One of the first things you’ll need to consider when starting a website is the web host. This is the company that will actually host your website on their servers. Before I had Sitemilk, I had many different website hosts. Some of them were great, some were horrible. Some of them didn’t reply to my messages for days. Good communication is very helpful if you have a problem, and good technical support is very important as well. Another thing I absolutely hated about some of my web hosts was when I had a free hour to work on one of my sites and the web host’s server was down. It’s a major bummer when this happens, so look for hosts with good reviews and good up-time. Usually you will see something like 99.9% up-time guaranteed on the web host’s website. Be careful when you’re shopping around for the best cheap hosting. A cheap website is not always a good website as the host may be overloading their servers in order to save money. This is usually the case with web hosts offering something like 2 dollar hosting. Servers cost money to run. There’s no getting around this. Keep in mind you will get what you pay for in this regard.

After you find your host you need to register a domain. A domain is the name you type in your browser’s address bar to get to a website. For example, you would type Sitemilk.com to get to this site. Once you have decided on the name you want, you will want to find a registrar to purchase your domain if your web host does not handle domain registrations. Most do. For your reference, .com domains are typically around $10 a year as are .net and .org domains. Domain prices all differ slightly depending on registrar. We handle your domain registration for you at SiteMilk and we can handle transferring your existing domain if you already have one. Many other websites also offer domain registration. You can find them with some quick Googling.

In most cases, cPanel is probably the most important thing for you to know about in order for you to effectively build a website. cPanel is a way for you to work on your Linux web server without having to know anything about Linux. This is an awesome and imperative tool for most people wanting to operate a basic website. There are a couple really helpful tools in cPanel that will save you a lot of time.

One of the most useful tools is the Quick Install tool. You can scroll down to the Quick Install icon to easily install applications:

You can install Joomla, Magento, different types of forums, osTicket for support tickets, and a bunch of other stuff. Another great tool you can check out from the cPanel home page is Fantastico. It quickly installs popular e-commerce platforms, WordPress, and a bunch of other useful web applications.

You can also set up email accounts for your domain in cPanel. On the cPanel main screen, scroll up to Email accounts.

To create an e-mail address for your website, just add name@yourdomain.com, where ‘name’ is whatever you want. Add a password and that’s it! After this, depending on the type of website you’re starting, you can go down many different paths for your specific setup.

We’ll keep the tutorials coming!
Sitemilk