How to create a website?

Planning A Site

2007-08-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

You might think that you will plan the site later, after you buy the domain name (your site's address) and web space, but that would be the biggest mistake that you would make. Planning for the site must start much before you actually invest any money at all into it.

It is very important that you plan the following prior to starting building your website.

1) What is your website going to be about?

It is very important that you decide what content your site is going to hold. This is very important because it will decide who is your target audience, and will govern many important steps in the building of your website such as the domain name, amount of webspace required, and even the marketting tactics which you can use to get people to your website.

2) What is the name of your site?

Although, sometimes weird names like google or orkut do become popular, most of the times people remember websites which have names which are easy to remember such as download.com . Also the name you choose should be relevant to the content on your website, & it should be short. Choose a name wisely.

3) Deciding a domain name or sub-domain name.

A domain name is the address which people will type in their browser so as to get to your website (e.g. www.pharmaxchange.info ). It is very important that you choose a domain name which has the following characteristics:

a) It is something related to your website-
e.g. If your site is something related to medicine, a good domain name would be www.medicine.com
If the domain name is something which people can correlate to the content on your website, the person will remember your website better and be able to visit your site again with greater ease.

b) It should be short and simple-
domain names which are large and complicated are almost never remembered by people, thus if a person who wants to visit your site again would not be able to do so with ease, and that is not good. So it is important that a domain name is short and simple. e.g. A domain name for a site of a person called john ballack should not be www.mynameisjohnballack.com(too lengthy) or even www.j0hnballack.com (you probably don't see it but the 0 in j0hn is actually a numerical number and hence it is too complicated). A good domain name would be www.johnballack.com

c) What should it be? .com .info .edu .co
The domain name that you choose can have many extensions such as .com or .edu or .org or .net or .info . These extensions are very important nowadays. Since .com is the most popular exension, it is a good choice if you can get it. However, due to its popularity, most .com domain names have been taken, or they are very high priced. Due to these reasons it is better now to get a cheaper domain name of the other extensions like .net .org .edu or even .info. Again, you should choose an extension which people can correlate with your site- e.g. if your site is an educational site you should get a .edu extension.

d) Check for availability.
it is important that you check whether the domain name you want is available or not. Instructions on how to check for availability will be given in a later article on "domain name registration". In short though, you have to use a Whois tool to check for availability of domain names.

NOTE- KEEP ATLEAST THREE OR FOUR ALTERNATIVE DOMAIN NAMES IN YOUR MIND SO THAT EVEN IF YOU DONT GET ONE YOU CAN TRY ANOTHER.
ALSO IF THE DOMAIN NAME YOU LIKE IS AVAILABLE REGISTER IT BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE TAKES IT.

Think of domain names as virtual property, a good name can be sold by you anywhere between 10$ - 1000$. Although, it is rare that a person would buy a domain name which is that expensive, it is possible especially if your website beomes popular.

4) How much space you require and which service provider should you buy it at?

Once you have decided on what content you are going to hold on your website, you would have some idea of how much space the site requires. If the website has only textual content then anywhere between 50 - 200 mb of space should be enough, depending on the amount of content. But, if the site contains a lot of graphics, or downloadable softwares, you will require more web space - say anywhere between 100 mb to maybe even a few gb.

You must also look out for other things apart from the webspace that the service provider offers such as bandwidth, perl, php, e-mail ids, etc. All these will be covered in greater detail in an article for buying webspace which I will put up soon. For now it is just important to know the amount of space required.

5) Gestation period of your website.

You must determine approximately how much time it is going to take for you to develop the website so that it has the minimum content that your visitors can see. The website can grow later, but you should decide what is the content which you want on the site first so that visitors can come to your site, & how much time it is going to take for you to build it. Later you can add additional sections to make your website grow.

It is not important that you know exactly when you are going to start, but setting a deadline helps to work as per schedules.

6) The look of your site.

You should decide the look of your website immediately after you buy your domain name, & before you buy anything else. A more detailed article on what your website should look like will be given later. But the basic idea should be that you should draw a rough sketch of what your website should look like. Also if possible design a logo for your website.

7) Where is the money going to come from?

Depending on what kind of a website you have money to run it as well as profits can come from various sources. Advertising on your site is a great way to make money. Also if you are selling a product, that could be the source of your money. Or it could even be a local sponser like a shop or company.

A more detailed article on how to generate revenue from your website will be put up later. Remember a website will need some money to start, but it will produce profits over a period of time.

These 7 steps of planning are the most important steps which you can take to ensure a smooth begenning and an efficient running of your website. Apart from these points, you can plan other minor details as well, but these should not be ignored.

Why Build A Site?

2007-08-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

The very question might come to your mind is that why would I want to build a site? Well the question can be answered by the following points.

REASONS TO MAKE A WEBSITE:
1) If you have an idea which you want to express: The internet is a wide area where people can express their ideas freely, without any restrictions, and more often you might find people who share your thoughts.
2) If you have information on any topic or content like graphics or art which you would like to spread: People are searching the internet for information all the time. It has officially become the "Biggest Encyclopedia" for information. Sites with information are the most successful. Graphics and Art sites are also popular.
3) If you have company or product which needs to be popularized: Having a website for your company is an asset. It will popularize your company so that people all over the world can see it and learn about the products which you sell. It can also attract customers as well as investors. All big companies have one. Why shouldn't yours?
4) You can make some cash: A good way to make some money off the internet is by making a website. Make a website with some good content or information and advertise on it and you could make money out of it. You can make 20$ to 100$ a month off each website that you produce. But your site should have good content on it to attract visitors.

These are the best reasons I can think of as to why you should build a website. However, these may not be the only reason for you to build a site. Whatever the reasons for you to build a site are, with the help of this blog I hope that you can make a website which runs well and also provides you with profits and benefits.

Getting Started....Requirements

2007-08-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

When you are making a website, it is better to plan in advance what you are going to make and how you are going to go about it, before you buy your domain name (that is your website address like http://www.yourdomainname.com) or your web space to host your site, as these things require money and are billed annually, so if you buy these before planning you will be loosing time on your annual payments. So the first step would be to go about planning on how to get started.

Here is a step by step blog which will help you get started with your own website. Getting a website started requires several things so the first section is the basic requirements which are required for you to get started. Lets start off with a checklist:

1) TIME:
Building a website is not a one day job but rather a continuous process which must be done in order to maintain the website and to attract visitors to see the information you provide. Although I will make it easier for you to build your own website, it is upto you to dedicate time for it; only then will it be a successful venture. About 2-3 hours a week should suffice for your website to run well but depending on the content you provide the timings will change accordingly. Some sites might require a lot of dedication in the beginning in order to set up everything, but very little time would be required to watch over it, while others would require a continuous watch on the things that are happening. Dedicating time for your website is essential, apart from other things.

2) KNOWLEDGE:
Although people claim that you can't build a website without knowing programming, I beg to differ. With an array of softwares available, web-designing has become overly simple and even an 11 year kid who is fluent with operating a computer (and using software like word) can easily build a site.
But having knowledge about programming is always a plus point. You will save time if you have this knowledge especially when problems come in the programming area of a website. A little bit of knowledge is a good way to start off.
But do not be afraid if you don't know programming. You can start the site off without knowing much about it at all, but you should bother to learn little by little as you move on, which eventually you will do.

3) SOFTWARES:
Depending on what kind of a site you would like to open, a variety of softwares can be used.

A) HTML Editor:
If your site is small and you do not want to make it complicated, simple Microsoft Frontpage or even Word might do the trick. However, if you want a site with a little more content and want to manage it better, Adobe Dreamweaver (Formerly known as Macromedia Dreamweaver) is a particularly useful software.
Other softwares like Homesite are also there but personally I haven't tried others to recommend them.
B) Picture Editor:
Your site is bound to have graphics within it at some point or another. Whether it be your site's logo, or even the navigation buttons, it is important that you have a graphics editing software which you can use appropriately to get the best in your graphics.
If your site is small and low budget MS Paint will also suffice. But I would recommend that you go in for something more of the likes of Adobe Photoshop or even Corel Draw. There are many other graphic editing softwares available but I personally use Adobe Photoshop only.

C) FTP Software:

An FTP client is one which will help you put the content of your site from your computer onto the server where your site is going to be hosted (that is the computer which remains connected to the internet and holds your website so that others can see). There are many free FTP software out there. You can search for them at http://www.download.com . I use CuteFTP which is a commercial one (you have to pay for it). Although you do not need a commercial one and a free software will work just as well. Do not buy a FTP software if you don't have one, rather just download a free version software.
D) Add-On Softwares:
These are small softwares which will be helpful and I will discuss them later in individual sections as and when required. They are not essential and you can work without them.

4) INTERNET CONNECTION:
You need to have access to a good internet connection for you to upload files to your site, and to monitor your site. Also to be able to send and receive e-mails so that you can respond to them

5) DOMAIN NAME:
What is a Domain Name? You might ask? Well it is the name of the website which you type in the address bar of your web browser (like google.com or pharmaxchange.info or yahoo.com).
Although there are many free web hosts who will provide you with a subdomain (that is something like india.yahoo.com or yourname.geocities.com), I would advise you to get your own domain name. It costs anywhere between 2$ to 20$ a year depending on the type of domain name you will be chosing. I will be discussing on how to obtain a domain name in a later section in more greater details where I will give tips on what kind of a domain name you should be looking out for and how to go about buying it and setting it up. A good domain name is essential, and I am totally against getting a subdomain for your site.

6) WEB SPACE:
What is Web Space? Well that is basically space on the web. To be more precise, it is the space on the internet (on a computer which is on the internet for almost the whole time - called a server) where your site's data will be stored, and visitors who visit your site will access. Cost of webspace can range from 10$ a year to over 100$ a year, again depending on the type of service and the amount of space you will be chosing. A section covering a guide to buy domain names will be discussed at a later stage.
The person who sells this web space is called a web host and a good web host is very much important.

So excluding the cost of the Softwares, you can build your site using 20$ per year (i.e, United States of America dollars) and some time and a bit of effort.