo or google?

Thanks

Please check us out @ www.IslandTikiBars.com and let me know what you think of the site.

Looks good! I don't even drink and I want a Tiki Bar! :D

We want to add a vistor counter and maybe a guest book or something like that. Also how do you get the site set up in a search engine such as yahoo or google?

Don't use any of the pay sites to get yourself listed. Basically, you can just wait and, eventually, you'll get indexed. Google and Yahoo each have a form that you can submit to asked to get indexed sooner -- which is especially useful when you are brand new and no one has linked to you yet. It doesn't cause them to do it immediately -- but gets the site on the list to be spidered in the next round.

The main trick to getting good placement in the results, for something like your site, is to have VERY GOOD TITLES. Currently, they are bad -- they say things like "New Page 1" on every page. Make it be descriptive -- the main page should be "Island Tiki Bars", at least -- possibly even "Island Tiki Bars -- some extra description here." Then do each page with "Island Tiki Bars -- About Us" and "Island Tiki Bars -- Photo Gallery" -- or something to that effect.

Some also argue that most of the big search engines use the Meta Description tags to help with your ranking. These are tags on your page in the HTML that have a description of your page/site that are not otherwise shown to the user. Frontpage should have an option to insert these. They end up looking something like this:

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Island Tiki Bars offers for sale various tiki bars to the public.">

Or something like that -- basically, a spot to put more data than you would want to put in the title because the title would look crowded (and may also get detected as invalid to some of the search spiders).

But, again, the main thing is to get descriptive but concise titles on each page. :thumbsup:

- John...

Thanks man. This is all GREEK to me. You see I don't have front page, my crappy computer is 7 years old, and someone set this website up for me as a favor.

Where do you se "Currently, they are bad -- they say things like "New Page 1" on every page. Make it be descriptive -- the main page should be "Island Tiki Bars", at least -- possibly even "Island Tiki Bars -- " ???
I don't see that when I'm looking at it. Again This is still WAY over my head.

Thanks man. This is all GREEK to me. You see I don't have front page, my crappy computer is 7 years old, and someone set this website up for me as a favor.

No problem -- are they planning to do more for you -- or is it pretty much yours to deal with from this point on?

Where do you se "Currently, they are bad -- they say things like "New Page 1" on every page. Make it be descriptive -- the main page should be "Island Tiki Bars", at least -- possibly even "Island Tiki Bars -- " ???
I don't see that when I'm looking at it. Again This is still WAY over my head.

This would be the title of the page itself -- it is usually shown in the "title bar" of your browser. So, for example, right now, if you look at the very top of this window, it should say something like "Chevelle Tech". If you go to your site, on the main page, it doesn't look like they defined a title, so it just leaves it at "http://www.islandtikibars.com/" probably. If you click on any of the links and look at the top, you'll see it says "New Page 1" as the name of the page itself.

This is defined in the HTML with a "title" tag. But, don't worry about that for now.

If they are going to work on it some more, just let them know and it should be fairly easy for them to add some titles. If it is just up to you now, let me know and I can try to help you out with it. I'm not graphic design person by any means, so I don't do web pages -- but I understand the technicals underneath, so no problem adding titles and descriptions for the pages to the HTML if you need some help.

- John...

Thanks man :thumbsup:

I do see now what you mean, at the bottom in my "task bar" I thinkit's called, it says 1 new page (or something to effect) on every page but the home page.

The girl who set this up as a favor for me said she is going to add a counter and center up the border and some other things she doesn't like. Go figure ( I thought it looked pretty good, to me with an untrained eye)

All I really want to be able to do when it's all said and done is be able to add some new pictures later on down the road or maybe add a testimonal section. basically just have control over the site I guess.

Thanks Again, You have been a BIG help. :beers:

We revamped it what do you think???? I know we need chicks in bikini's but I don't think the wife would like it as much as me !!!!!! HeHe

www.IslandTikiBars.com

Looks very nice -- I like it.

Still don't have titles on the pages though -- as I mentioned, those will be important if you want good placement on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Most still say "New Page 1", for example.

Other than that -- nice improvement. Looks much better to me now.

- John...