1st post:Building a biz and website from scratch

For hosting needs, I recommend HostGator.

Regarding the building of the website, what do you intend to do with it? Sell a product? Give out free valuable information?

-Shaun

I will carry carry product and packages targeted for the 'Support the Troops' people in the US. I supply the ready-made packages to the customer who in return ships it off to whomever they please.

Interesting Theme. Would like to here from someone as to how to approach this also.

I know a guy who runs a site hosted by godaddy. The ads on the site shut his site down and cost him alot of money (malware). He called them up and godaddy said there wasnt much they could do.

Is godaddy getting a bad reputation for hosting because of viruses, or was this instance not common?

Start-up money is an issue. Hiring a web designer will be a problem. Is this something I could do myself by watching a few vids?

Go on http://webhostingtalk.com, very active forum with exlcusive special offers for shared, VPS and dedicated hosting.

Also, http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ is a good starting point for Wordpress templates.

$200

This may be naive, but I was under the impression that there are free website templates that you can mix and match, customizing as you please. Throw in paypal and a merchant account along with the hosting fee and I'd be all set. I'm relatavely famaliar with how to advertize the site, it's just the setup that I'm worried about.

I use Hostgator and they have excellent cusomer support.

I also agree that a Wordpress blog would be a good choice for you if you have a limited budget.

Good Luck!

Wayne

Welcome and good luck - for a start - never use a "free" domain or hosting. The majority of internet marketers use namecheap (to buy domains) and hostgator (for hosting). I use Bluehost.

Wordpress is free and there a lot of free templates and advice available - I'm a bit of a technophobic so I use XSP.

WORDPRESS GUIDES

You can check out Shannon Herrod (free and paid versions) at Blog with Success (no affiliate link) or

Yaro and Gideon at How To Blog - Why You Should Use WordPress | Become A Blogger - excellent free videos to put up your first blog (No affiliate link)

The Aussies are some of the greatest and very successful bloggers!

Dude,

you have no reason in the world to panic.

First of all, go get the domain name, next,
use Hostgator or GoDaddy or Bluehost (either one is fine)
to get a decent hosting.

Next go to Installing WordPress WordPress Codex and folow
the instructions to install wordpress. Next, check out the existing threads
in the forum to find out which wordpress theme is best and download it.

This should be your action plan. It's nothing fancy, just the basics. Go! Go! Go!

Igor

Thank you Igor. That was well-written and broken into easy steps. I appreciate everyone's input, but Igor especially for providing an outline.

Use hostgator, about $65 for a year of hosting paid upfront ( using 20% off code ) and in my opinion they are the best. Do not use godaddy, too many problems especially with wordpress.

I recommend namecheap for the domain name and after their monthly code it would be about 8.69 for a .com

Then use fantastico, which is in cpanel ( the admin side of your sites hosting ) to install wordpress. Super easy to do and use. Then just search for a theme you like and its easy to get it all set up

Ernie, got your message, but am not allowed to respond. I'll need the link to follow up.

I personally will not go with hostgator. Although brilliant and inexpensive in a lot of ways... you can't use some scripts as it is against their Terms of Service and you can't run any banner exchange if I remember correctly...that applies to hosting a website where you run your own banner... they do not like it at all. Also if you decided to host videos in any format... even linking to youtube videos like I did at one point, they hate and will just disable some features so you can't do it.

Most recent problem I had with them is that I have closed my account over two years ago...and someone tried to transfer my domain on 1and1.co.uk to a hostgator account... at least it is not easy trying to transfer .co.uk domains and I was really upset at hostgator. When I contacted them and asked what is going on, they didn't want to give me any details. They are trying to find out if I am related to my husband since most of the .co.uk domains are in his name... and I merely pointed out that the domains belong to me and it's not like he trying to take the domain from me. It's already in his name. I just own the domain because he purchased it for me.

But still shows you... hostgator is not that great. Some dodgy stuff going on there. To be fair I didn't have a problem with them until I created a site where I linked to youtube videos. I did so well with the site and two weeks later access has been disabled. So I kind of got angry and just quit hosting with them.

You don't need a web designer, you need a WordPress Blog with a decent free template and a couple of days to learn how to use it. Then you just need to get started blogging and SEO your site. That's the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to get started.

Ste