==================== Setting up a website ==================== *************** Components *************** Domain Name =========== I'm looking for a UK domain name, so I started off with Nominet_ (the official UK domain registrar) and used their 'Whois' service (at Nominet_UK-Domains_) looking for ``felixstowecardcentre.co.uk``. This service confirmed that that domain is available and pointed me at their Nominet_Buy-a-Domain_ site. Platform ======== The computer to which the domain name 'points'. Security ======== SSL - to give an ``https`` site Website itself ============== * already provided that can be configured * 'do it yourself': * LAMP, * Sphinx or even * wordpress.org download eCommerce ========= The ability to sell and take payments direct on the website. Other Services ============== * eMail addresses * pseudo-eMail addresses that will forward eMails to other existing eMail addresses * odd looking security offers, etc ******* Vendors ******* From here there are a choice of 'vendors'. Here's a summary of the ones that I've been through so far. The prices quoted are for thetinks.co.uk, which tends to be at the basic price. These vendors seem to charge hugely more for domains that they judge to be 'significant' in some way. .. todo:: compile list of 'things that go with domain names' to look into. e.g. eMail addresses and/or forwarding, SSL certificates. .. csv-table:: **Vendor Summary** :header: "Company Name", "Annual Cost", "inc VAT", "Details" :widths: 10, 5, 5, 20 nuttyabouthosting_,£4.95 ,£5.94 ,Windows hosting specialists with offices in Totnes and a datacentre in Manchester. Pilchard_, £4.95, £5.94, Part of TwentytwentyMedia_ which is a London based company Domains-Foundry_, £9.99, £11.99, Part of Ecenica_ Limited a large independently owned UK Limited Company founded in London in 2004 EasySpace_, £10.19, £12.23, part of iomart_ headquartered in Glasgow Ecenica_, £9.99, £11.99, a large independently owned UK Limited Company founded in London in 2004 UK2_, £9.99, £11.99, Owned by THG who are based in Manchester Yay_, £5.19, £6.23, Guildford based VoIP provider that also does web domains YorkUKHosting_, £5.99 (renewal £9.99), £7.19 (renewal £11.99), YorkUK Hosting is a trading name of York UK Hosting Ltd a company registered in England & Wales. It is based in Wall Heath on the west side of Birmingham. GoDaddy_, £11.99, £14.39, US GBNames_, £4.55, £5.46, GBNames is a trading name of TwentytwentyMedia_ Ltd which is a London based company Voteq_, £5.95, £7.14, Independent company now based in Sheffield. Spiral-Hosting_, £5.95, Yes, Ireland Namesco_, Free?, ?, Italy =========================== The Card Centre, Felixstowe =========================== An initial website already built on the FCC-wordpress_ URL. Here's a bullet-point summary of this site: * uses a wordpress hosted site with a free plan that they are very keen for me to upgrade! * static site, with no eCommerce capability * really just an initial 'big-toe dipped in the water' exercise *********** The Website *********** The new website is thecardcentrefelixstowe_. Decision made, I've gone with the Domains-Foundry_ business package. Paid for one year from the 5th June 2020, with ``thecardcentrefelixstowe.co.uk`` as the domain paid for two years. I have installed wordpress on the website and am currently trying to come up with some meaningful content. I've got a bit bogged down in themes and what initially I have found to be a less than intuitive user interface. Here are some basic notes. * If I log into the domains-foundry-dashboard_ with my user details (email email not talk21) I get to the dashboard that controls the whole shebang that we've 'rented' from the Domains-Foundry_ for the year. * If I log into thecardcentrefelixstowe-admin_ then I get to the dashboard that controls the wordpress instance that I've built * Need to use the 'block editor' to produce the page and chose the best theme. ******************** To Transfer a Domain ******************** #) Unlock the domain name with your current registrar. #) Get an authorization code (also known as an EPP code or transfer key) from your current registrar. #) Verify contact information on your domain name. The administrator's contact information may be used by your current registrar during the transfer process. ********** Next steps ********** Really need to have a basic eCommerce capability up and running for June 15th, the Monday when the cardshop will open again. Thoughts: ========= *MUST* own the URL for the website. ``www.felixstowecardcentre.com`` has already gone (with Giles' previous website attempt FCC-previous_). ... or perhaps thecardcentre.com? Is e-Commerce necessary at all? Perhaps just a website that advertises the card centre, provides an overview of its wares and provided contact details so that customers can ask for stuff? Build up to eCommerce later? Decisions needed: ================= Domain Name *********** thecardcentrefelixstowe .co.uk and .com (and .uk?) What to build site on: ********************** Hosted site (linux or wordpress-specific) With: * SSL * unmetered bandwidth Able to set up at least: * one MySQL database * one wordpress instance Nice to have: * at least one eMail address with supporting account Domain Name Vendor ****************** Need to decide on which vendor to use - see Vendors_ above. 'Type' of website: ****************** There are two main options: Ready-made ---------- Lots of providers offer a ready-made, 'just set up whatever you want' service the idea of which is that the business can easily configure whatever website they want without having to be 'all technical' to get it done. Examples that I've looked at are: #) Wordpress.com #) Shopify #) Square ... but there are many more. A brief summary of each follows. The key factor is I think going to be cost v time to set up. ... and how easy will it be to move to another vendor/model if that's what we want to do. Wordpress_ ^^^^^^^^^^ * Biggest * Can do 'totally done for you' or allow some degree of DIY. * Range of packages from free to v. expensive full commercial site * (Also, you can download wordpress and be totally DIY) * Various fix monthly charges that must be paid annually Shopify_ ^^^^^^^^ * Focusses on 'entirely done for you' model with eCommerce built in. * Fixed charges Square_ ^^^^^^^ * Focusses on eCommerce capability which you can add to an existing site or get as part and parcel of a Square site * Usage charge, percentage on each transaction - the percentage varies per transaction type, starts at 2.5% ******** Strategy ******** Currently I'm thinking: * Set up something quick and simple, eCommerce not necessarily required. * Develop other ideas 'in parallel' * Maybe add eCommerce as a component later Just now my yardstick is the YorkUKHosting_ 'Wordpress Pro' package which offers a free co.uk domain and a free SSL certificate. Support is via eMail. Costed at £5.95/month (£7.14 with VAT) or £71.40 annually. Voteq_ offer what they call Wordpress Personal, but it looks similar - comes in at £50/year (I guess £60 with VAT) but you have to buy the domain separately. So broadly comparable. **Voteq Package**:: WordPress Personal (Annually) * Only£49.50 * 2 Months FREE Hosting! (save £11.88) 1 x WordPress Install 10 GB SSD Storage Space 50GB Monthly Bandwidth FREE Daily Backups Unlimited x 10 GB Mailboxes 1 x FREE SSL Certificate StackCache Optimisation Plugin WordPress Staging Technology WordPress Management Tools MyVoteq Control Panel **YorkUK Package**:: Wordpress Pro - https://www.yorkukhosting.com/wordpress-hosting/ FREE CO.UK Domain Yes Email Accounts 25 Diskspace 5.0GB Bandwidth 50GB WordPress Pre-installed WebStats Yes DirectAdmin Yes Installatron Yes WordPress Pro Price From £71.40/year .. csv-table:: **Domains Foundry packages** :header: "Feature", "Starter", "Business", "Advanced" :widths: 8, 4, 4, 4 Annual Cost, £39.99, £49.99, £99.99 Bandwidth, Unmetered, Unmetered, Unmetered Disk Space, 5GB, 10GB, 20GB Mailboxes, 10, 25, 100 Websites, 1, 5, Unlimited Databases, 20, 30, Unlimited PHP v7, Yes, Yes, Yes Linux Hosting, Yes, Yes, Yes FREE Apps, Yes, Yes, Yes Site Builder, Yes, Yes, Yes FREE Backups, Weekly, Daily - 7 copies, Daily - 30 copies Control Panel, Yes, Yes, Yes FREE Setup, Yes, Yes, Yes PHP 7 and 5.X, Yes, Yes, Yes Perl, Yes, Yes, Yes CGI, Yes, Yes, Yes Custom Error Pages, Yes, Yes, Yes CGI Scripts, Yes, Yes, Yes Custom Perl Modules, Yes, Yes, Yes Python, Yes, Yes, Yes WebDAV, Yes, Yes, Yes Ruby on Rails, Yes, Yes, Yes RubyGem Installer, Yes, Yes, Yes SOAP, Yes, Yes, Yes Server side includes, Yes, Yes, Yes MIME Types, Yes, Yes, Yes Mailboxes, 10, 25, 100 Mailbox Size, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB Aliases, Unlimited, Unlimited, Unlimited Forwarding, Unlimited, Unlimited, Unlimited DNS Editor, Yes, Yes, Yes Domain Forwarding, Yes, Yes, Yes Operating System, Linux, Linux, Linux Web Server, Apache 2.4, Apache 2.4, Apache 2.4 Linux distribution, CloudLinux OS, CloudLinux OS, CloudLinux OS Control Panel, cPanel, cPanel, cPanel FTP accounts, Unlimited, Unlimited, Unlimited File Manager, Yes, Yes, Yes Softaculous, Yes, Yes, Yes Multiple T1 connections, Yes, Yes, Yes Backup Power, Yes, Yes, Yes Fire & Smoke Prevention, Yes, Yes, Yes 24/7 CCTV, Yes, Yes, Yes Databases, 20, 30, Unlimited Database Size, Unlimited, Unlimited, Unlimited MySQL, Yes, Yes, Yes Online Database Admin, Yes, Yes, Yes MySQL Database Wizard, Yes, Yes, Yes phpMyAdmin, Yes, Yes, Yes Remote MySQL, Yes, Yes, Yes Statistics Tools, Yes, Yes, Yes Awstats, Yes, Yes, Yes Disk Usage Report, Yes, Yes, Yes Disk Usage Email Alerts, Yes, Yes, Yes Error Logs, Yes, Yes, Yes Bandwidth alerts, Yes, Yes, Yes Realtime log viewer, Yes, Yes, Yes Free SSL certificates, Yes, Yes, Yes Off-server Backups, Yes, Yes, Yes Firewall, Yes, Yes, Yes Protected Folders, Yes, Yes, Yes SSL Certificate Manager, Yes, Yes, Yes Hotlink Protection, Yes, Yes, Yes cPanel, Yes, Yes, Yes Change Passwords, Yes, Yes, Yes Multi Language, Yes, Yes, Yes UK Support, Yes, Yes, Yes Online Support, Yes, Yes, Yes Video Tutorials, Yes, Yes, Yes Guarantee, 30 days, 30 days, 30 days Upgradeable, Yes, Yes, Yes Cancel anytime, Yes, Yes, Yes That said, Domains-Foundry_ do an interesting hosting package https://www.domainsfoundry.co.uk/web-hosting/compare/ for £50/year (probably £60 with VAT) that looks better than either of these. I've just (16:50 Wednesday 3rd June) sent them a message asking who is the registered owner of the free eMail domain with this package. They've given me a ticket number #202006035333. Setting up an account ===================== To set up an account with anyone, will need: * Business type (sole trader, limited company, etc) * Company Number * Bank account details * Names ===== Links ===== * Nominet_ * Nominet_UK-Domains_ * Nominet_Buy-a-Domain_ * Vendors * Pilchard_ * Domains-Foundry_ * UK2_ * GoDaddy_ * GBNames_ * namesco_ * Spiral-Hosting_ * Yay_ * YorkUKHosting_ .. _thecardcentrefelixstowe: https://www.thecardcentrefelixstowe.co.uk .. _thecardcentrefelixstowe-admin: https://www.thecardcentrefelixstowe.co.uk/wp-admin/ .. _domains-foundry-dashboard: https://www.domainsfoundry.co.uk/dashboard/clientarea.php .. _voteq: https://voteq.co.uk/about .. _nuttyabouthosting: www.nuttyabouthosting.co.uk .. _iomart: https://www.iomart.com/about-us/ .. _EasySpace: https://www.easyspace.com/ .. _Ecenica: https://www.ecenica.com .. _TwentytwentyMedia: https://www.2020media.com .. _Wordpress: https://wordpress.com .. _Shopify: https://shopify.com .. _Square: https://squareup.com/gb/en .. _FCC-wordpress: https://wordpress.com/view/felixstowecardcentre.wordpress.com .. _FCC-previous: https://www.felixstowecardcentre.com .. _Nominet: https://www.nominet.uk/ .. _Nominet_UK-Domains: https://www.nominet.uk/uk-domains/ .. _Nominet_Buy-a-Domain: https://www.theukdomain.uk/buy-a-domain/ .. _Pilchard: https://www.pilchard.co.uk/domain-registration/index.php .. _Domains-Foundry: https://www.domainsfoundry.co.uk/about/ .. _UK2: https://www.uk2.net/domain-names/new-domain-extensions/uk-domain-family/?domain=felixstowecardcentre.co.uk .. _GoDaddy: https://uk.godaddy.com/ .. _GBNames: https://www.gbnames.uk/ .. _Spiral-Hosting: https://www.spiralhosting.com/ukfamily#section1/ukdomain?domain=thetinks.co.uk .. _namesco: https://www.names.co.uk/search/domain?PR=DNM00&voucher=QLCFMRNE&domain=thetinks.co.uk#/results .. _Yay: https://www.yay.com/domain-names/uk-registration/?domain=thetinks.co.uk .. _YorkUKHosting: https://www.yorkukhosting.com/about/