How to start an online business website?

Question

I want to start a website that offers a centralized area for customer feedback in a particular industry. What is the best way to register a domain name? I envision being able to later sell ads/ ad space or have direct links to other sites, so that is important. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I agree with Steve H. If you don't know HOW to set-up an online business, how do you plan on running it sucessfully once it's up and running? Try Microsoft's Office Live. They will even do basic site hosting for little or nothing, depending on your needs. Best of luck to you...

Answer 2

Registering a domain is the easy part... you can get this anywhere.. Try GoDaddy.com.

Now.. to have a website you need more than a domain. You need a host. A host costs about $400 / year and provides webspace for your site.

Try www.activehost.com . I have used them in the past over a dozen times. Great company. They also offer support for E-commerce if you plan on doing that in the future.

Answer 3

Not to be idea bashing, but if you don't know how to set up a website, or even how to register a domain name, do you really think that a web business is the best idea for you?

To answer your question, there are a lot of places that will register your domain name. If you go to godaddy.com, you can do some research there, but I have found that their prices for anything seem a bit high. Try servage.net for hosting.

Answer 4

what you are asking is a mayor task... first you start by answering this question: "who is going to be my webmaster?" if the answer is " a web development company" there is not much to worry about, just search for a good one, that is a whole different answer.
if the answer is "I want to be my own webmaster" then what you need is a lot of KNOWLEDGE:

- SQL to create and maintain your product database
- HTML, Flash, CSS to design your website
- ASP, PHP, Java for all the data processing
- ADO, OOP, and VB or C#

once you have all this in your brain, and you have created and tested your website at home in your computer. then you need a secure, reliable and fast Hosting Service, forget about hosting from home, try to go for a dedicated server, is going to cost some money a month but security is all, remember you are going to do money transactions on your website, so your dedicated server has to have a SSL certificate, and a E-Commerce package so you can accept credit cards.

if all I said makes sense to you already, then you know I'm telling you the truth, if it does not make sense yet, and you still want to achieve your goal, and don't want to wait until you are done studying, and don't want to spend money on a web developer, then start using ebay, and setup you "online store", there are plenty of business that use ebay, so basically the question is do I want to have fun doing it? or do I want to start making money already?, after you have this answer, you would know the way.

Peace, and good luck

Answer 5

I used Yahoo to register my domain. Cheap and easy.

Answer 6

4uhosting.co.uk sells webspace and domain names - its a good site. Then learn how to accept credit card payment on your site:
http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/creditcards.shtml