How To Build a Website
A Step by Step Guide for Beginners
HiWelcome
Building a website isn't difficult - once you know how! But where do you start? What is the best way?
Whether you are building a website for your business, club, hobby or just for fun there are 4 main steps involved. They are:
- Decide on the site building technology
- Decide on the Domain Name
- Purchase hosting space and domain Name
- Build and publish the site
Step 1- Evaluate Website Building Technology Options
One of the earliest decisions you will need to make is how to
build your site.
Even if you are having the site built for you by a designer/friend then it is important that you are aware of the different web building technologies and the pros and cons of each method before you start building your site.
There are several different ways of building a website. The main ones are:
- Online Site builder and Flash Websites
- Standard HTML template plus Webpage editor
- Content management system like WordPress, Joomla, Site build-it
They are covered in more detail in the understanding your website building options article.
Step 2-Choose and Register a Domain Name
Your domain name or web address is the name of your website and will look
like this www.mysite.com .
There are three steps to getting a domain name:
- Think of the name.
- Check to see that it is available
- Register the name.
I recommend that you use the hosting provider as the domain registrar as it makes it easier to configure and in most cases the provider will provide a free domain name with the hosting package.
See Domain Names before going any further, unless you already have a domain name.
Step 3 -Choose a Web Hosting Provider
There are many different hosting providers to choose from. If you are going
to be using WordPress as the site building platform then you obviously need one
that supports WordPress.
WordPress requires a Linux server, MySQL database and php support.
I use 1&1-UK for my UK sites (Linux business package now standard package) and Blue Host for my other (international) sites.
Both providers support WordPress and standard html/php sites. For more information on web hosting see the Web Hosting Guide.
Step 4- Build and Publish The Website
How you go about this depends on your preferred web building option. However
there are various aspects of web technology that you really need to become
familiar with before you start.
Before you can build your own website, regardless of the site building option you decide on, you need to have a basic understanding of HTML and web pages and how they are structured and built.
I feel that WordPress is probably the easiest option for beginners, and is the option I recommend for all new sites. the process is covered in more detail in the 5 steps to build your website with WordPress tutorial.
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Popular Articles, References and Recommendations:
- Does Your Business Need a Website?
- Blog vs Website- What is the difference between a blog and a website? Which do you need or do you need both?
- Making Money- Learn How to make money from your website.
- Ecommerce Sites -If you are thinking about setting up an online shop you should be aware that it is different to building a standard website.
- Mobile websites. are also becoming popular due to the increase in internet access from mobile devices. Do you need one? and what are they exactly?
- Build Your Own HTML Website - Basic Course.
Regards
Steve
