If you’ve never built your own website before, the process can be daunting– not to mention confusing!
This is a simple guide for beginners wanting to know how they can make a website.
1. Register a domain name
A domain name is an address that people can find you by on the web. Every domain is unique– it consists of a name and an extension.
Example: frillymillyclothing.com.au
frillymillyclothing is the name and .com.au is the extension.
You can buy an existing domain name (if it’s available) or create your own domain name. It can be very expensive to buy an existing domain name– especially if it consists of less than five letters!
2. Decide what kind of website you need
Brochure website
A ‘brochure website’ will consist of around three to five pages– Homepage, About Us, Contact Us and perhaps a page or two that describes your goods and services. This website does not sell anything directly. It’s there to tell web users about your business and as a contact point for new or existing customers. This kind of website is generally not updated frequently.
Although a brochure website is small, it can be of huge benefit to your business– potential customers are increasingly searching the internet for local goods and services. You can also provide your website address on your business cards and letterheads.
You can gain traffic to your website through advertising, search engine optimisation or a blog that is attached to your website.
Ecommerce website
An ecommerce website sells or takes orders for goods and/or services. If there are going to be many categories and types of products, you’ll need it all managed by a CMS (content management system) and/or shopping cart software. A CMS or shopping cart might form the base of your website, with a template customising the look of your site. Templates might come packaged with your CMS or shopping cart or you might be able to purchase one. Better still, a web designer can create a unique template for you.
A community website
A community website can be commercial or nonprofit. A community website can simply contain information and resources for a community, or/and it can also have a base of members who interact with each other. If you want to create a community website, you will first need to ensure that the program you use will be able to accommodate your members. Your options include forum software, free community websites such as ning.com and wetpaint.com and custom-built solutions.
If you intend your community to grow very large, this might mean you’ll need to upgrade the kind of web hosting you use. Many people use shared web hosting as it can cost as little as $15 (or even less) per month. Dedicated hosting will provide you with your own IP address and server space, which you do not share with anyone else.
Blog
A blog is a simple CMS (content management system) with a vast variety of applications. If you want a website with an informal feel– where people can comment on your pages and you can interact with them, a blog is the solution for you. People use blogs for everything from sharing personal life journeys to ecommerce websites. A blog can be just anything you want it to be. With the well-known blogging software, WordPress, there are hundreds of free themes and plugins available to extend the look and functionality of your blog. You can even start a blog where you offer your readers their own blogs– WordPress MU.
A blogger is known as someone who frequently writes posts to their blog (daily or weekly) and whom is usually known on a fairly personal level to his or her readers. Blogging is a form of internet culture– bloggers often interact with each other as well as their readers.
Special purpose
If you want to start a website that has a special purpose– such as a review website, games website, quiz website, survey website, real estate website or article website– you’ll generally need purpose-built software. If your plan is to build something small, such as a quiz for a class of school students, you might be able to find some free software on the web. But in the case that your plan is to build a large, complex website– paying experts to create it for you is the best option. If the kind of application you want doesn’t exist, you’ll need to pay to have it built from the ground up.
3. Decide how you will create your website
Web designer
A designer can create unique, customised solution for you from the ground up.
Knowing as much as possible about what you want in a website before contacting a web designer can help speed the process up, and will give your designer a clearer idea of what you you expect out of your website.
A web designer can also give you their expert opinion on the best website for your needs and budget. It might suit you to have a website that starts out relatively small but can easily be expanded at a later date.
Website builder
There are lots of website builders on the market, both paid and free. If you have time and don’t mind dealing with a few of the slightly technical aspects of building a website yourself, a website builder might suit you.
Some require a little coding knowledge, while others require no coding knowledge at all. Some require that you build your web pages online, while others are built on your hard drive and sent via FTP to your web host’s server.
When it comes to buying online, web users expect highly professional-looking websites with very secure transactions. If you’re building a large ecommerce website, trying to do it all yourself could prove to be time-consuming and frustrating.
Programmer
If you require a special purpose website (see above)– you might need a programmer who can develop the software that you use or who can adapt existing software to your needs.
Free website
You might choose a free website option for a blog, for a hobby website, or for a business website in which you pay for upgrades further down the track.
Some free website companies offer a variety of features, including contact forms, user registrations and shopping carts. There are some great free website options out there on the web!
Note: We recommend registering a domain name as the first step, even if your website is going to take months in development.
Domain names are relatively cheap (starting at around $12 per year for an Australian domain)– so if you change your mind later on, you’ve only lost a small amount of money.
The benefits to securing your domain name early is to avoid losing it if someone else registers it, and you can also throw up a quick one-page website while your website is being developed.
Hello.
I would like to put a link to your site on my blog roll if you want to do the same for mine. It would be a good way to build up both of our readerships.
thank you.
Hi Sue
I’m flattered as this website is only new. We’re not intending on having a blogroll though, as we have too many things going in down the side bar in the future.
Thank you very much for your kind offer -it’s appreciated!
Hi, very nice introduction for making website.
have subscribed to your newsletter XD kaka
keep the work up.
You may visit our site, if you feel interest in web hosting. Cheers!
Really nice and systematic. clean explanation.
that’s why i wanted to see. till yesterday my blog was no 1 for keyword ” make a website”. on blogsearch.google.com but how you pushed me down to no 2.
you deserved that.
congrats friend
Vaibhav´s last blog ..How to make a website that makes you money?
Thanks Marccus
Very professional-looking website you have there!
Hi Vaibhav
Sorry I bumped you to 2.
Just went to look at blogsearch. Looks like it won’t take very long for me to get bumped too
You have some nice info on your blog!
A very good, clear intro to building a website.
Anyone building for the first time needs to keep teh cost down as much as possible.
I’d really recommend using this free Sitebuilder
Its very easy to use, you can drag all the objects, menus and pictures round the page until they look right to you. Bear in mind I am biased tho as I work for them!
anyways enjoy till you didn’t get bumped.
tooo
Vaibhav´s last blog ..How to make a website that makes you money?
Update : you got bumped to 3rd and mine gone missing from the scene
Just as well we don’t rely on blogsearch for traffic! Was nice while it lasted
Thanks for the sharing this website. it is very useful professional knowledge. Great idea you know about company background.
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