Your Quick Guide To Creating and Making Websites. | |
The following is a quick reference guide; either as a refresher or just a fast tutorial for those who are always on the go. The points below show you the steps required to getting a web presence. 1. Pick and Register Domain Name 2. Decide On Your Web Host 3. Plan Your Website 4. Have Lots Of Content 5. Create and SEO Your Website 6. Promote Your Site 7. Continually Fine Tune & Update Site 8. Keep Adding New Content 9. Track & Update Your Optimization Techniques 10. Repeat Items 6 to 9 Regularly Web Pages/Site:
A Web Page is an electronic document. A collection of these pages; related to each other is called a Website. These web pages are stored in a specific location on a hosting site and are accessible via the World Wide Web.
1. Think Of A Domain Name: Your first step to creating, making, building, designing a website or having a web presence either for your business, products, services, a sports club, organization or just-for-fun site is to decide on a Domain Name and choice of your extension (eg: learnweb101.com, learnweb101.net, etc). This is an important part of your journey in building and creating your web presence; select words that reflect your product or services as part of your domain name. This helps you with search engine searches.
For instance choose to register magichorseshoes if you were selling horseshoes, rather then dansplace. Better yet register both, but use the first name as your main domain and the second one is redirected to it. Choose Domain Extension (.com .net etc) that you prefer. Here I recommend that you register to AT LEAST three extensions; .com .net and your countries domain extension. Domain Names:
Computers communicate using numbers, humans communicate using names. A domain name is a location on the web (WWW) which is assigned a number; called an IP (Internet Protocol Number). We access this location (which will store our web pages) using the domain name (www.linkandbuild.net).
Domain Extensions:
The extensions to a domain name are called TLD's (Top Level Domains); there are genericTLD's (gTLD) and ccTLD's (Country Code TLD). .com .net .org .info are a few of the most common generic ones, some of the other gTLD's are restricted (eg: .gov). .ca .ie .au .sg are a few of the ccTLD. The country TLD's are 2 character long and many of them are restricted to companies, organizations or individuals that have a presence within that country. 2. Register You Domain Name: You must register your domain at a registrar. Once done you are the proud owner of the domain name. No one else in the world can have the same domain name with that extension. They can have the same name under a different extension. You may consider to register the domain in other extensions as well, especially one for your country. 3. Selecting Your Web Host: Before I go harping about selecting a web host let me say one thing; Do Not Go for Free Hosting. There are hundreds of companies that provide web hosting; so it can be overwhelming when you have to decide your hosting provider. In order to make an intelligent decision about your host provider, you must be aware of what kind of site you will build. Do you require special requirements such MySQL for database, do want your server to be on Windows or Linux? Do you wish to run PHP, PEARL scripts? How much storage space do you need? Bandwidth? etc. How many Domains, Sub Domains does the plan allow for. How many e-mail addresses are you allowed to setup? Check all the various options each one provides and go with the one you feel most comfortable. DO NOT always go for the cheapest one. Remember the saying; "Buy Cheap and Weep".
Another idea I can propose; only buy your hosting for a month or two initially, and if you are comfortable with the company you can sign up for a longer period. If not you can move on. The worst thing is to purchase hosting for a year or two (in trying to save money), then finding out the company either has very unreliable servers, do not have features you now need or have poor or no support.
Avoid Free Domains when you purchase hosting. In the long run you are better to register your own domain and buy hosting separately. I have read of situations where the hosting company overcharged for the "Free" domain to the client when he decided to stop his hosting services. So what happens to that free domain? Is it yours or theirs? and how much would it cost to take that domain with you? So be warned.
Make an informed decision. Here is where I host all my sites. http://www.foxtrotdomains.com 4. Planning Your Website: What Kind Of Website: Are you building and e-commerce site, information site, business site, a blog, a forum site etc. Knowing the kind of site you want to create will help you make other sound decisions going forward. Website Layout, Navigation, Colour, Font: Before jumping into creating a site, ensure your layout follows the general basic design guidelines of simplicity, proper navigation, common layout between pages, web safe fonts and colours. Site should be clean with good colour selection and very little or no flash. Remember images slow down the loading time of a site, which does not bode well for the visitor or the search engine bots. Ensure all navigation links are readily visible, in the same area between pages, are working, simple to use and follow. Importantly keep your visitor informed as to where they are at all times and ensure information on your site is easily accessible. Colour is an integral part of a website layout and design, so ensure you pick colours that suite your website theme. Check other sites in your business and get ideas on what works well. I don't suggest you copy them, but it gets you thinking and helps you decide on how best to plan and layout your website. Select a font style and size that you feel will allow for easy reading. By the way there are only a limited number of fonts to choose from that are web safe, stay with those. Stay away from script like fonts, like I always say KEEP IT SIMPLE. I always get feedback from friends, family and associates regarding my website. I want them to be critical and give me an honest opinion. I have joined forums and discussion groups where I have users critique different websites and learnt from them. Do not be afraid to be criticised, and learn from it. When we create our own website, we only see it from our perspective (and it always look good to us). Let users tell you what they think of your site, they give you a different opinion. 5. Website Content If Planning your Website is the Heart, then Content is the Soul of your Website Makeup. Without content your site will eventually fail. No matter how well designed, planned and thought out your site is. Poor content is of no use to your customers, visitors or clients and why should the search engines bother to show your site during a search if it has poor content. Make sure you have content that is meaningful, valuable and useful to your visitors. Update and upgrade your site periodically so it does not become stale. Information on your site should not only be relevant to your topic but also write in as much detail as you can. Write your website content with passion and with your own unique style in your own words. I don't recommend you copying material; besides being copyright material it is unethical and morally wrong. Your content should not only read well, but should be free of spelling mistakes (hey, if you notice any on my site please do let me know). Remember; Content is King. Excellent Content is Emperor. 6. Create & SEO Your Website: Once you have registered a domain and purchased a hosting plan, you are half way there. You next step is to design, create and build a website. To understand in detail the different options for creating a website, follow; Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 7. Promote & Optimize Your Website With your website live on the internet, you now face the challenge (as we all do) to promote and popularize it using good promotional, advertising, marketing and SEO techniques.
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