There’s no magic to setting up a great looking website. You don’t need to pay someone else to do it for you. You can easily set up your own website in a few hours. A little planning and a little knowledge go a long way. This article looks at what elements you need for your website.
There’s a few concepts we’ll get to understand:
Domain names
Domain names help us (humans) remember websites. For example, Brellabee.com is easier to remember than 84.72.55.177.
All computers on a network have an IP (Internet Protocol) address. This is a sequence of four numbers between 0–255, separated by dots. You’ve probably seen numbers like 192.168.0.1 when setting up your home wireless, or internet connection. Well, every computer on the Internet needs one of these numbers, and web sites need a number that remains static and never changes. (You home IP address will change every time you log on, or every day or so)
Domain names provide human readable addresses for computer Internt Protocol addresses.
More importantly, These days domain names are used to brand your website, blog or business.
A rose by any other name…
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Would a rose really smell as sweet if it was named differently? Probably. Would your online business, blog or website be as cool or profitable with a generic name? Probably not. There’s two factors involved in choosing a domain name:
- What you want to name your site
- What’s actually available
It’s hard to find a good man/woman domain name these days. Most of the one, two and three syllable words are taken. The web 2.0 thing to do is just mash a couple of words together, or put “ly” on the end.
One thing that’s is important to remember is to choose your domain name with your keywords in it. This helps greatly with search engine optimization (SEO). i.e. the ease with which search engines find and rank your website.
So, for example, if your business is repairing cars your domain name might be joescarrepairs.com, which would perform well against search terms like “car repair“.
However, don’t go overboard. Long domain names are not a great idea. They can be hard to remember and spell correctly.
Dot Com is King
Kin Dotcom
No, Not Kim Dotcom! The domain extension “.com”. Wherever possible a domain name ending in .com is preferable to any other extension. Unless you want your business/website to be definitely identified with a particular country (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.) it’s better to run with a .com, if it’s available.
Search for available domains by typing them into a browser and see if anything comes up, if you get a blank page, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the domain name is available. You will still need to search a Registrar.
Domain Registration
As part of your search you will need to sign up to a Domain name registrar. Google sells domains, as do the big ones like GoDaddy, but we here at Brellabee have been using Joker.com for over a decade and are very happy with their service and interface, and recommend them. Brellabee does not sell domain names yet, but we do have plans to introduce the ability to buy your domain with us in the future.
Once you’ve signed up with a registrar, search for the domain names you have decided on. If its free, buy it, otherwise keep searching and brainstorming ideas until you find the one you want.
Domain mapping
At Brellabee we offer you the ability to map your domain to your Brellabee site. This means that you don’t have to settle for having mysite.brellabee,com, but can point your newly minted domain into Brellabee and have it appear in the address bar in people’s browsers.
After you have bought your domain name, and you want to host your site with Brellabee, you will need to create an “A record” for it and point it to Brellabee’s IP address 184.72.55.177. Follow this Knowledge Base article on mapping your domain.
Web Servers
To have a web site you need a web server. The web server receives requests and creates and serves the pages that your visitors see in their browsers. At Brellabee we use the WordPress platform which dynamically creates your pages. The pages are served by Apache, the most popular web server in the world. You don’t need to know about the web server, because it just works. We look after its configuration, security and administration for you.
If you setup your own hosting with GoDaddy or some other hosting company you should have an in-depth understanding of how Apache works, .htacess and php.ini rules and resources. WordPress has a famous 5 minute install process – but you need to setup a MySQL database first. If you don’t know what I just wrote means, then Brellabee is for you.
WordPress
WordPress is a powerful content management system. WordPress currently serves about 15% of all websites. This is testament to its usability and intuitive interface. Brellabee is built on the WordPress platform and provides a quick and easy way to get your website online.
You can publish any media with WordPress and easily get a great look and feel for your site using website templates that are called “Themes” in WordPress parlance.
Create your website nowPhoto credits
“Think” photo by Daniel Wehner. Licensed Creative Commons Share Alike License 2.0
“Rose” photo by Bahman Farzad. Licensed Creative Commons Share Alike License 2.0