How To Start A Customized Web Presence – Part I
I would venture a guess that the average persons’ professional web presence is limited to a solid (or maybe not-so-solid) LinkedIN profile to keep in contact with current and past co-workers. This approach works great for those with a steady job that keeps them content, with a small level of security if their employment situation should need to change. After all, who would spend time marketing their time when it’s already tied up in a great job?
However once the time comes to make a career change, the LinkedIN profile all of the sudden seems like it doesn’t quite make the grade. Yes, the profile provides a means of posting all of the key information available for anyone to find you – but what if they don’t know you? The key then changes from getting the information up to getting the information found. In comes the customized web presence – in the form of a website.
It is always best to begin by simply getting something basic setup. Who knows? Maybe your site will thrive because it is basic (think google.com). All one needs to do is buy the domain, pay for some hosting, and put some information on a simple website builder.
Domains can be bought from places like GoDaddy.com for about $10/year. Simply use their search to find the best domain name for you, and purchase it. I have no idea what this money pays for since it isn’t like GoDaddy owns all domains that are unregistered, but this method is so simple and fast it is hard to argue.
Similarly, Web hosting space can be easily bought from a place like 1and1.com. You are paying these people to put your website on their server instead of having to keep a computer running at your house for people to be able to pull information from. While you can purchase web hosting from the same site that you register a domain with, there have been reports of those sites giving people a hard time when they want to move to another hosting company. So you buy another domain (a secondary one, maybe that you don’t like as much) along with web hosting at this site.
Finally, you round it off by signing into your hosting site to tool around. There are 3 basic things that must be done:
- Make a website with their website builder. I started with a contact page, nothing more. This website will change (hopefully quickly), but you’ve gotta get SOMETHING up there, right?
- Link the domain name and bought at GoDaddy to the domain name bought at 1and1. This allows people to type in the website purchased at GoDaddy and see the site you are hosting through 1and1. Sometimes this takes a while to do, as servers update only so often.
- Test the webpage. Go to your site and make sure that it is what you expect!
I’m sure you’ve got lots of ideas floating around for making the website better (I sure did), but that’s no reason not to celebrate. As I’m sure we’ll be saying to each other in old age, at least you got it up!
