Website starting costs?

[terry1156]

In reading more about adsense I'm considering starting up my own website or blog. I know that I can get a blog for free on sites like blogger.com - what is the cost of setting up a blog or site on your own domain. What costs are involved? How much are people who have sites up and running paying each month? Sorry for all the questions. I'm just trying to get a feel of which one will be better for me to try.

[34saving]

Well, of course prices vary all over the place. I'd start with Blogger.com and get your feet wet. Beyond that . . .A basic domain name is $7-15+ a year based on where you do it (godaddy.com is the cheapest I've found). Basic hosting is often free from your internet provider. For something more helpful ezoshosting.com is a good content management solution (think $15 a quarter depending on what you want). My husband kind of a geek when it comes to this kind of thing. So if you have more questions let me know and I'll send you his e-mail.

[mbhunter]

I strongly suggest getting your own second-level domain name (the one just left of the .com) rather than using something like terry1156.blogspot.com (blogger's URLs look like this). A blogger URL is free -- you can even post your AdSense code in there yourself and host it on blogspot for free -- but you don't control the URL to your blog because you're just a subdomain of blogger. It's not yours. This puts your traffic at risk.

I posted last week in detail on this topic on my blog (good timing, huh? ):

Eminent Web Domain

I'd register www.terry1156blog.com (or whatever you want to call it!) then promote that website. The registration shouldn't cost you more than a few bucks a year. Just make sure you keep it registered! Someone can swipe it from you if you forget to renew.

You can still use blogger to manage your blog if you like. One option is to have your owned domain re-direct to the hosted blogger domain -- this way if you decide not to use blogger, you just re-direct to your new blog host, which you can do because you control your domain that you promoted! A second option is to get your own web hosting and publish your blogger blog on your own space. Yet another option is to get web hosting that supports PHP and MySQL, download your own blog script and install it. I use WordPress, and it cost me nothing. It's free! This gives you the most control over your presentation.

Now, to get to your question: You can get web space for free, but it usually is ad-supported (think GeoCities), and most do not allow any server-side scripts (only browser-side scripts, which users can turn off). You can get web space on a pooled server for $5/month up. You can shop around, but the one I use costs $10/month, and this includes three second-level domain registrations (your blog URL, plus two others!), 2 gigs of web space, a MySQL database, 50 GB/month bandwidth, and 500 e-mail addresses.

I'd at least set up your own domain though, regardless of whether you get hosting. You can always get the hosting later, but being forced to switch your website name can cause a big dent in your traffic, so get that secured at the outset.

Hope this helps!

mbhunter

[jeffrey]

We use <A HREF="http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=7666266">1and1.com</A> and have been very pleased with them. I think we currently have 15 domains with them. Their price is $5.99 a year which is the best I've come across and we've never had a problem. We don't host our sites with them so I can't give a personal review on their hosting, but have heard that it is quality at the same low prices.

The cost of a site will change over time and become more expensive as you get more popular. We started out paying $10 a month for hosting when we first started, but it wasn't long before we had to upgrade to a bigger server and $25 a month. That eventually went to $50 and then $100. Currently we pay several hundred dollars for our server. After having the site crash a couple of times and losing data in the forums when we were on the less expensive servers, we now also pay to have the site backed up each day which also runs just under $100 a month, so running a site isn't cheap as it becomes more popular. Most of that is due to the forums that take up a lot of space with all the posts.

That being said, we have always been able to at least cover our costs through advertising as we have grown.

[jmjj215]

Forums are definitely expensive (popular ones like this). A good blog though - still won't generate near that in content. You'd have to be writing a ton!

Terry, the AdSense thing is nice but it takes a while to get site w/ some steady traffic. So don't give up - commit yourself to six months before re-evaluating. I'm sure you'd put up a great blog based on your contributions to this forum.

My site: $15/yr for the domain name, $5/yr for the hosting.

I also would recommend wordpress. Complete control - and free.

[mbhunter]

If you have MySQL with your hosting, the phpBB forum script is 100% brand-spanking free.

One important thing I've learned through playing with MightyBargainHunter.com is not to spread yourself too thin. It takes some consistency and patience to build up readership.

To Jeffrey's credit, his website here is very well-coordinated -- from what I can gather his core is this forum script, and he generates a lot of the other pages dynamically from the database underneath the forum. He posts in the forum, and comments in the forum. The articles he writes are also in the forum. A lot of his content-adding time is invested in the forum.

My start was a lot more labor-intensive than this. I was writing articles, and writing an e-zine, and trying to keep up a forum, but they were all in separate applications -- one in an HTML editor, another in a web-based newsletter script, another in phpBB. Of the time I spent, most of it was with the articles, and as a result the forum really didn't get the attention it needed to reach a critical number of readers so that it thrived on its own like this one does.

My website still has a bunch of little islands in it with only a small, rickety foot bridge connecting them, so stuff needs to be more tightly coordinated. However, posting to the blog is miles easier than posting an article. And, so, I naturally post more because there isn't as much "friction" to getting content up. It's all a learning process!

Main point: Make the mechanics of posting as easy as possible, and keep your content in one place/application as much as possible. A good content management system (like a blog or a forum) will make you much more productive.

One last plug for WordPress -- it has integrated support for post categories. Blogger doesn't. That's why I switched.

[DivaJen]

MBHunter makes a good point about creating a site that is easy to update and maintain. DivaTribe recently underwent some major changes. I switched to a Mambo site - a free content management system (CMS) courtesy of the open source community. Now, when I add a new article or book review, other pages that I used to have to update manually get updated automatically. I still work in Dreamweaver some because I can sometimes be a control freak but a lot of the work I do now is through my browser.

Costs - I go through GoDaddy.com for my domain name registrations and am currently hosted at ipowerweb.com (runs about $8/month, though I will be leaving them sooner than later).

[jmjj215]

One last plug for WordPress -- it has integrated support for post categories. Blogger doesn't. That's why I switched.

That was my reason too. Great point. Manually updating static HTML can be/is time intensive.

[gavinmccallister]

I have created two websites using www.biz.ly they are free to use and it is really easy to upload your files, I am using the free service with one pop-up ad per page and a banner at the bottom which you could remove for only $5.00 I haven't done that yet, because I like free.

-Gavin

[sleepy2622]

You can get your own website now for $10/month. That includes domain registry, web-hosting, 100 MB of webspace, up to 10 customized email addresses, a web-site builder, url forwarding, unlimited support system & more. It's the best deal on the web right now. And it's awesome! They even offer a 7-day trial period, to make sure it's what you want.

[akaivyleaf]

I recently bought two domains at www.doteasy.com for 4.95 per site per year. That is the cheapest I've found and no problems whatsoever with it.

[cheapbastard]

I thought I did my blog on the cheap, but there seem to be plenty of options here that could save me money I will check them out. I used GoDaddy for my website. I only paid $8.95 per year. Which I still think is the cheapest. My web host costs me $10 NZD per month at Aotea Webhosting. I realize now that it is probably not the cheapest, but because I live in New Zealand, I thought I would support a New Zealand company. The $10 per month is in New Zealand Dollars, which is only about $6.70 USD when the exchange rate is taken into account. Finally, I also use the free program Grey Matter. Greymatter is the original open-source Weblogging and journal software. You can find it and download it at CNet. Be warned it does take a bit of technical know how to get it up and running. I have limited skills but was able to get it working using their help manual and the Grey Matter Forums

[Bruce Wayne]

I would say the cost of starting a website isn't in things like domain names and hosting but rather in the time it takes you to design, write and promote it. When thought of in those terms the 'cost' can be larger than you imagine.

[Tree0164]

Bruce I agree with you. You can get a website up in no time but if you want to make money with it. You need to spend time writing, creating content, optimizing for search engines. I have 8 websites that I work with... different niches and I make decent money from them but I work alot of hours each week on them.

[Bruce Wayne]

Originally Posted by Tree0164

Bruce I agree with you. You can get a website up in no time but if you want to make money with it. You need to spend time writing, creating content, optimizing for search engines. I have 8 websites that I work with... different niches and I make decent money from them but I work alot of hours each week on them.

Exactly, it's important not to think of your time as a free resource but as something you can bill for. If you operate like this then it makes it much easier to provide accurate financial predictions and reports.

[gavinmccallister]

Website starting cost's are Free!Just click on the link to read about it on a different post.