Opening your own website

EileenG

How much does it cost to open your own website? How do you know where to find available names?

My children want to do an art project designing a website for me and my book and since I'm hoping I'll soon need one, it sounds like a great idea.

What are the formalities involved in setting up a halfway decent website?

dawvee

The three things you need are:

1. Domain name
2. Web hosting
3. The site itself

For the first two, I'd strongly recommend BlackKnight Solutions. Their hosting is reliable, easy to use and reasonably priced. For basic hosting it runs about €50 per year, and you can run multiple domains off one hosting package, plus other useful things you might need if your site picks up, like your own database if you want to run a CMS/blog software on your site. Their "Windows Minimus" hosting is the one I'm referring to above, and it's the one I'd recommend for a couple of simple sites.

The domain registration is simple, and best done through your hosting provider as it makes your life much simpler. At the same place (BlackKnight), a .com domain runs about €6 per year, which is typical, but costs less per year if you get it for longer periods. Most domain registrars will have a search utility to check if a domain is in use, so just run your name ideas through there to check if they're available.

As for the site itself, that's a whole lot more open. If you want a nice looking, functional site, be aware that someone, somewhere is going to have to put in the work to build it. You can either hire someone or do it yourself, but it's likely going to cost money and/or time either way.

Antilles

EileenG, dawvee's suggestion is bang on. One thing I'd add though is that before you shell out cash, a lot of ISPs have an option where you can get free hosting for a homepage. You could develop the project there first before you're sure you want to go for a domain name etc.