I really need a web page for my charter business. How do I do it. What do I need? How much will it cost?

This question is rather in depth with several decisions to make along the way.

First, you need to decide what this website will do for you. Is it going to be a place where you sell merchandise or will it merely be an informative page with little or no user interactivity. Basically, what will the function and purpose of the website be?

If it is for selling merchandise, you will need to make arrangements for a payment vendor/merchant vendor in order to be able to accept payments via the site. You might also want a shopping cart, a user database to store preferences, a shopping history, an inventorying system, etc. The level of complexity you can get into is quite staggering, depending on your business requirements.

Second, you need to decide if you are going to host this website yourself, or outsource it. Hosting it yourself means you will be responsible for everything about the website, including the server the site is running on, the internet connectivity, the domain name, DNS setup, etc. If you choose this route and are unfamiliar with all of what I just mentioned, I recommend hiring a professional to set it up for you or at least to help you along the way.

If you are planning on outsourcing, you will need to first choose a host. A host is a company who provides server space (a place to store your website), bandwidth (the internet connectivity through which your website is transferred to users), database access (if you are wanting to have any kind of complex functionality) and, usually, DNS (doman name servers, this is the service which turns your domain name, ie. yahoo.com into the IP address that points to the actual server).

Depending on the amount of traffic (visitors to your website) you expect, you will need to adjust your hosting plan. A typical website with 1,000 visitors a day will use about 1.5 GB (gigabytes) of bandwidth per week, give or take, depending on average page size and graphical content.

Using this information, you need to choose a hosting plan that supports a) your website size with ample storage for growth and misc downloads, etc. you want your website to contain. 10 GB of storage is plenty of space for all but the most demanding of websites. 5 to 10GB of bandwidth per month is usually adequate however, if you are planning on hosting audio or video files, you will need considerably more storage and bandwidth.

Next, register your domain name from a Registrar (a place that provides domain names). I prefer godaddy.com. They have been around for a while and offer an excellent suite of tools and customer service. Some hosting companies offer packaged deals, free domain with hosting plan, etc. BE CAREFUL! In some instances, you do not own the domain name but are merely leasing it from the hosting company. Make sure to read the fine print carefully so you retain rights to your domain name.

Now, the fun part, DNS. Your host will provide for you at least 2 name servers. These will appear in the form "ns1.yourhost.com" and "ns2.yourhost.com" or something very similar. You will need to take this information and set the DNS servers at your Registrar to these name servers. So, if you registered your domain at acmedomains.com and you are hosting at acmehosting.com, you will need to find the name servers from acmehosting.com and save them on acmedomains.com.

Now, it's time to get your actual website set up. The simplest of websites can be created by yourself with a minimal knowledge of HTML, however if you plan on selling merchandise or collecting user information in a database, you will need a professional. There are several sites online where you can contract out work, or you can use any local contacts you may have.

The cost associated with each of these steps is wholly dependant on the website requirements. A simple site with decent graphics will run around $200 - $500. A site with integrated shopping carts, user tracking, etc. will run into the thousands.

Hosting can also run from $5 per month on up into the hundreds or thousands, depending on storage, bandwidth and database needs.

The domain name is probably the least expensive, costing under $10 per year you want the domain.

I apologize for the length of my reply, but it was required to even graze the surface of the answer to your question. If you have any more questions or are looking for professional services, feel free to email me. :)