What Next?

[ancient]

I hope this is in the correct place, I don't want to start out on the wrong foot.
They call me ancient, I was born February 6th 1926. Three weeks ago I knew you had to push two buttons and these pretty little pictures would come up on the television screen, I have since learned you call it a monitor.

I am blindingly stumbling along not knowing what I am doing. I have been putting in about 12 hours a day searching places like this forum.

I have downloaded, saved and printed Brett's article out, I don't understand it, well very little of it, and I went back and looked at my site and cringed ... ,no laughing out loud- HELP BRETT. I have just gotten a domain name, and much to my horror I have found out that the search engines charge you to register. Well a lot do.
I guess my main question is, what to do next and how to do that. I realize this is asking a lot, but believe me I feel like I am information saturated, and please do not mention the word Apache.
thank you very much
ancient

written by Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6.10, so if there are any mistakes, blame it on the dragon.

[edited by: rogerd at 1:56 am (utc) on Aug. 16, 2004]
[edit reason] No URLs please... [/edit]

[encyclo]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, ancient! Born in 1926?! I think that you might have the record as the oldest member here (grandpa's going to be jealous!).

OK, firstly, don't ever pay a fee to get listed in a search engine. If you get links pointing to your site from other sites, the search engines will find you. The two most important search engines are Google and Yahoo. Neither force you to pay to be listed. Directories are often a different matter, but even them, only pay when you are sure that you can justify the fee.

What to do next? You've got your domain name, so have you got a place to host your site? If not, that's your next step. We can't give recommendations for specific companies, but you need to look for a company which offers "shared hosting", which will cost between $5 and $35 a month. If you are not sure what kind of hosting, check out the requirements for your content management system. I would recommend a "Linux" or "FreeBSD" hosting package over a "Windows" one - they tend to be cheaper and more secure.

Once everything is in place, then you need to get stuck in to creating your content: articles, news items, stories, whatever fits in to the subject matter of your site. Check out Brett's list [webmasterworld.com] again, and start at "E". It is the content which will make your site successful more than any tweaking of your Apache configuration (oh no, I said the A-word!).

Along with the article you mentioned, you should check out the New to Web Development library [webmasterworld.com], where there are loads of links to threads about developing inbound links to your site, affiliate marketing and all the rest.

Good luck, it's not as hard as it looks!

[ancient]

Thanks encyclo
I really do appreciate you taking the time and trouble to answer my post. It makes me feel good.

I have reread his article 11 times and will continue reading it until I have at least 80 percent of it.
I already have a server, see my first post, click on the link and you will be at my web site. Thank goodness it doesn't cost me anything.

The big question is, I have a registered .com name and I have a set of numbers, but they are separate items. how do I, combined them, or make it so that when they type in www.gettingtogather.com it goes to my site. In other words I have somehow missed a piece of information here are overlooked something somehow.
Thank you so much
ancient

[vkaryl]

It may depend on how your host (the place in space where your site "lives") handles the change from IP addy (the bunch of numbers you posted) to domain name addy. When I buy hosting for a site, the IP is where I get to my site until the change of server (DNS) propagates through the internet (in other words, until the actual domain - dragonslair.com or whatever - shows up all over the internet world as a "place" rather than a set of numbers.

And your site right now doesn't look bad at all. WAY better than the first site I made.

Anyway - check with your host for propagation time. And to do a check for yourself, just try every once in a while inputting the actual domain name into a browser address bar....

[ancient]

Thank you vkaryl
I really appreciate your reply, and I especially appreciate your flowers on my site. I myself, am a little disappointed, I couldn't quite get it right, but for 3 1/2 weeks of research, I guess I should not be to disappointed. I am now in the process of putting a photo album up, one that you can add comments underneath. I would really like to get one of the programs that they have on the other matchmaking sites, but I have no idea of how much it would cost.If you would have any idea, I would appreciate you throwing a roundabout number at me. The two things my site is missing is the search engine criteria and the photograph bio area. I have been searching but have found nothing that matches them. I can only think they had the programs written especially for them.

Thank you for telling me about notifying my host about my domain name. That was what I was missing or had somehow overlooked.
thank you very much
ancient

[vkaryl]

You're very welcome, ancient! (And btw, kudos all over the place to you for trying something new, and persevering, AND doing a fine job of it! Contrary to my husband, who's younger than you by 8 years yet has NO CLUE how to even turn on my machine, access the internet, etc.... and maintains that computers are useless.... *sigh*)

Anyway, can't help you with the photo-bio stuff. There are others here with dating sites, I think most are in Europe so it's quite late (or early depending on one's referent) for them. I would expect to see some info from them tomorrow am....

I wasn't just strewing flowers - your "first attempt" is far better than was mine, or various of my others "in between". I'm not into mealy-mouthing white-lies and platitudes....

Best to you!

[peterdaly]

Normally it's against the rules to post site addresses here. It's part of how this place stays generally useful in terms of discussion.

That being said, I went to your site and have to say it looks quite nice and professional. Not at all what I expected after reading your post.

I echo the don't pay for search engines comment.

I'm not going to enter into the mechanics of linking a domain name (mysite.com) to an IP address (123.23.34.45) as I'm sure there are others who can much better explain on a more basic level. You can think about it like a phone book, where the internet user always uses a name which the phone book (DNS) automatically looks up and changes into a number behind the scenes.

Keep up the good work. Keep learning, keep reading, keep coming back here. If you have financial objects, the information this site contains may be (litterally) worth millions.

[ancient]

I have done the one thing I was trying to avoid. I have messed up twice.

vkaryl
I want to thank you again for trying to help me, and I hope that you will please accept my apology for my miss wording. I have a gift, of paying someone a complement and it coming out an insult somehow. I used the wrong term and I apologize. What I meant to say was I thank you for the complement.

peterdaly
I wish to thank you for the good advice, of which I will follow. I also wish to thank you for complementing my site and for pointing out that I should not have put the link in my post. I apologize to you and everyone else on this board. I will assure you it will not happen again.
Thanking everyone here
ancient

This was written by Dragon Naturally Speaking 6.10, so if there any mistakes, please blame the dragon, bad, bad dragon.

[vkaryl]

Ancient: not to worry - I just didn't want you to think I was being "sarcastically nice" if you know what I mean....

"bad dragon".... hrmmm! Nope - I don't do the blame the dragon dance.... dragons have HUGE teeth and massive appetites! *laughing* "nice dragon, here pretty pretty nice dragon.... purr for momma, she'll feed you a BIG FAT PRINCE!" *laughing s'more"

[I need to point out that I'm more often than not simply NOT poker-up-butt staid, sober, unhumorous.... Mostly I'm a not-serious person....]

[richardtape]

Hi ancient,

First off I would like to say welcome aboard the "web design" ship. It's also very pleasant to see that you've taken up a new project, perservered with it and are hopefully now seeing some results! Congratulations.

With a bit of luck you should have gathered from the posts so far that your next steps are to 1) make sure your domain is up and running properly (with your www.domain.com name working instead of those pesky numbers [123.12.02.2...] etc) and 2) make sure your content is good.

I think if you ask any member on this board what is the most vital thing when it comes to writing good web sites that are popular, their immediate answer will be "content."

So, my advice will be to carry on with your learning curve and make sure you're writing some good quality, original content as often as you possibly can.

To start with, borrow free code from the internet (hotwired [hotwired.com] is a good reference point, and in fact where I started learning). Then, once you have the free code up and running, try and understand the way it works.... you'll make mistakes, but everyone knows that you learn best from your mistakes!

So, dive in! It wont cost you any more money than you have spent already! Good luck, and make sure you stick around these forums. You'll be glad you did,

Kind regards,

RT

[mack]

Very warm welcome to webmasterworld, great to have you with us.

I guess wed development must be a little daunting when you are just getting started, but then almost everything is dificult at the start. The main target is getting to grips with the basics, then you have something to build on.

I started out about 5 years ago and I was totaly lost. You just pick up little ideas as you go along and eventualy all the little pieces fall into place.

In terms of search engine promotion one thread I really recomend you print out is this one...
[webmasterworld.com...]
Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone.

That thread has helped a lot of people do very well. Follow that and you cant go far wrong.

Mack.

[5stars]

Welcome Ancient,

You definitely got one very important thing right. You found WW. This community is so helpful and will have you up and running in no time.

Hats off to you. I think what you are doing is awesome.

[Mr Bo Jangles]

well 'ancient', you've only been here 10 minutes and you've already received some incorrect advice!

Good luck, it's not as hard as it looks!

*_*

[ancient]

Mere words cannot express the appreciation of the warm welcome that all of you have extended to me on this board. I really intend on making this place my second home. You will most likely find me scouring the past posts, trying my humble best to learn and pick up scraps of information.

However, before I take off on my relentless search for scraps, I really hope that the gentleman that have the dating sites will tell me if they had the search program (the one that asked for male or female, age and also the photograph and bio program was especially written for them or did they use existing programs on the net. Also, if they did have to have these programs written for them, how much wood something like that cost? I am very poor person and live on a very small fixed income. The four servers are donated to me by a friend free of charge. Each having 200 GB of raid with UPS' backup, with Linux and PostNuke, mySQL, Apache ( I hate Apache ). The Linux is unpacked, the rest is not. I have four different numerical addresses, but so far only one domain name, like I said I am poor.

I want the site that I am now building to be completely free, might put up some ads but then I don't know yet. There are a lot of old folks out there that can barely eke out a living, but if they could get together they could make it so much better. Now you know the purpose of my site. Have you ever went to a friends house and seen a can of dogfood, knowing full well he has no dog? Now it is up to me to make the site in such a way that they can find it.The next one will be to suppliment my small meger income :), although I have no concept of what it will be about.
Thank you so much
ancient