The first thing you will need to do here is to think of a good domain name
for your business or service. The extension at the end of your domain name (example: .com or .net) is called
the "Top Level Domain Name". Your domain name should ideally be a .net or .com
domain name. These top level domain names are perceived as more meaningful not only
to people but also by the search engines. If you are a non-profit organization.
the .org top level domain name is appropriate and also meaningful to people
and search engines.
Once you have your domain name picked, you will need to purchase it at a "registrar".
A registrar is a site that is authorized to keep a list of domain names and the
authorized hosting services for the domain names. This is so the that all the
computers on the Internet know which computer system is associated with your
domain name.
The domain registrar I recommend is DirectNIC at http://www.directnic.com.
You can go there and see if the domain name you want is available. DirectNIC can also recommend
a domain name if the one you thought of is already taken.
Give ElectraSoft NameServer information to Your Domain Name Registrar
This step can also be done after signing up for ElectraSoft Web Hosting, however,
you have the opportunity to do it while you sign up for your domain name at your
registrar, so I will talk about this here.
Since you are signing up for our web hosting service, you will need our name
server information. The name server tells your registrar who the authority is
on pointing your domain name to the right IP address on our system.
Our name servers are:
NS1.ELECTRASOFT.COM
NS2.ELECTRASOFT.COM
NS3.ELECTRASOFT.COM
NS4.ELECTRASOFT.COM
Most registrars will require 2 name servers. Some registrars will allow for additional
name servers. These are just for backup in case the first 1 or 2 name servers are not
responding. You can enter in these name servers when you log into your account on DirectNIC
or any other registrar.
On the order form, you will be able to pick your admin user-name and password for your site.
You must also provide the domain name that you have purchased. The admin username you enter
on the form will be used as your main user account for your site. It will be the administrative
user that can create and delete other users. It is also the username for your first email account.
Create Your Web Site
You may already have your web site content created. If so, then you can skip to the next step.
If creating your web site seems too complex for you or if you do not have time to
build your own web site, you can always hire someone to build it for you. We do web
development as well, so if you do want to hire someone to create your web site, email us or call us at 281-261-0307.
If you want to create the web site yourself, there are several programs our there to help
make it easy. Some professional web development applications include: Macromedia Dreamweaver
and MicroSoft FrontPage.
Once you have your web site content created and ready to go, you will need to upload it to
our server so it can be accessed from everyone on the Internet. To do this, you will need
to to upload your files via FTP. This stands for File Transfer Protocol and is a method that
computer programs can use to transfer files from one computer to another. The most common use
for FTP is for transferring web site content, which is what we are doing here. =) Some web
development programs such as MS FrontPage and Dreamweaver have a built in FTP client to connect
to our server to upload your web site content via FTP.
Here is the information you will need for the FTP program you use, in order to access your
site to upload your web content via FTP:
FTP Site, AKA Address, AKA Host
The FTP program you use will ask for the host. This is the IP address that the FTP program
will connect to. There are a few different names for this. Some FTP programs will call this
Host, Host Address, IP Address, IP, or Address. I will refer to it as FTP Site. For this,
just type in your domain name. ie: If your domain name is "testdomain.com", you would type
that in for the FTP Site.
FTP Username
When asked for the username, enter the username that you picked for your domain name.
Remember this in the section where you ordered our web hosting?
FTP Password
When asked for the password, enter the password that you picked for your domain name.
Remember this in the section where you ordered our web hosting?
Directory/Folder for your web site
This is the folder that you will upload your web site files to. The folder will be:
"/home/sites/[SITE]/web/" where [SITE] is your domain name with a prefix of "www.". ie: If your domain name is
"testdomain.com", then the folder would be: "/home/sites/www.testdomain.com/web/"
Refer to your FTP program's help files for assistance with using this information, if needed.
If you have found this tutorial to be helpful, or not helpful,
please email us
