| Building your own website can be a daunting task for | | | | some which are free, but the free ones tend to be |
| those who are new to the wonderful world of | | | | either extremely limited or to leave very untidy and |
| website design. While it is a potentially huge subject, | | | | surplus code on your pages, which is hot helpful. |
| it can be reduced to a fairly simple process, with | | | | You may also have heard of Dreamweaver and |
| certain key steps you need to consider. It is | | | | other website design software, which are great, but |
| important to do your research properly before you | | | | cost quite a lot of money and are perhaps more than |
| jump in, as the right advice can save you a great | | | | is required by a beginner. |
| deal of time and money. I am writing this with the | | | | Finding a domain name is a relatively easy process. |
| assumption that you are not in a position to pay a | | | | You must first find a free domain name and register |
| website designer to do everything for you, and that | | | | it with a domain name registrar. There are hundreds |
| you would like to learn how to create and manage | | | | of these companies out there and this is a quick and |
| your own website. | | | | straightforward process. When choosing a domain |
| Many people start by looking at whether you can get | | | | name ending, try to find a .com, but if that is not |
| a website that doesn't cost anything. The answer is | | | | available, good alternatives are .org or a geographical |
| that there are ways of getting free web pages | | | | one such as .co.uk. |
| online that you can edit and control to an extent, but | | | | As the name suggests, web hosts are specialist |
| such free hosting sites are never going to rank highly | | | | companies that you pay to host your website. Every |
| in search engine results and you do not have control | | | | site must be stored on a server (powerful computer) |
| over the details which could influence such things. | | | | and this is where any visitors to your site will be |
| Free sites are sub domains of larger sites and you will | | | | directed when they look up your website address. |
| have to work within a very limited template. These | | | | You basically rent server storage space and |
| are fine for sharing information with family and | | | | bandwidth from them. You are paying for the disk |
| friends, but no good at all for a remotely serious | | | | capacity to store all your web pages on their |
| website, and certainly not for any kind of business | | | | computers, and for the bandwidth that is used by |
| site. | | | | people accessing those pages. Bandwidth is just a |
| The essential things you need to get your own site | | | | measure of the transfer of data over a period of |
| online are: | | | | time. |
| - A website building tool | | | | The other area that any article about website |
| - A domain name | | | | creation cannot avoid including is search engine |
| - A web host | | | | optimization. This is known as SEO and is a huge |
| You are spoiled for choice in all these areas, which is | | | | subject in itself, concerning the need to design your |
| not necessarily a good thing when it comes to | | | | site in such a way as to achieve high rankings in |
| narrowing down the field and making some decisions. | | | | search engine results. The reason I mention it here is |
| You can create a sophisticated website with just a | | | | just to say that it is far better to have an |
| simple text editor, but to do so you need a full | | | | understanding of it before you start building a |
| understanding of HTML (Hyper Text Markup | | | | website, or it can mean that you need to re-do your |
| Language). If you are looking for information on how | | | | site later to make it search engine friendly. A failure |
| to make a website, I assume you are not an HTML | | | | to consider it could lead to a lovely looking website |
| expert, so we need to consider the other options. | | | | that gets no visitors. |
| Fortunately there are website building tools out there | | | | There are also some packages available which will |
| specially designed for people without HTML | | | | include website design, hosting, domain name and |
| knowledge. These are known as WYSIWYG (what | | | | search engine optimization tools all in one, which can |
| you see is what you get) editors. These feel very | | | | be very attractive for anyone setting up their first |
| much like word processing packages to use, which | | | | website. Such an approach saves having to deal with |
| makes it a comfortable and easy experience. You | | | | many different companies and source lots of |
| create the pages you want, and the editor | | | | different tools and software, which can be more |
| automatically converts what you do into HTML. | | | | cost effective in the long run. |
| There are many of these on the market, including | | | | |