Part 1

In my book, Get Out While You Can, I've written a chapter to demonstrate just how easy it is to start your first internet business - even if you have no previous experience or web building skills.

I thought it would be a good idea to write a companion guide for the Get Out While You Can website complete with hyperlinks and illustrations.

First thing to do register a domain name.

For this example I'll use jokeblog.co.uk, a domain name I registered in 2008, but for this exercise let's pretend I've just spent five minutes registering it for the first time via 123-Reg at a cost of £6.88 including VAT (May, 2009).

Registering a domain name is as easy as finding one that is available, adding it to your basket, creating an account (so that you can manage the domain name after purchase) and paying for it. 123-Reg (or the registrar of your choice) will then register the domain name on your behalf and that's job number one done.

Name registered, it's time to buy a year's worth of hosting. Again this will take you five minutes tops. I always think it is best to not buy hosting from the same company you register a domain with in case of problems further down the line.

Currently I'm using Total Choice Hosting for my own hosting needs and can therefore recommend them to you. Their Starter Hosting Plan offers 40GB of monthly transfer and 1,400MB of disc space for US$44 a year – more than enough for starting out and you can always upgraded at a later date if your website outgrows these confines. They also offer unlimited email accounts and plenty of other bells and whistles that other hosting companies charge extra for.

Crucially, every Total Choice Hosting hosting package comes with cPanel, a control panel that allows you to manage every aspect of your site. Whoever you choose to host your website with, ensure that they use cPanel for website management.

Once you have paid for your hosting, you will receive a welcome email giving you information regarding the hosting package you have just paid for, including the username and password you will need to manage your site.

It will also tell you what nameservers have been allocated to your hosting account. Nameservers – or to give them their full name Domain Name System (DNS) servers - translate a hostname or a domain name (for example, jokeblog.co.uk) to its corresponding binary identifier (or IP address, in the case of jokeblog.co.uk - 208.76.82.136). In layman's terms, nameservers ensure that visitors reach your site.

In my case the two nameservers for jokeblog.co.uk are dns3.snhdns.com and dns4.snhdns.com (circled in red on the email extract above). You will need to know what your nameservers are because you now need to go back to where you registered your domain name and update the nameservers so that they point to your new hosting account.

With most domain registrars this is very straight forward. With 123-reg, you log into your 123-reg control panel and under Manage Domain, select the domain name you want to manage and click Modify Domain.

You are then greeted by an option menu and the one you want to choose is Change Nameservers (circled in red on the screenshot on the right). Enter the nameservers detailed in your welcome email and hit the Change Nameservers button.

The two nameservers that were listed in my welcome email were dns3.snhdns.com and dns4.snhdns.com so that's what I enter in the boxes marked Nameserver 1 and Nameserver 2 before pressing the button.


It can take anything from minutes to 48 hours for the nameserver changes to take effect and to propagate the internet, but once done your domain name and your hosting will be linked together.

I've excluded this waiting time from the one hour it will take you to launch your first internet business. How to start your first internet business in however long it takes for your website to go live doesn't have quite the same ring to it and you can use this downtime to prepare content, walk the dog, wash the car.

Now it's time to set up your first website – and you can do this in minutes without knowing anything about website design or construction.

To find out how simply follow this link.