Building Your Own Site from Scratch

   

Prepackaged storefronts are fine, but if you want a truly full-featured Web storefrontif you want to become an honest-to-goodness e-tailer then you'll need to build your own Web site, from scratch. This is a lot of work, and will cost a lot of money, so it's not for novice or hesitant sellers. But if you're really serious about making a lot of money on the Internet, building your own e-commerce site is the only way to go.

Finding a Web Host

You can't build a complex e-commerce Web site on Yahoo! GeoCities or other typical home page communities. These sites are designed to host individual Web pages, not complete sites; you certainly don't want your professional site to be burdened with a URL that begins www.geocities.com/.

Instead, you need to find a professional Web hosting service, a master site that will provide hundreds of megabytes of disk space, robust site management tools, and the ability to use your own unique domain name. (And with your own domain name , your site's URL will read www. yourname .com just like the big sites do!)

A professional Web hosting service, at the most basic level, provides large amounts of reliable storage space for your Web sitenormally for a monthly or yearly fee. Most hosting services also provide other types of services, and many offer e-commerce-specific tools.

All of these services will cost you, of course; that's part and parcel of going pro. A good Web hosting service can run as little as $10 a monthor a lot more, depending on the storage space and tools you need.

What to Look For

When you're shopping for a hosting service for your Web site, what should you look for? Here's a short list:

  • Adequate storage space

  • Unlimited traffic

  • Affordable rates

  • Reliability

  • Speed

  • Easy uploading and maintenance

  • Domain name hosting

  • Email

  • Site statistics

  • Technical support

Finding a Host

There are literally hundreds of site hosting services on the Web. The best way, then, to look for a Web hosting service is to use a site that performs the search for you.

There are several sites on the Internet that offer directories of Web hosting services. Most of these sites let you look for hosts by various parameters, including monthly cost, disk space provided, programming and platforms supported, and extra features offered (such as e-commerce hosting, control panels, and so on). Many also offer lists of the "best" or most popular hosting services, measured in one or another fashion.

Among the best of these host search sites are the following:

  • CNET Web Hosting (www.cnet.com/internet/)

  • HostIndex.com (www.hostindex.com)

  • HostSearch (www.hostsearch.com)

  • TopHosts.com (www.tophosts.com)

  • Web Hosters (www.webhosters.com)

Top Web Site Hosts

Of all the hosting services on the Web, a handful consistently rise to the top of all the rankings. When you're looking for a hosting service, you can't go wrong by evaluating any of the sites on this list:

  • Affinity (www.affinity.com)

  • C I Host (www.cihost.com)

  • GlobalHosting (www.globalhosting.com)

  • HostCentric (www.hostcentric.com)

  • Hostway (www.hostway.com)

  • Interland (www.interland.com)

  • Microsoft bCentral (www. bcentral .com)

  • ReadyHosting.com (www.readyhosting.com)

  • Website Source (www.websitesource.com)

  • WebIntellects (www.webintellects.com)

All of these sites offer similar hosting services and plans, and most offer e-commerce-specific packages. You should shop around for the hosting plan that best meets your needs and budget.

Obtaining a Domain Name

A professional e-commerce Web site needs its own unique URL. The key component of the URLthe part after the www. is called the domain . It consists of a unique domain name (before the dot) and a top-level domain (after the dot), such as .com or .net, like this: domainname.domain . You put a www. in front of this to denote your Web site. For example, eBay's domain name is ebay and its top-level domain is com ; the full address becomes www.ebay.com. And to create an email address, you put a unique address and an @ sign in front of the domain information.

Reserving a domain name is just part of the process, however. Once you have a name, that name needs to be listed with the Internet's domain name system (DNS), so that users entering your URL are connected to the appropriate IP address where your site is actually hosted. Most Web site hosting services will provide DNS services if you provide a unique domain name; some will even handle the registration process for you.

If you want to receive email at your new domain you'll also need to have your hosting service (or your ISP) link your domain name to your existing email account. You can typically set up any number of specific addresses within a single domain, and have them all forwarded to the same email account.

Where to Register

All domain names are registered through a single firm, Network Solutions. You go directly to the Network Solutions Web site (www.networksolutions.com), shown in Figure 22.7, to register your Web address.

Figure 22.7. Register your domain name with Network Solutions.

graphics/22fig07.jpg

In addition, most Web hosting services can perform domain lookup and registration for you. They'll collect the appropriate fees to register your domain (and forward those fees to Network Solutions) and arrange for the transfer of your address to their servers.

How to Register

Registering your domain is as easy as following these general steps:

  1. Go to Network Solutions or any other domain registration site and search to see if the name you want is available.

  2. If your name is available, reserve it by entering the appropriate contact information.

  3. Arrange payment with the domain registration service, typically via credit card.

    graphics/noteguy_icon.gif

    Network Solutions manages domain name registration on behalf of the Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC). The registration fee is $35 per year.


  4. Contact your Web hosting service and arrange for your domain name to be linked to a specific IP address and added to the Internet DNS system.

  5. Arrange for your Web hosting service to link your domain name to your email account.

Creating Your Web Site

Once you have a host for your storefront and a domain name registered, it's time for the really hard workcreating your site. If you're handy with HTML and have a lot of free time, you can choose to do this work yourself. Or you can bite the bullet and hire a firm that specializes in designing e-commerce Web sites and pay them to produce the kind of site you want.

Read on to learn more about what's involved.

Web Design Tools

If you opt to build your site yourself, you'll need to invest in a powerful Web site creation tool. You don't build a complex Web site using Microsoft Notepad or FrontPage Express; you need to use a fully featured program, such as one of the following:

  • Adobe GoLive (www.adobe.com)

  • Macromedia Dreamweaver (www.macromedia.com)

  • Microsoft FrontPage (www.microsoft.com)

  • NetObjects Fusion (www.netobjects.com)

These programs let you view your entire site as a single project, not just a collection of pages, as you can see with Microsoft FrontPage. You'll be able to apply universal formatting and navigation to all the pages on your site, and even generate dynamic Web pages on the fly.

This isn't the place or the time to demonstrate how to use these powerful programs. I suggest you choose the program you want, and then invest in the appropriate Que book to help you learn the basics; go to the Que bookstore (www.quepublishing.com) to find the right book for you.

Incorporating E-commerce Software

To power your new storefront, you'll need to incorporate special e-commerce software. This software will enable you to build Web pages based on your current inventory, generate customer shopping carts, funnel buyers to a checkout page, and handle all customer transactions. Here are some of the most popular:

  • AbleCommerce (www.ablecommerce.com)

  • BazaarBuilder (www.bazaarbuilder.com)

  • bCentral Commerce Manager (www.bcentral.com)

  • iNETstore (www.inetstore.com)

  • Miva Merchant (www.miva.com)

  • ShopZone (www.automatedshops.com)

graphics/noteguy_icon.gif

You'll also need your new storefront to be able to handle customer payments via credit card. Learn more about enabling credit card processing in Chapter 13, "Managing Customer Payments."


Web Design Firms

If you're not an experienced Web page designer, you may be better off hiring someone who is to build your new storefront site. There are tons of Web design firms out there, most of them small and local. When it's time to go professional, use the following directories to find a professional Web page designer that's right for your needs:

  • AAADesignList.com (www.aaadesignlist.com)

  • The Firm List (www.firmlist.com)

  • The List of Web Designers (webdesign.thelist.com)



Absolute Beginner's Guide to Launching an eBay Business
Absolute Beginners Guide to Launching an eBay Business
ISBN: 0789730588
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 167

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