Firstly you need a good domain name. Try to get a domain name that is catchy and that will hook attention. Make sure it isn’t boring. Check here to see if your Domain Name is still available.Try to put the benefit and a main keyword in. Sometimes the domain might not be available, but if it is really good, consider purchasing it.I recommend you use GoDaddy to purchase your domain as they are the largest domain registrar. But if you don’t want to spend a dime on the domain I suggest you use .co.cc domains which are free.

Secondly you will need a hosting service to host your domain. You need a reliable service to avoid wasting time. I highly recommend HostGator here. Though if you need a cheap Host use MyStoreHosting which offer decent free web-hosting.

Now you need to connect the two, the domain, and the hosting server. This is done by using the domain to point to the hosting server through the use of a nameserver. If you listened to me and bought both a Domain at GoDaddy and the Hosting at HostGator, then simply login in to GoDaddy. Go to your domain and click on it, then click on the nameserver icon, then change the nameservers to the ones HostGator emailed you. They usually are something like this:

NS1.HostGator.com

NS2.HostGator.com

The procedure is almost the same for .co.cc domains. The activation will usually take up to 48 hours (in rare cases up to 72 hours)

You are now ready to upload and install your blog. Using HostGator this is real simple. Go to yourdomain.com/cpanel and log in. At the bottom of the page, click on Fantastico. Now on the left hand side there is a link to WordPress (Open Sources Blogging Software). Click on it and select new installation. Fill in the form and install wordpress.

This is it! Your blog is now up and running. All you need to do now is to start posting. Go to yourdomain.com/wp-login.php. On the left side you will see posts. Click on add new under it.

If you want to attract traffic to your site I suggest you get a premium theme, you won’t regret it. The two big names in this area are woothemes and elegant themes

Next thing you need to do is to make sure the world knows about your blog.

Premium Themes

Hosting

Free Domain

Technorati Tags: free blog, how to start a blog, manfredk

It’s easier to sell online. And with the plethora of choices, it’s also time consuming to test & integrate various tools & services to make your selling point work seamlessly.

Even if you sell through eBay regularly, having an online sales point at your own website will be beneficial. Online sales broadly involves 4 stages.

1. Display the products & features.
2. Provide price, stock & delivery details.
3. Receive payment.
4. Deliver the products / service.

Of these stages, the third – receive payment is to be handled through your bank’s approved gateway or third-party gateways. For the rest, you can handle at your site with a large number of tools.

You can make your site as a complete sales portal, or just sell a few choice products at your already performing information website. There are tools to make it happen right at your web space.

What kind of products

It can be a single product (or) book (or) service selling website. Or it can be a series of products created by yourself. Or even a multi-category, multi product online shop complete with user ratings, wish list, etc.

Just brief your requirements here and get a no-obligations price quote for developing the website. My business is built on customer relation and you can pay as the project is being completed at your webhosting space.

At what point can I get involved?

Right from website planning, selecting a webhost to any of the website development needs such as design layout, installing shopping cart, integrating to payment gateway, handling online downloadable products and building a secure admin area to handle users,products etc.

What kind of shopping carts?

If you already decided on a particular shopping cart, please specify the cart. I can install and integrate most of the carts with your website.

If you haven’t decided yet, here are a set of general classifications for you to help decide.

• Complete Portals (Open source)
• Open Source Carts
• Custom built shopping cart
• Single Product selling

To know more, just express your requirements here and get started.

Technorati Tags: joombla websites, joomla installation, port elizabeth website design, shopping carts, Website Design, zen-cart installation

Why Should You Opt for Joomla ?
Simply because Joomla is open source software which means, you will not have to pay a single cent for integrating this CMS in your website as opposed to Microsoft or other products. Apart from that, Joomla has other advantages too. Some of these advantages are elaborated below:

• Better Functionality
  The functionality of a website can be extended or enhanced by integrating Joomla in a website. Over three thousands plugins and add-ons of Joomla are available online, which can help a person to better the functionality of a website. Image galleries, video plug-ins or shopping carts can best be managed or integrated with a website build on Joomla.
• Large Community
  As Joomla is a free software, numerous communities are formed for providing support and help. This feature has aided Joomla to emerge as the most popular Content Management System. One can visit the official website of Joomla (joomla.org). It has over 200, 000 community members who are offering valuable advice and support on various issues related to Joomla.
• Change the Look With Joomla Website Design

  If you have integrated Joomla template design system in your website, you can enjoy a unique feature by virtue of which you can change the appearance of your website without changing the entire look and feel. Over two thousand unique templates are available for free. You have to choose the perfect one that match perfectly with the theme of your website. This feature will certainly help you to reduce the maintenance cost of your website.

• No Need Of Extensive Programing knowledge
  If you have incorporated Joomla CMS in your website, you do not have to possess a good command over programing languages. A first hand knowledge will be sufficient to update content in your website by using this CMS. This is the reason why more and more persons are using Joomla for managing or uploading content. By using Joomla frame work, a person can build and manage the below mentioned things:
  • Data reporting tools
  • Custom product catalogs
  • Integrated e-commerce systems
  • Communication tools
  • Complex business directories
  • Application bridges
• Available In Multiple Language
  Joomla is now available in multiple languages and therefore it has facilitated the task of a person who does not have good command over English. This feature has added to the popularity of Joomla.

If your finding it extremely difficult to manage numerous features of Joomla, it is better for you to put your trust on a reputed Joomla website design company. Jeffreys Bay Website Design is one of those Joomla web design companies, who are offering this unique service at an affordable rate. We are well versed with many aspects of Joomla web design and therefore we can offer you the very best service. You can view our Joomla website design portfolio for forming a fair concept about the quality of our service.

Technorati Tags: joomla website design

• b2evolution:A blog script featuring multiple blogs, categories/sub-categories, skins, search function, multiple languages, search engines friendly URLs.read more…
• Nucleus: A powerful blog script featuring multiple blogs, multiple authors, drafts and future posts, bookmarklets. read more…
• pMachinePro: This is a features limited version of pMachinePro read more…
• Word Press: WordPress is a personal publishing tool with focus on aesthetics and featuring cross-blog tool, password protected posts, importing, typographical niceties, multiple authors, bookmarklets. read more…

Content Management Systems

• Drupal: An advanced portal with collaborative book, search engines friendly URLs, online help, roles, full content search, site watching, threaded comments, version control, blogging, news aggregator. read more…
• Gekklog: A portal system with a wide range of modules read more…
• Joomla: Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable. read more…
• Mambo: professional level yet easy to use Content Management System featuring inline WYSIWYG content editors, newsfeeds, syndicated news, banners, mailing users, links manager, statistics, content archiving, date based content, 20 languages, modules and components. read more…
• PHP-Nuke: One of the most popular community-based portals with a big choice of modules and languages. read more…
• phpWCMS: phpWCMS is perfect for professional, public and private users. It is very easy to learn and gives you the flexibility to separate layout and content. Lots of powerful but simple implemented features assists publishers and web developers too. read more…
• phpWebsite: Very powerful Content Management System with document manager, announcements, menu manager, photo album, block maker, FAQ, web pages maker, polls, information categorizer, calendar, link manager, form generator. read more…
• Post-Nuke: Content Management System with focus on flexibility and security. A big variety of modules and blocks makes this CMS an allround tool. read more…
• Site Frame: A straightforward content-management system designed for rapid deployment of community-based websites. Nice-looking templates, oriented toward document-sharing, clean interface. read more…
• TYPO3: TYPO3 is a free Open Source content management system for enterprise purposes on the web and in intranets. It offers full flexibility and extendability while featuring an accomplished set of ready-made interfaces, functions and modules. read more…
• Xoops: A very popular advanced portal system. read more…

Customer Relationship

• Crafty Syntax Live Help: A Live Help chat system featuring monitor your visitors, pro actively open a chat session, multiple chat sessions, referer tracking, page view tracking, multiple operators, canned responses/images/URLs, multiple departments each with different icons, leave a message. read more…
• Help Center Live: Very powerful all-in-one help center including Live Help, Support Tickets and FAQ. Features include unlimited operators/departments, monitor visitors, initiate chat, collect visitor’s information, track visitor’s footprint, autosave chat transcripts, canned messages, leave a message, auto-assign tickets to operators, unlimited FAQ topics. read more…
• osTicket: A Support Tickets system featuring email piping, pop3 login, unlimited email addresses, admin/staff/user panels, avoid auto responder loops, limit maximun tickets user can have opened, accept attachments and limit size, pager alerts for admin. read more…
• PerlDesk: PerlDesk is a feature packed browser based help desk and email management application designed to streamline the operation of managing emails, support tickets and customer communications, with built in tracking and response logging it is an ideal help desk solution for companies with one or more members of staff or for those who want to organize client communications.(Requires license) read more…
• PHP Support Tickets: A simple, one-admin Support Tickets system featuring self-registering, emailing to admin, attachments. read more…
• Support Logic Helpdesk: A Support Tickets system featuring multiple email addresses, admin/staff/user panels, canned responses, HTML tags support, email limit on a per user/day basis, attachments. read more…
• Support Services Manager: Please read details on the forum http://www.sheddnet.net/ read more…

Forums & Discussion Boards

• phpBB2: A widely-popular open-source bulletin-board package, works well, simple user interface and admin panel, clean look, scales well, and can be customized. read more…
• SMF: Elegant. Effective. Powerful. Free. SMF is all of the above. SMF is a next-generation community software package and is jam-packed with features, while at the same time having a minimal impact on resources. read more…

E-Commerce Shopping Carts

• CubeCart: n easy to use yet powerful shopping cart featuring unlimited categories and products, multiple payment gateways, downloadable products. The design is very easy to modify. read more…
• OS Commerce: power-user shopping cart with a big variety of modules and support of almost every payment gateway. A big developers community is ready to offer custom solutions depending on your needs. read more…
• Zen Cart: Zen Cart truly is the art of e-commerce; a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. The software is being developed by group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think e-commerce could be and should be done differently. read more…
• Agora Cart: Powerful shopping cart and simple to use. read more…

F.A.Q

• FAQMasterFlex: Unlimited categories/questions/answers, web-based administration. read more…

Image Galleries

• 4Images Gallery: An Image Gallery system featuring unlimited categories/subcategories, web-based and FTP images upload, auto-thumbnails, comments, send a picture, rate a picture, random pictures, extensive administration panel. read more…
• Coppermine Photo Gallery: An Image Gallery system featuring categories and albums, thumbnails and intermediate size pics, search feature, new and random pictures, user management (private galleries, groups), user comments, e-cards feature, slideshow viewer. read more…
• Gallery: An Image Gallery system featuring albums within albums, thumb nailing specific picture area, captions, rotate, reorder pictures, album-based attributes, album mirroring. read more…

Guest books

• ViPER Guestbook : The ViPER Guest book is a high end guest book script that is versatile, reliable, very comfortable and easy to use. The perfect choice for the ambitious webmaster! read more…

Hosting Billing

• AccountLab Plus: A full billing/invoicing application, perfect for web hosting resellers. read more…
• phpCOIN: A full billing/invoicing application, perfect for webhosting resellers. read more…

Mailing Lists

• PHPlist: A powerful mailing list featuring multiple mailing lists and attachments. read more…

Polls and Surveys

• Advanced Poll: A highly windows-inspired poll script. read more…
• phpESP: PhpESP is an effective, capable, web-based survey application that enables businesses to create complex and advanced surveys, view results in real time, and carry out advanced analysis. read more…
• PHPSurveyor: Develop, publish and collect responses to surveys. Display surveys as single questions, group by group or all in one page or use a dataentry system for administration of paper-based versions of the survey. PHP Surveyor can produce ‘branching’ surveys (set conditions on whether individual questions will display), can vary the look and feel of your survey through a templating system, and can provide basic statistical analysis of your survey results. read more…

Project Management

• dotProject: Project Management featuring companies, projects, tasks (with Gantt charts), forums, files, calendar, contacts, tickets/helpdesk, language support, user/module permissions, themes. read more…
• PHProjekt : Project Management featuring optional group system, privileges, calendar, contacts, time card, projects, chat, forum, request tracker, mail client, files, notes, bookmarks, to-do list, reminder, voting, language support. read more…

Site Builders

• Soholaunch Pro Edition: From basic, informational websites to robust e-business applications, this script vastly simplifies the creation and management of cutting-edge internet solutions. It installs at the end-users web site and empowers novices and seasoned developers alike with a streamlined development and management process unmatched by any other software product. read more…
• Templates Express: Use Templates Express to install static templates to your website. You will need to use FTP and edit the html files, replacing the default text with your own text. Standard information like title, name, address and similar will be collected during installation and placed into the installed template in the appropriate locations. read more…

Wiki

• TikiWiki: TikiWiki is designed to be an international, clean and extensible Content Management System and Groupware that can be used to create all sorts of web applications, sites, portals, intranets and extranets. TikiWiki also works great as a web-based collaboration tool. TikiWiki has a lot of native options and sections that you can enable/disable as you need them. read more…
• PhpWiki: PhpWiki is a web site where anyone can edit the pages through an HTML form. Linking is done automatically on the server side; all pages are stored in a database. read more…

Other Scripts

• Dew-NewPHPLinks: A Link Directory featuring categories, reviews, popular links, new links, links approval. read more…
• Moodle: A course management system designed to help educators create quality online courses. Available in 34 languages and features a WYSIWYG HTML editor. The teacher has full control over all settings for a course. There is a flexible array of course activities (Forums, Journals, Quizzes, Resources, Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, Workshops), user logging and tracking, mail integration and much more. read more…
• Noahs Classifieds: A classifieds system featuring categories and subcategories in unlimited depth, image upload for categories and classifieds, variable fields per categories, customizable email notifications, locking categories, classifieds approval, auto-thumbnail generation, classifieds management by user, send classified to a friend. read more…
• Open-Realty: Real Estate listing system featuring attachments, flexible search, template system, Yahoo Maps interface. read more…
• phpAdsNew: A highly professional complete ad server featuring different types of ads, display based on keywords, zones, hour of the day, day of the week, extensive statistics, client statistics. read more…
• PHPauction: The GPL version of PHPauction featuring email notification of bids, attachments, reserve price, minimum bids, standard and dutch auctions, bid history, send auction to a friend, highest bids, auctions ending soon. read more…
• phpFormGenerator: A form generator featuring up to 100 form fields, all kind of input fields incl. file upload, customizable fields attributes, send submitted data to an email address or store them in a database, admin panel. read more…
• WebCalendar : A very powerful webcalendar featuring private and public calendars. read more…
• phpMyChat : Do multiple chats. read more…