The first question I always get when helping my clients establish a new website is "what else do I need?" I am going to hopefully take care of a lot of those noob questions and help you make your first step into the world wide web.
Register a domain name
The first thing you need is a domain name. Now, this may seem like it's the easy part but, this is a critical part of the process, often times there needs to be a lot of thought process in coming up with the perfect domain. It may not be as easy as using your business name. The most important thing that I always try to remind my clients is that domain names are cheap and you can never have to many.
Despite, their excellent advertising campains I am only going to make a recommendation to where you shouldn't go. Believe or not the company I am refering to is GoDaddy. I have personally dealt with things like a $50 dollar release fee for transfering a domain from their company which is total BS. I usually use one company for domains:
Active Domain - www.active-domain.com - No hidden fees! $9.95 a year
Get yourself some hosting
Yes, get them separately, hosting and domain. That way you don't feel locked into any one company and you can always administrate your domain names from ONE place. You'll thank me later, or tell me you should of listened, trust me. Hosting companies all vary and even the way they offer their servers are different, I'll try to keep it as simple as possible.
Shared Hosting - Perfect for 80% sites that I have built. Basically you are on a huge server with lots of other web sites. Generally these plans offer things like unlimited bandwidth, or unlimited data, and even unlimited e-mails.
Semi-Dedicated Hosting - I only recommend this if you are going to be doing a medium to large (1,000 - 2,500) online store, or a large community based site. The reason for this is that these sites normally require a large database and having a bigger chunk of computing power really helps.
Dedicated Hosting - If you are reading this, you shouldn't need dedicated hosting. Basically what this means is that you get a certain amount of CPU power completely to yourself. Required for larger than life web sites and online stores.
Now here is the question: Where do I go? Here are some recommendations.
Shared Hosts
Lunarpages - $4.95 a month, includes domain registration...
Hostmonster - $6.95 a month, includes domain, includes ssl...
Dreamhost - $8.95 a month, check back frequently for their "777" deal, it's webhosting for $9.95 FOR A YEAR
Semi-Dedicated Hosts
Nexcess - $24.95 a month
Simple Helix - $20 a month
The last thing you'll need to get started with your new website is a great designer and developer. I think I may know one.
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