An Idiot's Guide To Making Your Own Website
- By Lloyd Roberts
- Published 05/24/2011
- Web Design
- Unrated
The World Wide Web is a wonderful world indeed. Almost everything is done on the web like information gathering, doing business, socializing, being entertained or simply communicating. Here, you can find anything under the sun, including how to make your own website even without any special training. And the beauty of it all is, it's fast, facile and free.
Generally, there are two ways of making your own website: downloading from a template for making a website from the Internet or handcrafting your own website.
Downloading a website template
The Internet is awash with web design sites from which you can download a website template. From thousands of templates, you can choose one that fits your business. You can also combine features from several other templates to produce a unique website complete with relevant images, a working navigation, good graphics and sometimes usable text. Editing tools are also on hand to help you update your site or change anything with ease. In case you get stuck along the way, a support staff is on hand to help you. Before going live, make sure to test your new website so that you can make the necessary changes if there is a need.
Making your own website
Handcrafting a website used to be the domain solely of specially trained web designers. Not anymore. Thanks to the World Wide Web again. To make your own website, all you need to have are a personal computer, access to the Internet and basic computer skills.
Before constructing your website, it is important that you clearly define the specific purpose of your website so that you will know what kind of audience to target and what kind of design to create. It may either be for personal development, to satisfy a hobby, to advance an advocacy or to promote a business. (For purposes of discussion, we will choose business.) Whatever the purpose is, the mere presence of your website in the Internet can earn you extra income. If your website has excellent content and visitors flock to it, business owners will be encouraged to advertise their businesses on your website for a fee.
Choose a design that perfectly suits your purpose. Do
you want it to be formal or informal? Hi-tech or traditional? Educational or entertainment? The theme you choose should be consistent all throughout the website including content.
If you have enough programming skills in web designing, you may proceed to construct your website. If not, you should first download a good HTML editor from the Internet for free and install it on your computer. This is a user-friendly software application for creating web pages. They are otherwise known as WYSIWYG HTML editors. For more sophisticated designs, there are also reasonably priced programs from the big names like Microsoft.
Constructing your web pages is made relatively easy by the HTML editor. You need to orient yourself to the HTML editor by reading the tutorial and "help" features. From what you have learned from the tutorial, try to insert text and images that are related to your website purpose into a new web page. Then, create hyperlinks to the other pages. The two previous activities imply that you can directly manipulate your layout without the use of layout commands. You can also insert additional HTML codes if you want other graphics like music, video, your logo, customized icons, your personal photos and content. A hyperlink can be created by simply highlighting the text field or graphics, selecting the hyperlink icon and specifying the full URL address of the destination. At this point, you are now done with your home page but it still resides in your computer. In order to go online, you need to find a web server.
What you have accomplished so far can be likened to a book that you have written but not yet published and you need a publisher. Your newly created website has to be exposed to the Internet because your business needs to be promoted, for instance, and you need a web server for that. After finding a web server, you can now copy your web pages to the web server. Test what you have uploaded to the server by using a different computer to make sure that graphic files and content are being read from the server and not from your hard drive. An Internet service provider (ISP) can take the place of a web server if the ISP also offers hosting services. You're done and you're now hooked to the web.
For start-up and small businesses, making your own website is an inexpensive and fun way of making yourself known to the online world.
Generally, there are two ways of making your own website: downloading from a template for making a website from the Internet or handcrafting your own website.
Downloading a website template
The Internet is awash with web design sites from which you can download a website template. From thousands of templates, you can choose one that fits your business. You can also combine features from several other templates to produce a unique website complete with relevant images, a working navigation, good graphics and sometimes usable text. Editing tools are also on hand to help you update your site or change anything with ease. In case you get stuck along the way, a support staff is on hand to help you. Before going live, make sure to test your new website so that you can make the necessary changes if there is a need.
Making your own website
Handcrafting a website used to be the domain solely of specially trained web designers. Not anymore. Thanks to the World Wide Web again. To make your own website, all you need to have are a personal computer, access to the Internet and basic computer skills.
Before constructing your website, it is important that you clearly define the specific purpose of your website so that you will know what kind of audience to target and what kind of design to create. It may either be for personal development, to satisfy a hobby, to advance an advocacy or to promote a business. (For purposes of discussion, we will choose business.) Whatever the purpose is, the mere presence of your website in the Internet can earn you extra income. If your website has excellent content and visitors flock to it, business owners will be encouraged to advertise their businesses on your website for a fee.
Choose a design that perfectly suits your purpose. Do
If you have enough programming skills in web designing, you may proceed to construct your website. If not, you should first download a good HTML editor from the Internet for free and install it on your computer. This is a user-friendly software application for creating web pages. They are otherwise known as WYSIWYG HTML editors. For more sophisticated designs, there are also reasonably priced programs from the big names like Microsoft.
Constructing your web pages is made relatively easy by the HTML editor. You need to orient yourself to the HTML editor by reading the tutorial and "help" features. From what you have learned from the tutorial, try to insert text and images that are related to your website purpose into a new web page. Then, create hyperlinks to the other pages. The two previous activities imply that you can directly manipulate your layout without the use of layout commands. You can also insert additional HTML codes if you want other graphics like music, video, your logo, customized icons, your personal photos and content. A hyperlink can be created by simply highlighting the text field or graphics, selecting the hyperlink icon and specifying the full URL address of the destination. At this point, you are now done with your home page but it still resides in your computer. In order to go online, you need to find a web server.
What you have accomplished so far can be likened to a book that you have written but not yet published and you need a publisher. Your newly created website has to be exposed to the Internet because your business needs to be promoted, for instance, and you need a web server for that. After finding a web server, you can now copy your web pages to the web server. Test what you have uploaded to the server by using a different computer to make sure that graphic files and content are being read from the server and not from your hard drive. An Internet service provider (ISP) can take the place of a web server if the ISP also offers hosting services. You're done and you're now hooked to the web.
For start-up and small businesses, making your own website is an inexpensive and fun way of making yourself known to the online world.
Lloyd Roberts
Need help with your business website design? Lloyd Roberts can help you with that. For more information on 123 Web Design Bournemouth please visit his site at http://www.123webdesignbournemouth.co.uk
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