# What is the next step after buying a domain name? How do you get a website?



## Rico

Just bought a Domain name from godaddy. How do i build a website for my shirts? When i type in the URL of the domain name, godaddy advertisements are all over the place, should'nt it be blank? My main question is now that i have a domain, what else is needed to build a retail site for my company?


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## Lowbrowser

*Re: What is the next step?*

Did you also buy 'web hosting'? The domain does not always come with hosting unless you paid for it at the same time. If you did, you need to check out the 'go daddy' help area on how to access your domain ftp area. Almost all hosting companies offer quick templates to get your site up quickly, but all that info will be in the help area of the provider....


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## Lowbrowser

*Re: What is the next step?*

some people use this to launch a 'very limited' site cheaply..
Yahoo! GeoCities: Get a free web site with easy-to-use site building tools
hope all this helps!


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## Rodney

*Re: What is the next step?*

After you buy a domain name, then you need web hosting. 

The web hosting place is where you store your website files.

When you type in your domain now, you are taken to what is called a "parking page". This is just a temporary page that shows up until you find hosting for your domain name. It's a way for registrars like GoDaddy to monetize the unused domain names until they get put in use.

You can buy web hosting from places like lunarpages.com, dreamhost.com, pair.com, etc.

After you have a hosting account, then you have a place to store your website files (webpages and graphics).

From there, you either use a program like dreamweaver or NVU (free websit design program available at nvu.com) or something similar to design you website pages, called HTML pages. 

If you don't want to design your own website, then you hire a web designer (from places like elance.com, designoutpost.com,ifreelance.com, guru.com, rentacoder.com, etc) to create a website design for you and hand you over the files. 

You can also install a shopping cart or have a web designer install a shopping cart for you.

You upload you website files that you designed (or had designed) to your web hosting account via FTP (file transfer protocol). You can get free software for transferring files to your computer to your website by downloading files from CoffeeCup or FileZilla.

Once you upload the files to your website, they are "published" to the web and people will be able to view your webpages.

Hope this helps


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## darwyn

*Re: What is the next step?*

Just based on your question, I'm not going to assume anything, so forgive me if you know any of this...

Now that you have a domain, you need someone to "host" it for you....Which basically means that you need a place to put all your information where everyone else can see it. 

In addition to purchasing a domain name, Godaddy can also host your domain. Other sites can too, so if you want, you can research this. Or just go with Godaddy since you are familiar.

Once you've paid for hosting, you'll need software to facilitate the putting of your information. I've found Macromedia (sorry, Adobe) Dreamweaver to be the best. It's basically an html editor that allows you to FTP (file transfer protocol) files (your information) from your computer to another computer suitable for access to the internet (aka: server).

In any case, your website is a series organized folders of graphic files (usually .gif, .png, or .bmp) and html files. Hire someone to build one for you, or if you've built one, upload it to the "server" or "host". Again, Dreamweaver is a great tool to build a website. There are others...some free, some not...but if you don't know how to build one, there will either be a lot of research and self-learning involved, or there will be the paying-someone-else-to-do-it route. Your choice.

There are also "templates" you can purchase. Which is basically a site that is already built for you where you just happen to change the fictitious company name to yours and you are off and running.

This should at least give you a bit of a background so I'll stop here, before I end up writing a book.


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## darwyn

*Re: What is the next step?*

Rodney beat me by three minutes and was a much more succinct post...word for word.


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## Rico

Perfecto! good lookin out for this info. I was a little confused as to what my next step was. special thanks to Darwin and Rodney


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