Questions about Starting a Website

i'm looking into starting my own website.

can anybody recommend web hosts?

how much should i expect to pay & what's a rip off?

my site would be mostly for business. however, it'll be more promotional than for actually selling anything. advice? what features are essential? which are rubbish?

thanks in advance for your help,
tiki chris

Hey Tiki Chris, my cousin Dan can probably answer some questions for you. His site is http://www.webshopguy.com which might have some good info for you. Or, you can just shoot him an email with some questions... tell him Bamzeno sent you.

The most important thing that I think of is a domain name that is easy to remember and as short as possible. Helps with email and people that can't find your site because they can't spell.

http://www.uk2.net

uk2.net are good they are what all my web designer mates use and cheap.

Watch out for free and oddly cheap sites, as there's a real downside to them. My own (free) site is plagued with so many pop-up ads that I can barely gather the strength to look at it myself.

Trader Woody

thanks for the advice, folks!

I do website design and have posted some tips on my website.
http://www.homecamp.com - then click on "tourist tips"

[ Edited by: Futura Girl on 2003-03-27 15:18 ]

Chris, may I recommend my host? He is a very good, old friend of mine and runs a good server and is very reasonable. He is easy to get hold of for probelms and generally helpful. He could also use the business. He hosts the Hukilau site, the Swank Pad, Tiki Kiliki's and http://www.Lileks.com for a few. Email him at [email protected] and tell him I sent you.

As the web master of what may be the ugliest and worst-designed site on the net, may I still make a few suggestions...

I recommend that you avoid unnescessary java and other scripting on any future sites, as they limit compatibility. As does too much flash.

My philosophy is that ANYONE should be able to look at and enjoy a web site, whether they have the latest G4 computer with the latest browser and all the plug ins imagineable... or a crappy 5-year old PC running some ancient version of Explorer... keeping things simple keeps things universal.

Don't cater to an elitist attitude (not that I have had any indication that you would) with your new site, as so many people do...

I guess that's a pet peeve of imine!

I totally agree with James! I have designed sites and after some time created my own, and as I crawled through to web, I took copious notes. It's obnoxious and counter-productive to make your site inhospitable to those without "the latest..." Frankly, if viewers have to work or wait too long to interact with your site, they may give up and leave in disgust!

The most common issue I have seen in new sites is the tendency for pictures to have much higher resolution than necessary for computer viewing. I designed gallery pages for viewing and NOT for printing (and stealing), so a page with even nine photos could load for the first time in less than a minute! (Pictures you offer for others to copy and print are another story, but then you can use thumbnails) Now that multi-mega-pixel digital cameras are so inexpensive, I fear that this will be a worse problem than in the past.

Try it out, have others look at it, pretend you know nothing of your site--does it make sense? Can you get "anywhere from here" within the site?

Also, in response to Turbogod's comment, spelling is more critical than length. I have been paying for a domain name for the last three years that I won't be using now. It was short and appropriate, and I liked it, but it had a word in it that several people have gotten terribly wrong. A memorable phrase or sentence works better than short, if it gets people there.

mucho mahalo for the continued advice! it'll be awhile before i get a site started, but rest assured that i'll let everybody know asap!

chris