I will have a website coming soon: larry123.com.

I purchased the domain rights through godaddy.com, and I paid extra for two years of hosting. I don't even know what hosting means.

How do I put it all together into a website to promote my business: entertainment? Should I do it myself? What else do I need to pay for? Does anyone on the Zone do this professionally?

I want to have everything up and running by January. I would love to get suggestions from web savvy Zone members.

Thanks in advance

Beakybird

Hosting simply means the company(servers) that stores all the data that makes up your web site. aka host computer.

Beaky there a number of ways to get a web site up running. Although I'm not an expert there are those here that can probably lend more help. I will tell you this orignally when I setup my site I used the online tools offered by registrar.com Those tools and I gotta believe godadday has similar tools allows someone who has no knowledge of web authoring software to upload a site. You'll probably want to check with godaddy for those tools. Eventually I purchased a copy of Microsoft Front Page bought a book on how to use it then put a web site together. http://steveonpiano.com
Good luck

[This message has been edited by Stephenm52 (edited 12-10-2006).]

Hi Beakybird

I used Yahoo SiteBuilder. I learned how to build it myself. It was rather easy once I got into it, although it did take a number of hours to get it the way I wanted it. No knowledge of html is needed, it's all drag and drop basically.

I don't know how they would work it with what you've already bought, but it might be worth the call. They have 24/7 800 phone help. It costs me $11.95 per month and it is well worth it. The number of gigs and amount of income I've gotten through my web site makes it well worth my while.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting/?p=PASSPORT
http://ScottLMusic.com

Scott

I also use frontpage but for a free editor that is almost as good and alot easier try http://www.nvu.com/.
An editor lets you design your page in plain english, with pictures and graphics and anything else you want, while it does all the html stuff behind the scenes. Then you have to learn how to get it to your website, one step at a time have some fun with it.

Larry, AL Giordano does web-design as well
as play music....go to his wb-site and check him out www.algiordano.com I believe..
TR

Hi Scott,

You may remember you gave me the Yahoo sitebuilder info a few months ago. Thanks for that.

I'm sure it is one of the easier ways out there to build a site, but I 'ran aground' a little way into it - I guess I'm as big a duffer as I thought I was at this computer stuff, so I'll have to go via the pro's.

Cheers!



[This message has been edited by renig (edited 12-10-2006).]

Building a site isn't nuerosurgery--it's not at all difficult and anyone with a grain of common sense can put a good looking site together in a few hours. The most important question you must ask is will the site produce new jobs? The answer, at least in my case is NO! You can produce many more new jobs by doing a little research and direct mail than any website will ever produce.

There are lots of good to excellent site programs that will do an admirable job of creating a good looking site. Many are free, and some are very expensive. Among the best is Dream Weaver, a program that was used to create PSR Tutorial. Lots of options, but a bit pricey.

Good Luck,

Gary

------------------
Travlin' Easy

The site I did took a number of days and many hours per day, yet, I was learning from scratch but mostly experimenting to see what I thought would look good. So I would try this and try that. I did not want an average looking site.

Yahoo has 24/7 free 800 number for assistance. That is hard to beat. I sometimes called them at 3 AM.

Can you get gigs off of your web site? Yes! Most of my gigs came from the web site. I referred clients to it after talking on the phone. This way they can listen to you immediately after talking with you when the interest is high.

The "Lester Lanin" of the Florida panhandle got me many, many gigs after he heard what I sounded like on my web site.

I am now first call for music for a 5 Star restaurant because of my web site. As I always ask how they found out about me, in this case they found my link on the Pensacola Jazz Society site. So, linking to other sites that are related to what you do will help. Wedding services for example.

Hope this helps.

Scott
http://ScottLMusic.com

Thank you for all the helpful replies! It still seems like doing it myself is a bit daunting.

OK, so if I have a domain and a host, what is it that I need next? Is it a service or software? Do I have to buy another service to help me design a website or do I have to purchase software to do it? Is there anything else I need?

Thank you,

Beakybird

Larry, go to your hosts-site and check to see if they provide software and/tools for helping you to build the site, I'll bet that they do.....go to this link and see what I mean....... http://www.lunarpages.com/id/tonyromecom
this host provides $700 worth of free tools for building your site.....I'm sure that yours has something to....