Building your own website can be a daunting task for those who are new to the wonderful world of website design. While it is a potentially huge subject, it can be reduced to a fairly simple process, with certain key steps you need to consider. It is important to do your research properly before you jump in, as the right advice can save you a great deal of time and money. I am writing this with the assumption that you are not in a position to pay a website designer to do everything for you, and that you would like to learn how to create and manage your own website.
Many people start by looking at whether you can get a website that doesn't cost anything. The answer is that there are ways of getting free web pages online that you can edit and control to an extent, but such free hosting sites are never going to rank highly in search engine results and you do not have control over the details which could influence such things. Free sites are sub domains of larger sites and you will have to work within a very limited template. These are fine for sharing information with family and friends, but no good at all for a remotely serious website, and certainly not for any kind of business site.
The essential things you need to get your own site online are:
- A website building tool
- A domain name
- A web host
You are spoiled for choice in all these areas, which is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to narrowing down the field and making some decisions. You can create a sophisticated website with just a simple text editor, but to do so you need a full understanding of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). If you are looking for information on how to make a website, I assume you are not an HTML expert, so we need to consider the other options.
Fortunately there are website building tools out there specially designed for people without HTML knowledge. These are known as WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors. These feel very much like word processing packages to use, which makes it a comfortable and easy experience. You create the pages you want, and the editor automatically converts what you do into HTML. There are many of these on the market, including some which are free, but the free ones tend to be either extremely limited or to leave very untidy and surplus code on your pages, which is hot helpful.
You may also have heard of Dreamweaver and other website design software, which are great, but cost quite a lot of money and are perhaps more than is required by a beginner.
Finding a domain name is a relatively easy process. You must first find a free domain name and register it with a domain name registrar. There are hundreds of these companies out there and this is a quick and straightforward process. When choosing a domain name ending, try to find a .com, but if that is not available, good alternatives are .org or a geographical one such as .co.uk.
As the name suggests, web hosts are specialist companies that you pay to host your website. Every site must be stored on a server (powerful computer) and this is where any visitors to your site will be directed when they look up your website address. You basically rent server storage space and bandwidth from them. You are paying for the disk capacity to store all your web pages on their computers, and for the bandwidth that is used by people accessing those pages. Bandwidth is just a measure of the transfer of data over a period of time.
The other area that any article about website creation cannot avoid including is search engine optimization. This is known as SEO and is a huge subject in itself, concerning the need to design your site in such a way as to achieve high rankings in search engine results. The reason I mention it here is just to say that it is far better to have an understanding of it before you start building a website, or it can mean that you need to re-do your site later to make it search engine friendly. A failure to consider it could lead to a lovely looking website that gets no visitors.
There are also some packages available which will include website design, hosting, domain name and search engine optimization tools all in one, which can be very attractive for anyone setting up their first website. Such an approach saves having to deal with many different companies and source lots of different tools and software, which can be more cost effective in the long run.
Get detailed advice on how to make a website now. Keith Garrow's main website also provides recommendations on website design software, web host reviews and a free guide to search engine optimization. Keith Garrow is an artist who made his first site to showcase his abstract art, but now shares information gained from his experience of going from knowing nothing about websites to creating one which now ranks on the first page of Google for all his main search terms.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Keith_Garrow
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