How To Create Your First Website

So you want to create a web site, but you don't know a thing about how to get started huh?  The purpose of this article is to outline the things you will need to get your first site up and running.  The intent is to give you a basic overview and not dive in to all the details required for each step, that will be reserved for future posts.

Step 1 - Determine what it is you want to create 

You'll have many different options based upon what you are trying to accomplish.  Are you trying to create a Blog (similar to what I have here), a static web site that simply displays information about you or your company, a dynamic web site that allows users to query and/or update information, or a shopping cart type site where users can purchase your products?

A blog or static site is very easy to create on your own.  If you have an analytical mind or have done some type of programming in the past, you can also create a dynamic site, although be aware there will be programming and database development involved.

If you are looking to create a simple blog, you can do so without any cost, and have something up and running in a matter of minutes.  Head over to Wordpress.com or Blogger.com, create an account, and follow the on screen instructions to set up your site.  The one thing to keep in mind is that you won't be able to define your own domain name (this is name of the site you would type into your browser).  Your domain name would look something like:

www.yoursitename.blogger.com  or  www.yoursitename.wordpress.com

Step 2 - Secure a domain name and hosting options

I've combined these two steps as most hosting providers will not charge you for "buying" a domain name if you purchase one of their hosting options.  In either case, you will need to purchase a hosting plan if you want to get your site on the Internet.

First things first, determine what you want your domain name to be.  This is the name that a user will type into their browser to bring up your web site (see figure #1).  You may want to come up with a few options in case the domain name you've selected is already in use.

Now find a hosting provider.  You've probably heard of godaddy.com, but there are many others that you can find by doing a quick google search.  I happen to use inmotionhosting.com for a number of my sites, but this is really a matter of personal preference. 

Each hosting provider has a number of hosting plans that you can choose from, and each plan varies in cost based upon what you need.  Chances are you can go with the cheapest plan offered if you are looking to create a basic site, and most providers will allow you to upgrade if you outgrow your plan.  A couple of things to keep in mind when choosing a plan are any limits the provider places on disk space (the amount of data you will store on your site) or bandwidth (how many visitors your site will receive and the amount of data transferred in a given month). EAch hosting provider will define these options in their hosting plans.


Step 3 - Create your site

Now that you have a domain name and hosting provider, it's time to set up the site.  If you are going the blog route, you can install Wordpress or some other Content Management System (CMS) directly from the hosting providers control panel.  The control panel allows you to administer the site you just created.  There are a number of features on the control panel that allow you to view statistics regarding the visitors to your site, set up email accounts, restrict access, and so on, and so on.  I would play around with this so you can get a good feel for what you can do to control your new site.

If you will be creating a web site, you'll need to find some software to create your web pages.  If your new to HTML you'll want to find a software package that has a designer which will allow you to create pages based upon a graphical user interface (GUI).  This software will generate the HTML for you, so you won't spend a great deal of time having to learn this markup language. Chances are, your hosting provider has some software you can leverage for this, or a quick search of Google will give you some free options that are available.