"Help Setting Up a Website, Please" Topic

I'm just about at the point where I would like to set up a miniatures website (which will be selling some really cool stuff!! :) ).
My wife has kindly offered to do all this herself, and learn everything from scratch. The only trouble is, we know pretty much nothing about it!

So before going out and buying a shelf load of "Dummies" books and such like, I though I would ask some advice.

I guess I need a webhost. Any recommendations? Is registering the website name with them sufficient?

The site will be simple at first, so we'll use one of the templates that seem to come with the hosts, but do we still need to buy additional programs to do stuff within the template – like adding pictures, a shopping cart, a blog, etc?

Any other basic things I'm forgetting, or need to consider?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

I register my domain names with godaddy.com. You do not have to host with them; you simply direct the names to your server.

If you have a Mac, iWeb is a very easy to use tool for creating a web site. It's basically a WYSIWYG program for web sites. Choose a template, paste in pictures, type in text, move stuff around… you're done. Apple offers hosting through .mac (or mobileme) for $99 USD a year, so a little more than $8 USD a month, which ain't bad. Caveats: if you're going to use a different host, uploading your site from iWeb can be a trickier proposition. Also, if you plan to do any of your own "fine-tuned" coding, iWeb produces rather hard to follow HTML with a lot of needlessly redundant code. Not a problem if you're just a hobbyist working solely with the WYSIWYG, but throws a wrinkle in things if you want to make tweaks that iWeb doesn't support.

You can also go the blogging route, using blogger.com or wordpress.com, which offer nice templates, easy to use creation tools, and will also allow you to post pictures and links… most of what we use web sites for. These have the advantage of being free!

ok, not to step on what Parzival said, but most sites like wordpress do NOT allow E-commerse at all on there sites. I know I was in the same position as you a couple months ago.

Here is what I use.
yola.com/home

Free site geared toward e-comerse, templates included if a bit limiting, what mods you can do are mostly in widgits that you drag and drop. and for $20.00/year they will handle all the crap of the domain name set up. Plus a great knowledge based forums to look at if you have probelms.

and my site there for a look around…
lonegunmangames.com

You can pretty well do one of these with zero HTML info, but if I can do HTML then anyone can. I'll gladly help her with any questions she has as well on designing a site there…

My advice: KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Far too many amateur websites try to throw in too many "kewl" bells & whistles. Stuff like that just makes the site annoying. Don't bother with noisy backgrounds, music or sounds of any sort, animated cursors, etc… And above all, avoid page transition effects like the plague.

Good luck!

If you're wanting a cheap site, I usually go with HostGator for hosting – and manually build a static site or, with a content management system and WYSIWYG editor, use WordPress

Thanks for the advice guys. Much appreciated!

Setting up a site is simple….it's getting people to know you have a site that's hard work!….one tip….don't use Google Adwords…they'll bleed you dry for very little return. Stick to the forums and spread the word about your site. Verify your domain name with Google search and other search engines but be careful who you choose to host your site as a lot of cheap website hosts are not search engine friendly.