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Everything You Need To Know To Get Your Idea On The Web
by Jason OConnor
More Web Hosting Articles
Published on this site: March 9th, 2010 - See
more articles from this month
If you want to get online and are wondering, "How can I get my
idea live on the Web in the form of a website?" you have three
choices: hire a Web vendor such as a Web designer to make it for
you, use an online template-based turnkey service or make it
yourself from scratch. This article is specifically for the Web
novice that simply needs a place to begin.
Every website consists of a domain name, a host provider and the
website content. To have a live website on the Internet, all
three things need to exist.
Today, there are countless services that offer all of this in
bundled packages. Yahoo, Earthlink, Go Daddy, Network Solutions,
Register, Domain, Host Gator and Domain Direct are just a few
examples of companies that offer everything you need to get up
and running. These companies can provide you with a domain name,
hosting services, and usually a template-based, turnkey website
creation service as well. Homestead is an online service that
allows you to create a website from a list of templates,
customize it and publish it on your own domain name.
And there are websites that allow you to create a blog for
instance, and they'll host it for you. Two examples are
Wordpress and Blogger. They are very easy to use, even for the
novice and you don't need to know any HTML.
The downside to template-based sites is that they are
cookie-cutter sites that risk looking a lot like other websites
(especially ones in the same industry). And if they don't allow
you to have your own domain name (like Blogger.com) then any
marketing efforts are severely diluted.
Finally, you could take the time to learn the craft of making
websites and make it yourself. This latter scenario is good for
two reasons. First, you'll save money in the long run by doing
it yourself and second, you'll always be able to manage and
update your site since you created it in the first place and you
have necessary skills. Of course the downside to this option is
that it takes a lot of time and dedication to learn the art and
technical skills necessary to make a website that works.
Regardless of the choice you make, you'll fare much better if
you understand the fundamentals of making a website. So let's
look more closely at the three parts that make up every website.
Domain Names
An example of a domain name is http://www.YourWebsite.com/. A
domain name is unique and contains two parts, the actual unique
name and the extension. A domain name is also called a URL (for
Universal Resource Locator). In the above example,
'YourWebsite' is the unique name and the '.com' is the .com
extension is the most popular U.S. extension. Other examples of
extensions are .net, .org, and .edu. Other countries use different
extensions. Britain is co.uk, Canada uses .ca and Russia uses .ru,
for example.
You buy domain names from registrars, basically domain name
brokers. There are many registrars in existence today. However, I
always use the original company that used to have a monopoly on
domain names back in the dawn of the Web, Network Solutions
(networksolutions.com).
To determine if a domain name is taken or not (remember, they all
have to be unique), just go to Network Solutions and type in the
name you are considering and you'll find out immediately if
it's available.
An important thing to remember when buying and managing your
domain name is that they are "rented" to you for a set period
of years. This means they expire. So if you don't stay on top of
it and renew, then you risk someone else grabbing your domain
name if you let it expire.
Also, it is infinitely better to have your own domain name than
it is to use an online service for your website. Online services
that offer you a website but the site "lives" on their domain
name are not as good because your marketing efforts are wasted.
For example, Blogger.com offers a service like this so that when
you create a blog, but your new domain name becomes YourWebsiteName.Blogger.com. Notice that it ends in blogger.com,
which is different than a site with your own domain name which
would be www.YourWebsite.com. If you market the first one, you
are actually marketing blogger.com, whereas if you market the
second one you are marketing yourwebsite.com.
A Host Computer (Server)
A physical computer where the content of your website is stored
is called a host computer or Web server. This server can be one
you own or one you rent from a hosting company. I recommend that
you use a hosting company since it is far cheaper and much easier
to manage. To access the content on a server, you type in the
domain name of an Internet-connected website, which then accesses
the content stored on the host computer and serves the content
back to you. (This is basically the same process as opening up
you're My Documents folder on a Windows machine and clicking on
a file, except on the Web, the file is located on another
computer.)
Simply put, if you want a new website you'll need a computer to
store it on that's hooked up to the Internet. There are a huge
number of hosting companies out there that will provide this
service for you, and often at very low prices. You can expect to
pay a set-up fee and a monthly fee. The set-up fee is sometimes
waived or could cost up to hundreds of dollars. And the monthly
fee can range from a few dollars a month up to hundreds of
dollars. Two popular hosting providers are GoDaddy.com and
Earthlink.net. For a first website you'll be a lot better off if
you use a hosting company.
The Content
The content of the website is the files that make up the site,
which can contain text, images, applications and media. Web
content can either be static or dynamic. Static content doesn't
change or move. Text and images in an HTML page are often static.
Dynamic content comes from a database and is processed at the
moment the user accesses it. Media content can be either audio or
video files.
Dynamic content is managed by Web applications and usually
accesses a database. Examples of website applications are forms
that ask the user to give contact information that the user
submits by clicking a button, or e-commerce where a user chooses
a product and buys it with a credit card. There are many other
types of applications on the Web as well.
What's important for you to remember is that creating Web
applications is more difficult and more expensive than putting
together a simple text and image website. This is because the
skill level required is higher for those who write code to create
applications and it usually takes more time to do. For a first
website, it's best to stay away from dynamic content and Web
applications. A simple text and image site will be enough for you
to start.
How a Website's Content is Organized and Goes Live
The simplest way to understand this is to consider an example.
Let's look at a three-page static website.
This hypothetical website contains a Homepage, an About Us page
and a Contact Us page. The homepage is accessed on the Internet
by typing the domain name (or URL) into your browser. When you
'arrive' at the homepage you'll see somewhere on the page two
hyperlinks (links are the building blocks of websites and the Web
as a whole). Links are generally blue and underlined. One link
will say 'About Us' and the other will say 'Contact Us'. When
you click on each one you'll be brought to that corresponding
Web page. Back on the homepage, this list of two links is often
called the 'navigation' or Nav bar. Most sites have many pages
organized under numerous sections. Their navigation consists of a
grouping of links that lead to each main section of the site.
In our three-page website example, the site contains a total of
three HTML pages that physically reside on a host computer.
To have gotten this site live on the Internet you would have had
to go to a domain name registrar (by going to their website or by
calling them) and purchasing an available domain name. You would
have then had to have the three static Web pages created (either
by someone you hired or yourself), and then you would have had to
have purchased a hosting service to provide a permanent place (a
server) for the three pages to reside. Finally, you need to make
sure that the hosting company associates your domain name with
the machine your website resides on. This is called setting the
DNS.
These three pages would sit there on the host computer, or
server, and await requests from people on the Internet typing in
your domain name into their browsers.
So to recap, here are the steps to making a website:
- Buy a unique domain name
- Buy a hosting service
- Create the website content (either by hiring a Web design
company, using an online service or doing it yourself) And many
online companies offer all three of these for one price
- Publish the content to the Internet by putting it on the
hosting server that is hooked up to your domain name.
- Ensure that the domain name is associated with your website
and host computer (setting the DNS, which stands for Domain Name
System).
Whether you hire a Web professional to do all these things for
you, use an online service or do it yourself, you'll need to
have each of these steps completed in order to get your site live
on the Web.
If you choose to hire a Web professional or use an online service
such as Network Solutions, GoDaddy or Homestead, you should ask
them if they take care of each of the above six steps. If so,
look at other sites that were made by them to see if they meet
your standards. And be sure that the site is built taking into
account what you want it to accomplish and who will be the
site's audience.
Copyright 2009 BusinessWebPageCreation.com
Jason OConnor is the owner of http://www.BusinessWebPageCreation.com/
and the author of The Ultimate Guide to a Successful Business
Website. Learn how to get a business website made:
http://www.businesswebpagecreation.com/resources/howToMakeWebsite.php
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