To Make Own Website: Steps to getting your first website on the net
To Make Own Website: Steps to getting your first website on the net. These days, if you want to get a message out to millions of people, you will need more than a pen and a piece of paper to catch someone’s attention. This is where the almighty website comes in handy. A website is digital page on the internet, holding various types of content–text, pictures or video on topics about cars, money, books, that can be accessed and read by anyone who is connected to the net. This is perfect for someone like you who wants to be heard! I have developed a few tips called the “To Make Own Website Rules” that will hopefully help you and the rest of the world with getting a website up and running. To Make Own Website Rule #1 – Make a website purpose: What message are you trying to get out to your audience? Do you want them to know about the weather? Cars? People? Traveling? Whatever your focus is, make sure you stick to it throughout your website. To Make Own Website Rule #2 – Gather the content of site: Do you have the message you want to promote in writing? In a picture? Or, in a video? You must collect all the information that you want to put onto your site. For the time being, keep it in a folder called, “Site Content.” You will use the information later. To Make Own Website Rule #3 – Create your website: Once you have all the content for the site, start building it! If you don’t know how to build a site with HTML (hypertext markup language), you can use a user friendly site builder like Dreamweaver to help you. Although that tool is available, I strongly recommend that you learn a bit of HTML. With that skill you will not only be able to build websites from scratch, but you will be able to make sites that will make your competition’s look amateur! Remember to use the content you collected! To Make Own Website Rule #4 – Get a domain name: So now you have your website, but how will people know about it? You will need something like a phone number or address to locate it. This is where the domain comes to the picture. A domain name is the address–the URL(Uniform Resource Locator)–that people will type into their browsers to connect to your site. For example, http://www.google.com. Make sure your choose this wisely because this is what you want people to remember. Also, keep in mind that you want the domain name to be short and sweet, for instance, http://www.candy.com, not, http://www.ilovecandyverymuchandihopeyouloveitto.com. The last domain example is far too long and will be very tedious to type for visitors. Further, domain names are fairly cheap. You should be able to find them for $10(US) on certain sites. I have found one at Yahoo for $1.99. Look this information up at, http://www.google.com or http://www.yahoo.com. Also note that you can find domain names through web hosting companies, which brings me to the next rule…. To Make Own Website Rule #5 – Find a website host: You have your website built and a domain name. Now, you need a place to put the website on the internet. This is where the website host–the external server–comes forth. The website host is a company on the internet that stores your website. Once you sign up with the website host you will have a place to upload your site. You can find a host here, hostgator.com. With the site uploaded to the server, people will be able to access your site all the time–whether or not you are on your computer. Note that you will have to learn how to upload you website via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Look it up on Google. To Make Own Website Rule #6 – Test your website: Your site is up and ready to be viewed. The question is will people be able to view it? Make sure you test your website to see if it works. It would be horrible for you to put all this effort into making a site and to find out that no one can see it. Log onto a different computer from the one you are working on and type in your domain name in the browser’s address bar. Can you see your site? If not, make sure you have correctly uploaded the site to the right folder on the website host’s server…make sure your have uploaded your site… Also, it is a good thing to test your site out on different web browsers–Netscape, Firefox, Internet Explorer. This is because each browser handles your HTML coding differently. If you see your site in Internet Explorer perfectly, this does not mean it will be as perfect in Firefox. To Make Own Website Rule #7 – Promote your site: Everything works; people should be able to view your site. Why is my site not being viewed? You need to promote it! If your site exists without mention, no one will know it is there and will not visit as a result. Use Facebook, MySpace, and/or Blogger to get your website known. Tell your friends and family. Every time you leave a message with someone, end the message with your domain name. Look up “website marketing” for further information. This concludes my content, “To Make Own Website Rules.” Hopefully these rules will help you get a website up on the internet. If you get lost, just Google your questions. I am sure you will find the answer. That is how I learned how to build sites and what has brought you to me right now! Good luck!