How To Register Your Domain

Written by Matthew Coers


Your site’s domain isrepparttar “yoursite” in www.yoursite.com. Your site’s domain name isrepparttar 131577 human friendly way computers find your site onrepparttar 131578 Internet.

Behindrepparttar 131579 scenes, there is an Internet Protocol (IP) address that looks like this: 216.239.37.99. The IP address is your website’s real address that computers understand and is associated withrepparttar 131580 “human friendly” domain name you are already familiar with on a name server. Many times you can get torepparttar 131581 same website by typing in it’s IP address in place ofrepparttar 131582 domain name. Below is a chart with a few examples of this. Go ahead and try copying one of these IP addresses into your browser’s address bar and see for yourself. You will go torepparttar 131583 same place as you would if you typed inrepparttar 131584 domain name!
Domain NameIP Address
www.google.com216.239.37.99
www.amazon.com207.171.163.90
www.cia.gov198.81.129.100
www.aol.com152.163.142.184

When you type in www.yoursite.com, your request goes out onrepparttar 131585 Internet to large servers called routers. The routers contain databases of domain names and IP addresses. Your request moves uprepparttar 131586 chain of routers until it finds one that “knows”repparttar 131587 IP address forrepparttar 131588 domain you are requesting. This process is known as “resolving”repparttar 131589 domain name. Essentially, you are looking for a computer that knows how to match uprepparttar 131590 Domain name that you typed intorepparttar 131591 browser to it's IP address.

Once your request is resolved (matched to an IP address),repparttar 131592 request is sent through various routers torepparttar 131593 server that contains your website’s files. That server isrepparttar 131594 web server. The web server then processesrepparttar 131595 request and sendsrepparttar 131596 results back to your web browser as a web page.

Of course, it isn’t really necessary that you understand allrepparttar 131597 details of domain resolution. What is important is that you understand that your domain is a unique name that is associated with your website’s location onrepparttar 131598 Internet, and your website’s location is a virtual location known as an IP address.

Registering a domain is exceptionally easy to do. When you register your domain, you specifyrepparttar 131599 length of time you wish to reserve it for. Typicallyrepparttar 131600 longerrepparttar 131601 term,repparttar 131602 lessrepparttar 131603 annual cost to you. The most difficult thing for most entrepreneurs is determining which domain to register. Many ofrepparttar 131604 best domains are already taken, so it takes some creativity to come up with a memorable domain that is not taken and is still applicable to your business.

As a general rule, if you are a U.S. company it is highly recommended that you pick a “.com” address. There are many more domains that are available inrepparttar 131605 .net and .org flavors, but if you are trying to establish a brand that will be perceived by your visitors as a leadership brand, you really need to have a .com address.

Back inrepparttar 131606 late ‘90s individuals and corporations began buying up allrepparttar 131607 “good” domains. They did this on speculation thatrepparttar 131608 domains they were purchasing for $30 would one day be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Certainly a few lucky entrepreneurs made a quick buck this way, but generally speakingrepparttar 131609 cost of purchasing thousands of domains quickly outweighedrepparttar 131610 benefit of selling a few at an extraordinary profit. Many of these companies have since dumped a large portion of their inventory, and it is once again available onrepparttar 131611 open market.

How To Build A Website

Written by Matthew Coers


Building your own website is clearlyrepparttar least expensive route to establishing your business online, and it isn’t really all that difficult to do. There are three steps to building your site:
  1. Purchase a “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) HTML editor such as Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage.
  2. Createrepparttar 131575 web pages using your editing program
  3. FTPrepparttar 131576 files to your web-server.

HTML Editors

The top HTML editors for beginners are:

  • Adobe GoLive ($399.99 on Amazon)
  • Macromedia Dreamweaver ($389 on Amazon)
  • Microsoft FrontPage ($170.99 on Amazon)

All of these editing programs allow beginners to develop web pages using templates and WYSIWYG ease similar to programs like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. You simply create or select a pre-made template for your website, type your content intorepparttar 131577 page on your screen, and hitrepparttar 131578 save button. All three of these programs ship with instructions that are designed to help evenrepparttar 131579 most novice web user to create a relatively professional looking website.

The only thing you need to take into consideration is to make sure that if you are using Microsoft FrontPage, that you go with a web-hosting company that supports FrontPage extensions. Most do, so you probably won’t have a problem finding one.

Create Web Pages

Exactly how you create your site will depend onrepparttar 131580 specific editor you use, howeverrepparttar 131581 process of all editors is remarkably similar.

  1. Select or create a template for your site. If you have graphic design skills, you may choose to create something from scratch. Most beginners just use one ofrepparttar 131582 many pre-developed templates that come with their editing program. You can also purchase templates from third party vendors.
  2. Createrepparttar 131583 pages for your site and typerepparttar 131584 text directly intorepparttar 131585 pages. The content will appear onrepparttar 131586 screen similar torepparttar 131587 way it will appear inrepparttar 131588 final website.
  3. Insert any graphics you will use for your site. In general, you should keep these to a minimum because each graphic you put into your page increasesrepparttar 131589 download time. Also, you don’t want too many animated gifs or flashy stuff onrepparttar 131590 page - they makerepparttar 131591 page appear unprofessional.
  4. Testrepparttar 131592 site as you go. All editors contain a preview capability that will let you seerepparttar 131593 page in a web browser exactly as your visitors will see it. It is also a good idea to test your pages using multiple browsers since there is some variance as to how different browsers interpret HTML code. You should design your site to work effectively withrepparttar 131594 top three browsers. The top three browsers onrepparttar 131595 internet today are:
    1. Microsoft Explorer (Download)
    2. Firefox (Download)
    3. Netscape (Download)


Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use