Creating a Website: Explained in Simple & Easy to Understand Steps
You know how so many people seem to be confused by the various parts involved in having a website? Some are afraid to even start creating a website because of the confusing idea of building a website.
If you are new to the concept of having a website you may not know where to start, so here is the fundamentals in 3 steps and explained in plain English:
- Domain Name
If you came to this website, you probably already know the importance of a domain name. Get yourself a domain name first. This is like a plaque or a sign that you would put on the front of your house or your shop and it is the address that you give to your customers and friends to show off your business. You can move it around, so if you move home you can take the name with you. There are lots of places where you can get your domain name, and it is a good idea to register a name that reflects you or your business. Click here to find out about the best domain registration services that will suit your need. - Web hosting
Next, you need to buy some web space so you can get the site online to show to people. There are many web hosting companies, all with different plus and minus points so shop around! The web space is like the building you put your name on. The size of the space you need will depend on several factors, mainly the kinds of things you want to put in your display aisles in the shop.Our recommendations:
- InMotion hosting – for business website
- Hostgator – a good cPanel hosting with nice Sitebuilder
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- Website
Once you have your domain name and a web hosting, you need to build your website. A website is your shop with ‘display aisles’ in it. Visitors can browse through the aisles in your shop. In most cases, the website will have an entrance hall – some kind of navigation telling you what rooms there are. Some of the display aisles will have cupboards inside them, containing goodies of their own. The aisles are actually folders or directories and the contents will be things like the images used to make up the visuals used on your site, the styling information files, any video or music you want to have, Flash files and of course, the pages themselves.Generally, each aisle or cupboard should have a map on the wall somewhere, giving you quick access to the other rooms.
Some websites will need a database to help them run efficiently. This is like having a shop assistant who knows and remembers everything that you need and gives it to you when you want them. Pages (or aisles) can be built on-the-fly using a database and customized to suit the visitor requests. This is a dynamic website. Most paid hosting these days come with one kind of database such as MySQL.
There are 3 ways to build a website.
- Build the website yourself. It can be very satisfying and you get to learn a lot too. You can use a simple WYSIWYG HTML editor such as Coffee Cup. If you want to be a designer yourself, you must have the software used by Web designers, which is Adobe Dreamweaver.
Pros: You can learn. Maybe can become a designer too.
Cons: Time consuming - Get a web designer to help you plan and prepare your website. You can get a local web designer, but we suggest you hire a somebody online. You can post your project online at CrowdSpring or 99designs.com and hundreds of designers will present their ideas for you to choose.
For a more serious or more complicated web development project, you can use Elance or Odesk. Elance is great to find developers for fixed-price projects while Odesk is most suitable for hourly assignments and for virtual-assistance type of work.
Pros: You will be able to create a very unique website, if that is really your requirement.
Cons: This option can be expensive and it will take some time for the designer to produce the website design. - Use a Sitebuilder. If you use one of the above web hosts, a Sitebuilder is provided for free. For instant, Hostgator comes with over 4000 designs to choose from. You can choose this option in the beginning to save cost and to build your website quickly. You can still get a designer to improve your website at a later time.
Pros: Free. Get your website up quickly in less than 1 hour.
Cons: They may not produce be the best looking design or you may not get what you are looking for
- Build the website yourself. It can be very satisfying and you get to learn a lot too. You can use a simple WYSIWYG HTML editor such as Coffee Cup. If you want to be a designer yourself, you must have the software used by Web designers, which is Adobe Dreamweaver.
That is all you need to create a website. If you still need help at any of the above steps, do leave us a comment below or other visitors may be able to help.
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