Hosting and Publishing Your Site
This is the last step in my beginners guide. If you got this far – well done you! Now to get your website published.
Step 6: Choose a Web Hosting Plan and Company ($US10/month)
A Web Host is a company whose servers store your website files – you will need a hosting service to publish a website.
I did quite a bit of shopping around before deciding on HostGator as the Host for my website. They offer 24/7/365 phone support, 99.9% uptime, and have a 30 day money back guarantee. The plan you choose depends on the use of your website, but for 100gb of disk space and 1,000gb bandwidth, the monthly cost was $US10/month
Many hosting plans require you to pay for 12 months up front. I was uncomfortable with this as it may be impossible to track down an organisation that shuts down after collecting your (and others) one year membership dollars. Paying monthly suits me just fine.
So take a look at the HostGator site, especially the Hosting Tips page.
If you are planning to have more than 2 websites up – and this will certainly be the case if you are planning on doing some internet/affiliate marketing, the I suggest you consider signing up for a Reseller Account with HostGator. This allows you UNLIMITED domains on the one account for $US24.95 per month. As I mentioned, I now have around 35 websites, and it still costs me $US24.95 per month – and I could have a hundred more for this price. Think about the future.
Step 7: Change Your DNS Server Details
When you purchase your domain name from either Name Cheap or GoDaddy you will be automatically assigned a Domain Name Server (DNS) account with them. Once you sign up with HostGator as your Web Host they will provide you with the DNS account details for your website. You will need to go back and sign in to your GoDaddy or Name Cheap Account and change the DNS details on record there to the ones (there will be two numbers) allocated by HostGator.
Step 8: Publish Your Website!
With XSitePro, this is literally done with the press of a button. I have to admit that this was one step where I needed to tap into the resources of the XSitePro Forum – and within two minutes I had the reply to my query and saw how I had made one little mistake that was fixed with a few key strokes. Fantastic! A great example of how it’s best to ask for help than to agonize over details.
So there you have the basics – now you can see how easy it is to have a presence on the internet.
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