Steps to build a website

If you are new to this making website stuff you need to now the basic steps to fulfill your endeavor. Each of these steps needs posts of their own to cover them in full detail. Here I will give you some simple explanation about each site.
Without further delay let me tell you these steps.

In above image you can see the steps. It is not essential to follow these steps in this sequence but its better if you do.
Lets me explain these steps one by one.
1. Select Domain:

Choosing a appropriate name is must to every website and you should never take it lightly. Most of the online website and blog making services provides subdomains to host your websites on. Blogger provides yoursite.blogspot.com, on wordpress.com your get yoursite.wordpress.com and so on. I strongly suggest you stay way from subdomain hosting if you are even a little bit serious about your site. 
If you want to start a personal blog then you can choose youname.com as your domain but for a website aimed at promoting any business domain should relate to what your business is about. For example for a plumber named John located in New Jersey newjerseyplumber.com is a better name then johntheplumber.com.
Few simple things that you should keep in mind when selecting domain:

• Your domain should be short and simple
• Try to get a .com domain but if your target people lives in some specific country you can always choose specific extension of that country. If both .com and your country specific domain are available always go for .com.
• Try not to get a domain with hyphen(-). Its difficult to tell by mouth.
• For business website get a domain which tells about your business. domain should contain words describing your business.

2. Get web hosting space:

If you are hosting your own website then you will need a good web hosting service like hostgator or bluehost. Web hosting space is the space you need to store on a server which will stay always on and deliver your website whenever someone visit your site. Always go for a quality and well renowned host or you may loose a lots of customer/visitor.
If you use online website building services like weebly or wix you will not have to worry about this step.
People who wants to host their blogs on blogger, wordpress.com or tumblr don’t need any web hosting. Their blogs are hosted on the respective service. If you want full control and want to install WordPress on your own service you will need a web hosting. Go for a host with cpanel and fantastico. With fantastico you can install WordPress with only few clicks.
Most important quality you need to look for in any web host is their tech support. If your website is down and your web hosting provider is out of your reach for long period you are totally doomed.
For better hosting with cpanel and fantastico I suggest using Hostgator or Bluehost web hosting. They are in business for years and host more than million websites each. I too use Hostgator to host my websites.

3.  Build your website:

This is the last and most difficult step. If you are building a blog you are in luck. All blogging services provide nice looking templates and themes to design your blog to your liking. Self hosted WordPress users have even more options as lots of free and paid themes are available for them to download and install on their blogs.
For business websites, you can use weebly or wix and you will have a lot less to worry about. There are many template option for various type of website and you can create pages with ease.
If you want to built a static HTML website you can download free or paid templates available at various websites. You will need basic understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript to accomplish the task.
If you want a dynamic website with contact forms and other such things it will need knowledge of more technologies. You can always hire a web developer to get your website done but that will cost a lot.
For more information read create website for free. In that post I have written about various services where you can create your website or blog for free.

These steps are simple but there is lot to think about when making choices. I will write about these steps in details later. If you want to keep track please subscribe to this blog by filling your email in the form located I sidebar.

Read More

How to create a website for free

I believe you know basic steps about creating a website. If you don't read this post titled Steps to build a website.
There is a serious misconception among beginners who want to create website that to make website one needs to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript or advanced web programming languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, C#, Visual basic etc.
There were days when knowing these technologies was must. But now to make a basic (or sometimes advanced) website you do not need to know programming or scripting.
If you know about correct tools you can create some beautiful looking and fully functional websites without learning any of the above mentioned technologies.
There are many services out there where you can create your website and host them. Some of them and free and some are paid.

Before starting a website you should know the purpose of your website. Few people just want to share their daily activities or keep an online journal, for them creating a blog is enough. If you are want to build a website for your business a blog will not suffice and you will need a full blown website with webpages ranging from business introduction to online store where your customers can order your products (This is only required if you want to sell your products or services online).
Creating a blog is very simple and you can create your blog online in few minutes and that too for free. There are many online services where you can create your blog in next few minutes. Lets evaluate most popular options.
1. Blogger.com :

Blogger.com makes blogging so easy that you don’t have to see any code ever(although you can). You can create blog at blogger.com in few minutes and you are good to go without spending a single dime. This service is owned by Google. You blog is hosted at Google server so no need to find a quality hosting service.

2. Wordpress:

Wordpress in most popular platform used by most of the advanced bloggers. Wordpress comes in 2 flavors. You can go to wordpress.com and create blog just like blogger.com and start blogging. You blog is hosted at wordpress.com and you don’t have to worry about buying hosting. Second option that most advanced blogger opt for is to download copy of blogging software from wordpress.org and install it on their purchased hosting space. This second option gives you more control as you have full access to the blog platform’s code and you can alter it according to your needs.

3. Tumblr.com:

This is a new service compared to blogger or wordpress. It is recently acquired by yahoo. This is a interesting blogging service in respect that it is not only a blog hosting service it’s a community of people who blog and read each other’s blogs.

4. Weebly.com:

Weebly is not only a blogging platform, you can also create full fledged websites with various fancy bells and whistles. It has a basic free plan with some constraints and paid plans if you want more features. You can choose your plan according to your needs. For beginners free plan suffice.

There are numerous other services but I suggest you create your blog at one of these reputed and time tested service.
If you want to create a website with more function than that of a blog you can use one of below mentioned services.
1. Weebly.com :

I myself use this service to create websites whenever required as this service makes it so easy to build beautiful and professional looking websites. You simply have to choose templates click on buttons according to your needs and you are done. You can also add your custom domain(example: websiteown.com) for free for which competing services like wix.com charges.

2. Wix.com :

Wix.com is like weebly where you have plenty of design options and easy to use interface to build websites with all the functionalities you will ever need. Wix offers a free plan with lots of constrains and various paid plans. You can choose plan according to your need. One thing that always make me stay away from this service is that you have to pay for adding your own domain name. On free plan your site stay on subdomain like yoursite.wix.com. 

3. Google Sites:

Google Sites offers a free alternative where you can create your business or personal website for free. It also offers push button website builder but it has less functions as compared to Weebly or Wix. There is no paid plans here and everything is free. 

There are many more free and paid alternative to those  I have mentioned above. I am not mentioning them here because because of two reasons. First, above mentioned services are time tested and reliable and secondly, I have used them and found them as better fit for beginners who don’t want to spend money at start.
I will keep on adding more services if I find them suitable for beginners. If you know about some service please let me know in comments below.

Read More