These notes are intended as a guide for you in setting up your website. Novices may need to "Google" search some of the technical terms used.
The prerequisites for building your website are:
1. A domain name like http://example.com and
2. Webspace on a webserver where your webpages are stored
Domain names
You will need to buy a domain name (rent per year) from an Internet Service Provider and then set it to point to your webspace (where your webpages are (to be) stored).
Top level domains such as .COM (companies) and .ORG (not-for-profit organisations) should be chosen for web sites in the United States and for websites where an international audience is targeted. National level domains such as .CO.UK are more appropriate where you are addressing a local audience. Correct selection of the domain level will produce better web search results. National domains will normally appear on internet searches with a higher priority than top level domains. If your business requires both a national and international audience then you might buy top level and national level domain names and then point both to your webspace.
Webserver and webspace
These generally come in 3 types.
1. A stand-alone webserver machine. If you have an adequate upload speed on your internet connection then you might consider running your own webserver, plugged into the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) port of your broadband modem/router. Generaly any computer will be fast enough for the job on a typical domestic/business broadband connection. It is common for a suitably knowledgeable Geek to use an obsolete Windows computer reloaded with a Linux LAMP software installation. If you want to run your own webserver then it is essential that your broadband provider can assign your internet connection with a static internet address. Corporates who require a high volume webservice will rent or buy a complete machine at the Internet Service Provider's server farm. The advantage of having your own hardware machine (or virtual webserver) is that you have full access to the webserver settings (commonly Apache on Linux/UNIX servers or IIS (It Isn't Secure) on Windows servers), the email server settings and other software that you may choose to install.
2. A Virtual Webserver. This looks very much like a complete machine but is in fact an operating system (often Linux or Windows) running in paralel with other "Virtial machines" on a single hardware computer. This will be entirely satisfactory for all but the most demanding high volume websites.
3. Webspace only. This is provided as a folder on a webserver. One hardware machine will be running webspace for dozens, perhaps hundreds of websites. This is the cheapest form of web page hosting but it will be more than adequate for the vast majority of websites.
Email
Email is beyond the scope of these notes however I would comment that your ISP will provide both 1) paid-for mailboxes so that emais to you@example.com will be stored on an email server for you to collect and 2) Email redirects (free of charge) where to can set up you@example.com=myrealemail@somemail.com pairs for you and for others in your organisation.
An Internet search will produce a long list of Internet Service Providers. Your task is to chose the lowest price, whilst ensuring that the package that you buy contains everything that you need. The cheapest package will host one or two domain names pointing to the same webspace, whereas more expensive packages will allow six or more different domain names and their websites to be hosted.
If you intend to store data such as user logins then you will need a database. It is common to have MySQL and the PHPAdmin administration tool.
Website builder software such as Joomla may be offered as a paid-for or "free" add-on. You will not need these as you will be using my software! Likewise you will wish to avoid most, or all of the other ISP "addons" which do nothing of practical use, but increase the cost.
Multi-year packages might seem attractively priced but unless you are sure what you need then it may be better to go for the one year deal as it is easier to upgrade than to downgrade.
I personally use 123-reg for my ISP because they are price competitive and do what I need. I would not recommend them ahead of other ISPs but have no complaints about them. The customer service has responded well on the few occasions that I have hit a problem.
Once you have subscribed to your ISP you will get an Account login to your Control Panel where you can set your billing, domain name, database, email and webspace settings. Somewhere in there you will find your FTP user name and password (different from your account password) that you will need to enter into Zoom Website Editor in order to create and edit your webpages. See [Setting up] for the first time.