As promised, I would like to write about how I got this website up and running in under an hour. But let me preface this first by saying that I’m not writing this to show off and talk about how wonderful I am just because I started a website quickly. It really isn’t a big deal. However, those who may not be familiar with the process could benefit greatly from learning how it’s done. So the point to the post is to let you know just how truly simple and easy it is to get started. So if you have a good idea for a site, but are in unfamiliar waters when it comes to taking the first steps, let this be your mini-guide to getting a website started – the right way.

Domain Name

I got the domain name www.rankhighermakemoney.com from GoDaddy. It was actually only my second domain purchase with them – previously I used Yahoo but I don’t anymore due to an exorbitant increase in renewal fees. I found the process with GoDaddy to be very efficient and easy to use — and I won’t have to donate an organ just to renew the domain next year.

One thing that was awesome about GoDaddy was, you could set the name servers during the registration process itself — something that Yahoo was not able to do. What are name servers? Name servers are a special configuration you need to give your domain name. What they do is point the domain name in the direction of your web hosting company. So, while I can purchase my domain name with GoDaddy, I do not have to have web hosting with GoDaddy. The name servers set the domain to any host I want to use (In my case, I host with Total Choice Hosting).

But getting back to the subject of the registration process, with Yahoo I had to buy the domain first, then wait a bit for the domain to be ‘active’. Then, I had to login to their control panel, ‘unlock’ the domain, wait, then change the name servers, then lock the domain again (”Locking” a domain is basically a way to prevent unauthorized transfer of your domain name to someone else). With Yahoo, from the moment of purchasing a domain name, to the point I had the name servers set to my hosting account could take a matter of 30 minutes to an hour. That’s not so bad if you aren’t impatient like me. But I like immediate results, and that is what I got from GoDaddy.

Another great thing about GoDaddy is that you don’t have to ‘unlock’ your domain before changing name servers. You just update using their control panel and you’re done. I’d be willing to bet that GoDaddy isn’t the only domain registrar that provides the service. That being said, they do, and I appreciate it.

Web Hosting

Moving on, let’s talk about hosting. As I said, I host with Total Choice Hosting. I’ve been using them for about 5 years now, and I’ve been very happy with the service. Finding a good web host can be very difficult however. I worked for a web hosting company for a couple of years, and I know there is a big difference out there in terms of reliability, the quality of service you’re getting, ease of use, technical support, etc. Do your homework on this one! I do recommend Total Choice however, for a number of reasons.

Why I recommend Total Choice Hosting

1) I rarely experience any downtime with them. By downtime I mean -the site is not available on the internet, or it doesn’t connect due to a technical issue with Total Choice. In fact, in the 5 years I’ve been with them, I can only remember once that it happened, and it wasn’t for very long. Maybe 5-10 minutes. Now if you think that once is too many times, well ok – fine, you may have a point. But consider, it happens to the best of sites and hosting companies occasionally. Once maybe 6 months back or so, Amazon.com was down. So, not to excuse it or anything, just saying. It happens. With most web hosting companies, however, it happens a lot, and it happens much more frequently than once every 5 years.

2) Support is quick and efficient, and they always seem willing to go above and beyond the standard obligations. For example, they’ll give suggestions and pointers regarding matters that don’t actually have anything to do with Total Choice’s services. The thing is, every web developer that host sites somewhere will need some level of support here and there, and it can be important that you get help quickly.

3) Total Choice offers Cpanel and Fantastico. If you are not familiar with Cpanel and Fantastico – these are backend tools available to use with your websites that make life easier on you as a website developer. Cpanel has everything from file-management tools to statistics to email and database management. Fantastico offers an extremely simple interface for setting up and installing software such as Wordpress, Joomla, E-commerce shopping carts, image galleries, polling software and more. With other web hosts, very often, you will have to install these types of things yourself, by FTP, running installation files, configuring permissions etc. Fantastico makes all this easy so that you just enter some basic information and you’re done in a couple of clicks.

So that’s enough of the sales pitch I think (I’m not making any referral money from posting this, by the way). I do want to make the point, however, on why finding a good web host is important, and why I personally recommend Total Choice. If you decide against them, fine with me, just be sure to do your homework.

Next steps

With this website, Rank Higher, Make Money!, GoDaddy had the name servers pointing to my web hosting account rather quickly. In about 10 minutes, the domain name itself was viewable online from a browser. That is pretty fast. During that time, I set things up on the hosting end. I have a reseller account with Total Choice, which gives me an administrative tool for configuring a new domain name on the account. Once that configuration is done (2 minutes at most), it’s just a matter of waiting for the name servers to be pointed. As I said, with GoDaddy, it took about 10 minutes.

Once that was done, I could move on to actually set up content for my site. I did this using Cpanel, and in just a few more minutes, I had run through the Fantastico process and installed Wordpress as blogging software. So technically speaking here, I had a full website, up and running, in under 30 minutes. And that’s starting from the time I first purchased the domain name itself! Not bad at all. This doesn’t include installing various plugins to wordpress and other steps that I feel make it a complete site.

For Part 2 of this series, I’ll go over the steps that occur next. Installing wordpress plugins, fine tuning things, tweaking the design, setting up a feedburner feed, and more. Stay tuned! – Eric