I've read the discussions - but I'm still totally confused

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Larry Berman on March 27, 2011 at 8:20am

You can start by registering your name as a domain name. I just checked and jeannesteck.com is available. The most important thing is to have a good domain name, preferably both your real name and your business name and have the one you don't use point to the one you do use for your web site.

Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100

Permalink Reply by Jeanne Steck on March 27, 2011 at 9:14am

Thank you, Larry!

next silly question - how/where do you register a domain name?

Permalink Reply by Larry Berman on March 27, 2011 at 9:29am

Jim has some good information. You can register your domain name just about anywhere but I recommend not with the same company you use to host your web site because it makes it difficult to change providers or move your name down the road because they can hold either hostage for more money. My first domain name Bermanart.com was registered with Network Solutions years ago and it took eighteen months before I was able to move it to my own account with another name register service.

One of the problems with today's internet options, like blogs, etsy, facebook and stuff like that is that it's much more difficult to contact people to purchase because no one uses phone numbers anymore except on web sites. And yes, people interested in purchasing look for the phone number if they have any questions about the item. I know I do all the time.

Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100

Permalink Reply by Jim Parker on March 27, 2011 at 9:43am

Many domain registrars add a year to your service if you transfer to them now -- doesn't cost them anything to give you a bit of an extension on your paid-up registration.

If and when you register a domain name, make sure you give them two ways to contact you, and if you have a web guru, include his contact information in the "Technical" section of the registration. That way you have redundancy in case you change your email info later. It's very hard to transfer a domain if you no longer have access to the email address you registered with and there is no alternate way of contacting you.

Permalink Reply by Jim Parker on March 27, 2011 at 9:33am

GoDaddy -- you can do a search right on their home page to see if your chosen name is free

NetworkSolutions -- the original domain registrar

Register.com

There are many others. Any of these three can provide trustworthy service. GoDaddy has the advantage in that if you sign up for basic hosting and email at the same time, you can get a package deal for paying yearly.

If you can get .com, go with that first. You can add other domain extensions like .net, .info and .biz if you feel that you need to protect your name as intellectual property, but it's not really necessary. It generally costs about $20/year to register a .com name, but you can get it cheaper by paying for multiple years at once. If you plan to keep it for a while, that's your best option. Choose your domain well, padawan learner!

A good basic article on domains and how they work:

Domain Name Registrar - Wikipedia

I haven't had any problems with Network Solutions in recent years. They used to have a horrible system of user names and passwords that kept changing. I finally transferred the names I had there to GoDaddy. I think that they have changed their tune somewhat in response to market pressure from others, like register.com and godaddy.com -- more market driven. They used to have a virtual monopoly on top-level domain registration, but no more.

Personally I prefer having the domain name and the hosting services at the same provider, since it eliminates confusion come billing time for the many clients I manage hosting for. GoDaddy sends reminders about your service to your email inbox monthly, and it's very hard to forget to renew services with them. NetSol provides pretty much the same service, but for a bit more money. 

Permalink Reply by Jim Parker on March 27, 2011 at 9:14am

I've written a couple of posts on this on my own blog, which you may find helpful, or not.

Aside from registering a domain name, as Larry suggests, you need a host, and a plan before you can do much of anything. Web hosting companies are everywhere, and their fees vary. The largest of them, GoDaddy, 1and1, HostGator, etal. offer pretty much the same services for an ongoing monthly fee. If you pay in advance, say yearly, you will get somewhat of a discount. The same provider can usually host email as well.

Why email, you ask? Having an email address that matches your own domain (jeanne@jeannesteck.com) is much more professional in appearance than one of the internet service providers like comcast or aol. It signals that you are serious about your business enough to have set up a separate address for your professional activities. And the cost is minimal: about 20/year for 5 addresses.

Planning what you want out of your site is essential to getting something that will work for you. If you just need a few pages that you can edit and update yourself, with a little bit about your work and your show schedule, you can build it using WordPress (essentially a hosted content management system used extensively for blogging), or on Weebly, a free website hosting service, with an easy to use editor built-in. The hosting companies also offer templated sitebuilders, which may or may not work for you. Ecommerce, like that offered on Etsy, is much harder to implement by yourself, especially without web design and development experience.

Here's a more detailed discussion of these tools on my blog: More than One Way to Skin a Cat

And another article on Web Site Construction 101

With all that, both WordPress.com and Weebly offer site hosting for free, albeit with some restrictions on what can or can't be done. If you decide that you need more features, like a serious gallery section in Flash or JavaScript, then GoDaddy is not a bad choice for a national provider. I've had good luck with them, and am slowly consolidating sites that I manage under their roof, both for domain registration and hosting services.

Permalink Reply by Jeanne Steck on March 27, 2011 at 9:48am

Thank you so much to both of you!  You've both been a big help.  I'm not a technological idiot and I did do some research myself before posting, but all the info on the net can be a bit overwhelming.  I'm going to check out the references you mentioned now that I feel a little more informed. 

Permalink Reply by Michelle Sholund on March 27, 2011 at 3:53pm

Granted I am not a "web wizzard" yet frequent this site and like this topic/group, I can say I have experience with this subject matter.  I have tried several website places - squarespace, moonfruit, weebly, VistaPrint, intuit, etc.  I first used moonfruit - it had what I needed at the time, but some people had a hard time seeing the website via difference browsers and such and needed more from it, I went looking for another.  I tried square spaces site - it just wasn't for me (they have a 2 week trial period so you may find it ok - a lot of people use it).  I tried intuit - lots of options and good for someone who needs something basic, however thought it was kinda pricey.  The same for VistaPrint and they don't offer much - thought it was worth checking out as I do order business cards from them and my banners too.   I settled on weebly.com which is about 2-3 years old, but offers a lot and free to start, but if you want a non - "mysite.weebly.com" and just a ".com" you'll need to pay something, but it is VERY affordable.  What I just learned though is if you use Godaddy to register your website address - HIGHLY recommended - weebly works with godaddy and the price is even better.

 

Weebly, is a simple make your own website - find a layout you like and change it however you want.   Weebly has stock photos, e-commerce capabilities, multimedia friendly, and comes out with updates on a regular basis.  I have two websites and both are though weebly -  I wanted to go with one place for both to keep things simple, but both sites are very different.  One is for a podcast I do (as a hobby - www.therenfestexperiencepodcast.com) and the other is my craft business site - www.bythebaybotanicals.com .  Through GoDaddy I have registered a couple of combinations of my business through them like www.bythebaybotanicals.com and www.bythebaybotanicalsonline.com for instance  - to have more of a claim on my "brand". 

 

I can't tell you which one to go with as each person has different needs when it comes to designing their site - some photographers have different needs as a person who makes clothing (and needs sub categories and details for women, men, kids, colors, etc.).  What I can say is with what I have explored via weebly.com they have the templates and the ability to make it your own and easy.

 

Hope this helps.  My advice, out of all of this is to just explore all the different how to make your own website places out there - especially the free ones where you don't have to give them your credit card first, and see what happens.  It takes time to put it all together, but you can do it ridiculously cheap !  - Michelle

 

 

Permalink Reply by Larry Berman on March 27, 2011 at 4:20pm

Boy, talk about confusing. If you don't have one of these responses to reply to, it's impossible to find this thread. I went looking for this thread to send a reply and it was nowhere on the forums. This should have been posted in the marketing forum so everyone could see it, not just the hand full of people that have signed up for a group.

What I was going to post was for you to give me a call. I've built web sites for about 200 artists over the last fifteen years and though I don't (or try not to) do it anymore, I do know what makes a good web site work and it's not something that can be answered in a forum post.

Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100

Permalink Reply by Jeanne Steck on March 28, 2011 at 5:36am

Larry - sometimes it is confusing where to post to get the most responses.  but then too many responses would probably be even more confusing. When I searched in reference to website development this is what came up.

I did check out godaddy yesterday and it looks likes a good option.  I definitely will call you and appreciate the offer.