Can I create a simple web site with a domain I've purchased?

[Em Xx]

Hi all,

I have a part-time hobby which I'm now advertising my products via eBay etc but I want my own website and professional email address.

I've purchased 2x domain names (.co.uk and .com) on GoDaddy and I'm using the 'free email forwarding' option so if someone sends an email to one of my professional looking email addresses, they'll be forwarded to my free @outlook.com email address. I don't want to pay for professional email addresses if I don't necessarily need to, well not at such an early stage anyway.

What I want to do now is build a website based on my purchased domain names but I can’t do this via HTML coding myself so I was wondering if there any free website building sites where I can use my purchased domain names but where the website is already built for me as a template and I just add my own text/photos etc. (a bit like freewebs I guess)

I know there are sites that can do all of this for free but I don’t want a web address that has their name in it, e.g. www.mysite.webs.com

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks
Em

 

[dan958]

Did you get any hosting with that domain?
Without hosting you cannot do much (unless you turn your computer into a server) you can use a free host, but expect it to always stop working.

You are best off using wordpress and getting a good template (even a plugin for an ecommerce system if needed) I believe wordpress offer free hosting, but not sure if you can use your own domain with free hosting.

you can pick up some good hosting from around £2-£6 a month. I use 'Bluehost'.

This guide should help;
http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/map-existing-domain/

 

[HecFam]

I use 000Webhost for my free hosting, it is free no credit cards and all that. Just if you have low traffic, they will suspend your site until, but you can always un-suspend it in the control panel area.

It comes with two free website builders with templates and all that jazz, not the most user friendly things to use, but you can make a fairly ok looking thing with it.

I assume it is hosted in america, i've just pinged my website from the UK and i get around 140ms of latency, so it may be a little bit slower than others.

 

[dan958]

I use 000Webhost for my free hosting, it is free no credit cards and all that. Just if you have low traffic, they will suspend your site until, but you can always un-suspend it in the control panel area.

It comes with two free website builders with templates and all that jazz, not the most user friendly things to use, but you can make a fairly ok looking thing with it.

I assume it is hosted in america, i've just pinged my website from the UK and i get around 140ms of latency, so it may be a little bit slower than others.

Get the IP address and whois it, then you can see

Free hosts can be good, but if you do get a lot of traffic - it may break the site. (but if you are getting a lot of traffic you can afford to invest into a premium host at below £10 a month)

I used to use a free host many years ago, but for some reason they just decided to block my site until I paid £60+. Luckily, I kept daily backups so just said 'Screw you' and moved over to a paid host.

I think that company has gone bust now, or changed names.

 

[Sliver]

I use Just Host ( http://www.justhost.com/ ) for one of my websites. They are very good and you can install a wide range of website styles right off the bat. Wordpress would probably suit your needs best and there are loads of free themes to choose from and even the more stylish pay for themes are not that costly.

Also consider e107 if Wordpress is not to your liking.

 

[Paul11]

pay for vidahost, its cheap.. then use wordpress..

 

[dan958]

Wordpress is definitely the way forward.

highly customisable, with plenty of free good themes and a plugin for everything you may need.

 

[andshrew]

I've purchased 2x domain names (.co.uk and .com) on GoDaddy and I'm using the 'free email forwarding' option so if someone sends an email to one of my professional looking email addresses, they'll be forwarded to my free @outlook.com email address. I don't want to pay for professional email addresses if I don't necessarily need to, well not at such an early stage anyway.

You may be interested to know you can setup and use Outlook.com with your domain which would give you 'proper' addresses rather than forwards to your existing address. This is entirely free at the moment.

You can set it up via http://domains.live.com/ - there's a tutorial here which goes through the steps.

 

[Em Xx]

You may be interested to know you can setup and use Outlook.com with your domain which would give you 'proper' addresses rather than forwards to your existing address. This is entirely free at the moment.

You can set it up via http://domains.live.com/ - there's a tutorial here which goes through the steps.

Thanks for this, I've managed to do it. Just waiting for it to become active

 

[Em Xx]

I use 000Webhost for my free hosting, it is free no credit cards and all that. Just if you have low traffic, they will suspend your site until, but you can always un-suspend it in the control panel area.

It comes with two free website builders with templates and all that jazz, not the most user friendly things to use, but you can make a fairly ok looking thing with it.

I assume it is hosted in america, i've just pinged my website from the UK and i get around 140ms of latency, so it may be a little bit slower than others.

Thanks for this, I've almost managed to use my own domain - I'm just waiting for it to become live.

It won't allow me to use the website builder fully just yet, I guess it's because it takes 24-48 hours for my domain to point to the server? When I go to my site it just send me to GoDaddy and says "You've registered your domain, now it's time to put it to use" I just hope this rectifies itself once the time has passed...

Thanks

 

[HecFam]

you will have to add the nameservers to the DNS entries in the godaddy control panel. it should say what the nameservers should be on 000webhost, i think they are something like NS1.000webhost.com and NS2.000webhost.com. It will take a little while for the nameservers to update. I think there is a little tutorial for doing this also.

 

[Em Xx]

you will have to add the nameservers to the DNS entries in the godaddy control panel. it should say what the nameservers should be on 000webhost, i think they are something like NS1.000webhost.com and NS2.000webhost.com. It will take a little while for the nameservers to update. I think there is a little tutorial for doing this also.

Yeah I've done that just waiting for them to update. Hopefully I'll be able to begin building my website once the nameservers have updated.

Thank you very much

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Should have used TSOHOST.... Packages would be integrated i.e. hosting, domains and email. Under cloud services would been really easy to manage.

One control panel, 1 login.

 

[bcjames]

TSO and Wordpress for £15/year is a good package. As per Mr. Bell, it's all there in once place and the customer service is absolutely top.