How do I get a web page?

I will try to describe this in as common of language as possible (my wife tells me I get way too technical). Let me start with what makes up a web page. A web page is preferably comprised of a “name”, the “page(s)”, and a “place” to put it where others can visit it.

The name (or URL) is a shortcut that replaces the numeric address because names are easier than network addresses  (compare jbb3.com with 68.43.104.115 ). The name is something you (as the owner of a website) register your ownership of with an international licensed registrar. For example, my initials are JBB3, so I went to www.dotster.com and registered jbb3.com for a little less than $20/ year. Now I have a name; its url might be http://www.jbb3.com but the modern browsers only need jbb3.com to find my web page. The other stuff has a purpose but very few users understand it , use it, or need it.

The page(s) are the content that we want others to see so they will buy our services, find our business, call us, or whatever our purpose for this website serves. It may contain photographs, videos, pretty graphics, or just plain typed text (other stuff too, but lets stay simple); think of it as an electronic brochure. There are many ways to create this (these) pages but I want to focus on using WordPress because it simplifies this description. At the beginning I just gather together a bunch of stuff that would make up my brochure.

A place to put the web page. This, I am calling web hosting; it is rented space on the internet. You can rent this from a company that has physical computers (servers) in a server farm somewhere in the world; or you can rent it from a friendly consultant who is there to simplify your experience for a fee. If you are technically up to it, go direct and you have full control of all aspects; if you are not up on all the technical stuff, find a consultant. This rental of space can have a variety of fees but it can all boil down to $5 to $50 / month. What most web page owners need will run about $8 / month from a number of suppliers.

Final steps can include a lot of things but lets focus on necessities. Your web host will supply you with a pair of addresses; these are given to the registrar (the people you paid to register your name); next your web host will setup any services you require (remember WordPress). There may be as much as a 48 hour delay (usually less then 2 hours) before the next step. Your web host will supply you with either a “panel” access address, name and password or perhaps an FTP access address, name and password; but, in this case we will get the address, name, and password for a WordPress control panel. Now we are ready to create and move our web page in; that is, put it where others can come visit, where search engines can scan it and recommend our page to the public and so forth.  Using the menus on the wordpress panel, I create a new page and now I place the photos and stuff I gathered up earlier onto the page; once it looks nice, I hit publish and a very basic web page is born.