How to build your own website?

Building or setting up your own website is no longer a very complicated process.  There are many tools and services out there that will allow you to build and manage your own website without any programming or special technical knowledge.  Here are a few easy tips and information that will aid you in this process.  Building a website consists of 3 elements:

 

A domain name is a website address such as www.yourbusinessname.com, which people will use to type into their internet browser to find and get to your website.  Domain registration is easy and there are plenty of registrars out there to choose from such as

• www.netiDnow.com
• www.godaddy.com
• www.registrar.com

When selecting your domain name its a good idea to keep it short and memorable.  If you are a small business owner, the domain name should refect your business name.  Its also good if the domain contains a specific keyword that people may use to find your website or service.  Most search engines will rank you website higher if the domain contains stretegic keyword in the name.
 

Perhaps the easiest way for an average person or small business owner to build a website is to use a website builder.  Website builders are usaully browser based apps so all you need is your internet browser to use them.  They provide you  with an easy to use  drag/drop or point and click interface for editing text, adding images, creating a navigation menu, and just about anything else required to build a fuctional website.   There are many website builders out there you can try for free.  Here are a few that have the most features.

• www.netiDnow.com
• www.wix.com
• www.squarespace.com

Most of the website builders will have website hosting included as part of the service which makes things even easier, as all your services are in one place and easy to manage.
 

In order for a website to be viewable/accessible online, it has to be published to web server and hence its called web hosting.  As we already mentioned most of the website builder services out there will include hosting so that the website you created will be automatically published to their hosting servers.  In case you are building your website manually using html or decided to build it with some other software/app which does not include web hosting, you will need to find a web host to publish your website to.  There are many choices for web hosting services, here a few of the most established.

www.godaddy.com
www.hostgator.com
www.bluehost.com

Hopefully this quick guide on how to build your own website helps you out.  The information contained here is of general nature and should get your started.  However, there are many other things to consider when building a successful website that actually works and brings in businesss.  While just about anybody can build a website, not everybody knows all of the things that make it user and search engine friendly.  Part of making your webiste successful is to know how to rank it in the search engines so that it brings in traffic. This however is a much more involved topic we will cover in another article.