I purchased my domain name. I have no idea what to do, at this point. Some sites are offering hosting packages for $2.99/mo. What I don't need is: 1. 24/7/365 "no down time" guarantee 2. Anything really fancy If it's down for a short time, it won't be the end of my business. My site will be mostly informational. My signage guy is going to give me access to his artwork. But, what I'm wondering is.....are there programs that'll walk you through setting something like this up? If so, could you post a link? Thanks.
You need to find a webhost now (I'm using Sharkspace, and have been for about 2yrs now, and have been very happy for the $5/month plan). When you sign-up for a hosting account, you will need to assign your nameservers that were given to you by your hosting company to the domain, but in reality, many webhosting companies will do this step for you. Who do you have the domain registered with?
Here's a start. http://help.godaddy.com/article/664 The nameservers address (you are assigned a unique one when you sign up for hosting) are what resolves your domain name with the server your site is stored on (whether it's Godaddy or any other webhost). Webhostingtalk.com is a great site to get price ideas, reviews, etc, of various hosts in a forum format. Just be aware that there are A LOT of upstart companies that don't have longevity on their side which can lead to a lot of downtime, terms of service that change or don't live up to advertised numbers (don't believe you can get unlimited storage/bandwidth for $5/month).
You can use GoDaddy for your webhosting. Others are: http://1and1.com http://hostgator.com http://greengeeks.com Or, a bunch of different ones. I have been using 1&1 for personal, professional and misc uses for about 7 years now without any issues. It has a web builder front end, as most do. Or, you can use a program such as Dreamweaver, Quanta, MS Front Page(does this even still exist?!), etc. to write code. or, a simple text editor if you want to learn to write html.
