There is a lot of text here, but it's (hopefully) easy to read, and you can skip the rest of this paragraph if you like. This started as a reply to someone on craigslist looking for some basic help setting up a website. Their email bounced, so I put it here. I've tried to remember and/or guess what people who don't know anything about starting up a website ask and/or need to know. Hopefully, this will help someone out. (Like me, since I'll have copy/paste the next time I get an email asking about this subject.) Let me say that I don't know how much you know about all this, so I'm going to keep it fairly simple and explain things you may already know...and gloss over some things you probably don't want or even need to know. :) Things like just mean that I don't know (yet) what 'something' would actually be and that you'll probably be able to put whatever you want instead of . If you prefer to have someone do everything for you, I do highly recommend registering your domain name yourself. It's fairly rare, but there are horror stories about web designers disappearing or holding the domain name for 'ransom' after a disagreement over pay or design. Whoever registers the domain name 'owns' it. Even if it's your trademarked business name, it can be a real hassle to regain control of the domain name. You don't want to wake up one day and find out that your 'super-fluffy-cute-kitties.com' website is suddenly taking everyone to 'hungry-killer-pit-bulls.com'. A lot of this is geared towards a business website, but even for a personal or hobby website, you are actually looking for two things: 1) a basic website (your 'stuff') 2) SEO (Search Engine Optimization, or, how the heck will people _find_ your 'stuff') #1 is pretty simple, start by figuring out a domain name that is as descriptive as possible of your business while still being as memorable as possible. Shorter is generally better, but descriptive is better than shorter. The more it matches your business and/or website content, the easier #2 will be. Let's say you install 'Elbonian Widgets' for businesses. You would want to try to get a domain name like elbonianwidgetinstaller.com or maybe businesselbonianwidgetinstaller.com There are two reasons for this. First, search engines tend to give more weight to sites whose domain name matches as closely as possible to the actual search and to the content of the website. Second, if I use your services and want to tell a friend about your services, I can easily tell him "go to elbonian widget installer dot com, with no spaces." Or, you might use dashes like elbonian-widget-installer.com but be careful it's not confusing to say, dotdash-dot.com is perfectly fine...if you like morse code and don't like many visitors to your website from word of mouth. Get .com if at all possible, .biz is ok for businesses, but not as 'respectable' to some people. A .org is good if you really do have an organization (like a non-profit, a gaming guild, or a trading consortium), .net is ok if you are involved in some way with networking whether business networking, computer networking, or social networking. A word of advice: do NOT check your domain names until you are ready to buy one, it's common to search your domain name and find it's been 'bought' when you go to register it the next day. godaddy.com is the only place I (personally) have never seen this happen, but even just trying to go to a non-existing domain name in a browser can trigger an 'auto-buy' from a bot. It's a bit sleazy, but it happens all too often. Yes, I'm glossing over the details of how and why this happens, if you really want to know more details, google about it, or email me for more info. I do recommend godaddy.com for registering your domain name. Note that I'm not giving you a link, telling you you MUST use them, or even telling you to use me as a reference. I make nothing off of domain name registrations, I've just personally found godaddy to do what they say and be reasonably priced. I don't use any of their other services, so I can't say anything about those. Ok, you've got a domain name at this point, which is a lot like having a telephone number. You need something (a website) on the other end to actually take the call. That's called webhosting. I like gem3.com, I do know the owner, although I don't get anything but brownie points for referring people. The really nice part is, you're looking at $18 (hasn't changed in several years) for 6 months of webhosting, up to 20 email addresses like @.com, and some other really nice features (if you are interested, they are cPanel based...and yes, I'm glossing again). You do NOT have to use them, I just recommend them as a webhost I've personally found to be good, and I don't mind brownie points. :) A couple of basic webpages is pretty simple. Generally, I charge around $25 to put together 2 or 3 basic pages with links between them (helpful for that #2 SEO stuff.) This wouldn't include fancier stuff like video or rollover menus, but a basic decent looking page including a logo if you have one. I don't have hard and fast rules, and other people charge differently. Your choice is a personal preference, but remember, this is the person you are putting in charge of your 'internet face.' Make sure you can understand them, and they can understand you. You might know exactly what you want, or you may need them to understand when you say, 'I want a blue look.' As for SEO stuff, that's a huge topic, _but_ anybody that guarantees results should be avoided. There is no way to promise you that you will be the first result for any given type of business for any length of time. There are a few things that are cheap and easy to help boost your 'ranking', aka how close to the first result your site would be. I can tell you that there are a growing number of people that think 'If it's not on the web, it's not a respectable business', and that it's generally worth it to set up a basic website just to catch those people. I can also tell you that the more you focus your site, the better your ranking will be. If you only do elbonian widget installation, you're going to get a better ranking than 'widget installation', since there will be less 'ranking competition', _and_ you'll tend to get people who are looking for exactly what you offer. Questions? Email me, most questions I'll answer for free. I don't guarantee fastest response on free questions of course, but I do try to be helpful whenever possible. ;) Good Luck, paul at note able computers dot com (if you use part of this on another website or in a publication, I ask you provide a link to this page, and give me credit for it using the email address as it appears. If you use the whole thing, just keep the whole thing without deletions, including my email address as it appears. I don't need the advertising, but I do like to see where whese things show up. :) Thanks!)