Part Time Webmaster Blog

I’ve started a new forum section for the website. You can find the link at the top of each page titled “Webmaster Forums”. One of the first forums launched is the Website Software forums.

The website software forum is designed for a couple of reasons mainly:

• Let website owners know there is other software out there, and free software.
• Allow people that have not built their site yet that there is free software out there and you can be up and running in minutes.
• Have discussions on this software. Too many times, we make a software decision based on a word of mouth. Why not have an area where you can see how others did with the software.

Now that we have some hosting forums, you can hopefully determine the software you want, and find a good suitable hosting company for it as well.

You can find the website software forums here: http://parttimewebmaster.com/webmaster-forums/?vasthtmlaction=vforum&g=6.0

I’ve started a new forum section for the website. You can find the link at the top of each page titled “Webmaster Forums”. One of the first forums launched is the Hosting forums.

The hosting forums are designed to allow discussion of any type of hosting. A lot of times, I’ll have different issues and challenges with a hosting vendor. Granted, not all of them are bad, I just didn’t know how to resolve them. So, here is the place.

On a second note, hosting has become soooo inexpensive. I thought it would be nice to see what some of them are promoting and the costs. It seems that today, it’s almost a negligible cost to start up a website if you’re using open source software.

The link to the hosting forums is here: http://parttimewebmaster.com/webmaster-forums/?vasthtmlaction=vforum&g=7.0

How do I change hosting companies?

This is a very high level overview! Feel free to print this page out and use it as a checklist. It is very important to track all of the information listed below for your old site and new site. First, before we begin. If you have a friend that knows how to change hosting companies, then I’d suggest you’d ask them for help. There are a lot of small steps required to move your site over to a new hosting company, but, it can be done and is done every day. And, even though that sounds dramatic, it’s not that bad. Small sites can be done within an hour, others may take a day or even longer.

Here is your checklist of items to change hosting companies:

• Domain Name: What is your domain name username and password? You’ll need this to point your domain name to the new hosting company. Please note, it takes about 24-48 hours for the entire
  internet to be updated with the new information.
• Hosting operating system: What operating system are you using now? Make sure you purchase hosting with the same operating system! If you don’t use the same operating system, your code may not run.
• Programming language: What programming language does your site use? ASP, PHP, .NET, etc. Make sure your new hosting supports it.
• FTP Information: Do you have your old and new ftp address, username and password? You’ll need to have this get a backup copy of your files and to add them to the new site.
• Database information: Do you have access to your old and new databases? What is the type and version? If you want to keep everything in there, you’ll need to create a backup for the new site. Note, you’ll have to create a new database on the new hosting environment where you’ll import your data.
• Email Information: Make sure you keep a list of all the email addresses. Dependent upon your main task, you may need to obtain the usernames and passwords for all email addresses. Also, you’ll need to create a set of instructions for all of your users. If you don’t, everyone is going to call you in a panic looking to get their email!

Effort level
Moving hosting companies is typically not that big of a deal. A lot of the difficulties come from
gathering the information listed above as many people don’t have easy access to this information.
IMPORTANT: Make a list of all the things you change, and create a checklist. Remember, you can use this page as a checklist.

Timing
DO NOT cancel your hosting until your new site is up and running. Make sure you can view your new site before you cancel the old hosting. Why? Well, if you cancel hosting and you’ve forgotten something, you may lose part of your site, or encounter extra costs. Plus, you want to switch hosting when no one is on the site, preferably at night or really early in the morning. This way, if the something goes wrong, you can switch hosting back to the old company until you make any fixes, and no one will know. If you need help changing hosting companies, feel free to let us know!

Easy answer. If you want a free website setup, you should look to use open source software. A lot of the hosting companies now offer free and automatic setup for website software. And, as far as I’ve seen this software is always free because it’s open source. Here’s a link to see examples of software that has free website setups: Joe’s Webshack website software

Here’s how it works, you purchase a domain name (less than $10) and get monthly hosting (less than $5). If you want to get more software options, you’ll choose the Linux hosting for your account. Once in, you can choose from a list of software to install. Then, just follow the online directions. Installations feel like you’re installing with a CD. It doesn’t require you moving files and configuring servers.

An example hosting company that does free setups is joeswebshack.com

How do you choose your hosting company? Well, before we go that far, let’s look at the big question putting hosting aside, “What do you want to do?” Here, we want to install WordPress so we can be famous and make money on the site. So, let’s place the focus there.

At it’s most basic level, WordPress is software, so we will need to install it at some point. Here is where it can get tricky. Installing software for a website is not as easy as installing software on your home computer. That brings us to Step 1.

Step 1: Choose a hosting company that can install WordPress for you!

Why is this important? Well, whether you’re a techie or not, installations can be tricky. Why? Well, you have to handle things like setting up an ftp account, getting ftp software, if you don’t have it already, downloading WordPress, uploading WordPress, and making directory permission changes on the server (if you the hosting company will let you). Yikes. Think about it, have you ever spent an hour or so installing software just so you could complete a 5 minute task? This may easily become one of those scenarios. Well, the good thing is, some hosting companies offer WordPress installations for free. And, a lot of these installations can be done with a couple of clicks. So, in my opinion, choose a hosting company that will make your installation easy. This will save you a tremdendous amount of time and frustration. Spend your time blogging instead. This brings us to Step number 2.

Step 2: How much hosting do you need?

Chances are you are creating one of your first blogs. If this is the case, you don’t need a high powered expensive hosting solution. Sure, we all have big dreams. But, in the beginning, we need to start off small. If your blog grows in size, hosting companies are more than happy to give you more high powered hosting any time you want it. There are a couple of inexpensive and easy solutions for beginners. Here are a couple of questions that may help you make your final decision.

A: Is your budget $0? If so, try creating a free WordPress blog at wordpress.com.
B: Do you want your own domain name, but don’t want to worry about hosting? You can do this. Depending on where you bought your domain name, you may recieve free hosting. Look for this option. Also, don’t forget, nothing is free, expect to see some advertising on your site.
C: Do you want your own site? Without advertising banners? You can do this for less than $50 a year. You can buy a domain name for about $10 and pay monthly hosting ranging from $2-$5 a month!

Step 3: Choose a well known company.

Find a well known company that sells both hosting and domain names and research it through Google. A good Google keyword would be “Installing WordPress on [xyz].” Take at least 10 minutes to research the company, then make your decision. Personally, I would go with Wordpress.org, GoDaddy, or 1and1.com.

In summary, you can have a WordPress blog setup within an hour and spend less than $50 a year. There aren’t any excuses to keep you away. Go for it!