From Idea to .com - How to?

[Marc Greve]

I think many of us have had the thought of starting a website. Myself included.

Some want it for money, some want it for fun, some just want to make a small site for friends.
I want to make one that demonstrates lifestyle - a tool for self-expression, sharing, helping, and, yes, making a living (at least partly).

However I have absolutely no idea on the actual steps to take to make that happen.
Sure, buy a domain name, get hosting, but other than that I'm completely stumped. Now I know I'm not alone on this one, so could we get a few short, concise, newbie-friendly, jargon-light guides to this?

Fire away, guys!

[Scott]

By "starting a website," are we to assume you mean the act of installing a web server and coding your site? Or are we assuming that you've got a CMS installed and are looking for ideas on marketing and content creation?

[judge45]

No matter how cool your idea is, unless there's an easy to reach definable market for it, forget it.

Solve your smallest possible problem that may be useful to others.

Keep it simple and get it out there, forget bells and whistles, they come later.

Google started out as a simple solution for search before they added all the products and services they have now.

If you know nothing about html, css, gifs, design, servers, ftp or anything, you can buy off the shelf site builders or use sites like scriptlance to get coders to build you something.

Definately have a business model of some kind other than google ads.

Try this for some inspiring information.

evhead: Ten Rules for Web Startups


HTH

Jeff

[icesar]

Definitely approach it from the business perspective. I've learned the hard way that designing a website and throwing it up doesn't accomplish much.

What value are you providing? How are you going to reach your audience? What's your revenue model? What kind of financial investment do you need to get there?

Steve has some great articles on this, like the following:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...-site-or-blog/

[Marc Greve]

Originally Posted by Scott

By "starting a website," are we to assume you mean the act of installing a web server and coding your site? Or are we assuming that you've got a CMS installed and are looking for ideas on marketing and content creation?

I know nothing about web creation yet, so I have no idea.

Definitely approach it from the business perspective. I've learned the hard way that designing a website and throwing it up doesn't accomplish much.

What value are you providing? How are you going to reach your audience? What's your revenue model? What kind of financial investment do you need to get there?

The greatest power of these boards is that they can provide advice for more than one person by personalized responses of competent individuals. Let's view this thread through that perspective.

This is not about me and my own intentions (solely) but about providing abstract, universally applicable advice for anyone interested in this. I appreciate your concern for my intentions as for the best means to accomplish this, but please let's not have that debate in this thread.


And let's just realize that in this day and age the ability to know how to carve out your own space on the web an ever-increasingly useful ability. Think of my desire to learning this technical aspect as learning to ride a bike; I don't know exactly where I'll go yet, but it's damn useful to have that option of freedom.

I, and others, I'm sure, am interested in the technicalities of creating a website with a unique domain name - that is all.

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Marc Greve

I, and others, I'm sure, am interested in the technicalities of creating a website with a unique domain name - that is all.

Assuming you don't know anything about it:

You have to go to a domain name registrar and buy one(which will cost around $8 a year depending on the extension).
Or you could get it for free, but those are usually slow, don't give you any control, and have ads.
(I was looking for an example and found Free URL Redirection, No Ads! Short Free Domain Name (you.co.nr) which doesn't have ads, but you should probably just buy a .com)

Godaddy.com is a pretty popular paid one.

After you buy one, I don't really know what happens, so I'll guess:

You set it up so that it goes it an IP address and port(?).
An IP address is the indentity of one internet connection and it has ports for doing lots of stuff(ex. port 80 is usually HTTP and port 27 is usually FTP so it can host those at the same time if it has two a program for each; you can't have both programs serve on the same port).
Anyway, your host has an IP address and port and they serve what you want on it.
They're hard to remember though so you get the domain name to redirect you to it.
You can have subdomains and more subdomains for those subdomains that go to other IP addresses and ports(I guess a domain name can go to a file too).

To have your website have content, you have to upload files to your host from a web interface or an FTP client(which IE is if you use it).

Each file has a MIME type which tells the browser how to display it or something(HTML files are text/html, GIF are gifs, ect)...

Or the web server picks a mine type depending on the extension and sends it to the browser...

Or the browser guesses or something...

Anyway, they don't really matter as long as they work...

Also, your site's going to be boring unless you use scripting languages.
There are two types of those: client-side and server-side.

Client-side have their source code in the web page and the client has to figure out what it does. JavaScript, Flash, Java, ect, are client-side.

Server-side have some code on the server which generates a web page that's sent to the client. PHP and ASP are server-side.

Server-side ones let you write forums and stuff and client-side ones let you write shooters, ect.

If you want to use either, you have to figure out how to code first.
(knowing HTML doesn't count)
(and when you're coding, make sure you lower the stands that tilt your keyboard or you'll break them off, and don't punch the monitor or the computer tower)

Also, you can get ads to make money and some hate mail. Go to some site that serves ads like google or doubleclick.net. Make sure you don't host the ads on your own server because that makes them harder to block.

You can set up donations too(I think Paypal has some).

[rock1000]

Originally Posted by Minsc

Assuming you don't know anything about it:

You have to go to a domain name registrar and buy one(which will cost around $8 a year depending on the extension).
Or you could get it for free, but those are usually slow, don't give you any control, and have ads.
(I was looking for an example and found Free URL Redirection, No Ads! Short Free Domain Name (you.co.nr) which doesn't have ads, but you should probably just buy a .com)

Godaddy.com is a pretty popular paid one.

After you buy one, I don't really know what happens, so I'll guess:

You set it up so that it goes it an IP address and port(?).
An IP address is the indentity of one internet connection and it has ports for doing lots of stuff(ex. port 80 is usually HTTP and port 27 is usually FTP so it can host those at the same time if it has two a program for each; you can't have both programs serve on the same port).
Anyway, your host has an IP address and port and they serve what you want on it.
They're hard to remember though so you get the domain name to redirect you to it.
You can have subdomains and more subdomains for those subdomains that go to other IP addresses and ports(I guess a domain name can go to a file too).

To have your website have content, you have to upload files to your host from a web interface or an FTP client(which IE is if you use it).

Each file has a MIME type which tells the browser how to display it or something(HTML files are text/html, GIF are gifs, ect)...

Or the web server picks a mine type depending on the extension and sends it to the browser...

Or the browser guesses or something...

Anyway, they don't really matter as long as they work...

Also, your site's going to be boring unless you use scripting languages.
There are two types of those: client-side and server-side.

Client-side have their source code in the web page and the client has to figure out what it does. JavaScript, Flash, Java, ect, are client-side.

Server-side have some code on the server which generates a web page that's sent to the client. PHP and ASP are server-side.

Server-side ones let you write forums and stuff and client-side ones let you write shooters, ect.

If you want to use either, you have to figure out how to code first.
(knowing HTML doesn't count)
(and when you're coding, make sure you lower the stands that tilt your keyboard or you'll break them off, and don't punch the monitor or the computer tower)

Also, you can get ads to make money and some hate mail. Go to some site that serves ads like google or doubleclick.net. Make sure you don't host the ads on your own server because that makes them harder to block.

You can set up donations too(I think Paypal has some).

Thanks for all the information...................I had no idea about hosting a website but your discussions on this board are interesting. I have a feeling its worth a try. As steve said, forget the rules, try to contribute value and rest will follow.

[judge45]

Yes,

Adding value is No.1

Most sites that are popular are adding social value

If you start something that has huge social value and it's easy to use and understand, then money will follow.

Of course having a revenue model built in is always a good idea, even if it's just ads.

Jeff

[dcldnl]

If you want start a wordpress Blog you don't have a big effort: just going to mamboexpress check if the domain is available, choose your configuration and start (from 2.33$ month).

[Marc Greve]

See, wordpress would be one of the examples of me being totally clueless.

I download it from their home website and get lost missing my precious .exe installation file.

How do you set up a blog using wordpress?

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Marc Greve

How do you set up a blog using wordpress?

You have to have a server that has php(or asp if wordpress uses that).

Copy everything over to your server and load something callled "install" or that looks like it would install something in your browser. Or read the readme and figure out what you do(on PhpBB you'd do something like this so I guess it'd be the same on wordpress). Then delete the installer since it'll let anyone who finds it reinstall your blog.