Creating a Website From Scratch
Whether it is for business or personal use, the advantages of having a website are obvious. A business website can be used for direct selling of products and services, or for providing the public with information about your company. With a personal website you can keep friends and family updated on your life and share information about your interests. Building your own website is not the frightening task that it used to be. With so many user-friendly website building software programs available today, the task can be easy as well as fun.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Purchase a domain name from a site that sells them, such as GoDaddy.com or Register.com. Your domain name will be the name and Internet address of Your website, such as "http://www.mypersonalwebsite.com." Prices for domain names are reasonable but vary widely, and you pay for them yearly.
-
2
Find a web hosting service, such as Homestead or HostGator. It will be through your web hosting service that you will publish your website to the Internet. The charge for your web hosting will usually be yearly, quarterly, or monthly.
-
-
3
Find website building software such as Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe Dreamweaver, or Sitebuilder. Use software with which you can build a website using a user-friendly graphic interface, but make sure it allows for adding html code also.
-
4
Put an image at the top of your first page that represents what your site is about, and text that gives a short summary of what viewers will be seeing as they move through the site. If it is a business website you may want to include a company logo or motto at the top of each page.
-
5
Separate your pages into tables, which will help you to have different sections on one page but still have an overall look of uniformity. Tables are cells or groups of cells that you can insert within the page that can hold text, images, and anything else a regular page can hold.
-
6
If there will be more than one page on your website, you need to create hyperlinks from each page to the other pages. A hyperlink is anything that you click on that takes you to another website or another page or section of a website. Highlight text or an image and right-click on it, then click on "hyperlink" and follow the instructions from there.
-
7
When your website is ready to go live on the Internet, follow the instructions given by your web hosting service for uploading it to them. Your website building software will have a publishing format that it uses, so you'll need to choreograph the uploading between the software and the host.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Many times you can get the domain, web hosting, and website building software all in one place. This can be beneficial for you, since it cuts down on steps and you know that everything will work together seamlessly.
Take the time to look at other websites similar to what you want to build. This will help you get an idea of how you want yours to look.
You can adjust, update, and republish your website as often as you wish through the website building software.
Many website hosting services offer free as well as paid hosting, though free hosting offers limited service.
When adding images to your website that are not your own, be sure that they are either royalty free, you have paid for them, or you have written permission from the owner of the image to use it.
Written content on your website should never be plagiarized. Either write original content yourself or go through the proper channels to acquire it from someone else.
Such things as animation, video, and flash presentations can look cool on websites, but keep in mind that they use a lot of bytes and a lot of memory. For some viewers that could mean your site will load very slow, or not at all, so you may want to keep these things to a minimum.
Resources
- Photo Credit Photo of website courtesy of Brian Griesbaum, photo of website address courtesy of Mario Alberto Magallanes Trejo
