Image source: pixabay.com
Are you setting up your own company/business and you are worried about how to create a web site? You are not a techie and have absolutely no idea about creating a web site? Thinking of building a web site for the first time? If you are the one with any or all of these questions in your mind, then don’t worry at all. Creating a web site is no more complicated or requires technical knowledge. Building a web site isn’t something you should probably do but is a ‘must do’ part of your business now. If you are the one who has got no online presence till now then I am sorry to inform you that you have been left far behind. Act swiftly and get on to fight with the competition. Time is the essence behind creating a web site and if you want to catch up to your share in the market, act now. You can create a web site on your own or you outsource it to a freelancer or an agency but you must have your online presence which can just be simple forefront initially.
Having an online presence does not imply that you create a web site haphazardly. You should always remember not to sacrifice on quality in the marketing arena. Your web site is an asset to your business. Don’t just consider it to be a marketing strategy and never compromise on the quality. Quality web site does not equate to a complex designed web site. The bells and glitters can wait till you come up with a high quality content web site with a really simple design. It will definitely gain more attention and traffic than a complex designed poor quality web site. Here is the step by step guide to get your web site up and running in no time!
Get the best web site building platform for your web site
Before deciding on the domain name or the best web hosting site for your web site, you should choose the best web site building platform for your web site. By ‘web site platform’ I mean, a user friendly content management system for building your web site and managing your own content instead of using a number of loose HTML pages. Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress have made web site creation easy and accessible to everyone this year. Long hours and loads of coding and design skills are a passé now. The three most popular web site building platforms in 2015 are WordPress with nearly 50% of overall coverage, Drupal with 17% coverage and Joomla with 5% of overall coverage.
Opt for an appropriate domain name for your web site
The excitement and the brainstorming you do before naming a baby is similar to choosing a domain name for your web site. It needs to suit with the features, functioning and character of the web site. Naming the domain on the name your business will make it easy for people to look for it. For eg. If you have a business of education and you name your site as skilful India then it would be a little difficult for people to look for your site. The name distinguishes your web sites from the other web sites already online. Your domain name should be in the form “your-web site-name.com” like “gmail.com” but you need to register this name with the registrar to get the right to use it and pay an annual fee for it. This is the only step where you would need to pay a specific amount.
However, creating a web site using a web site builder gives you the advantage of having a domain name for free. For example, if you are using “WordPress.com” as the web site builder, your domain name will be in the form “your-domain-name.wordpress.com”. Either way, the name should be unique and should reflect the content that your web site is going to contain.
A few tips-
mostly use your name as your domain name. For example, “preetimukta.com”, it gives the viewers a better chance to remember your web site.
Avoid using numbers, insert special characters like dashes instead.
.com is the most preferred extension though you can also use .net, .org, etc.
Getting your domain name registered doesn’t get you a live web site, it’s like registering your restaurant name to the municipal corporation but the restaurant is not up and running yet.
Choose the best Web host and sign up or Host your own web site
Now that you have a name for your web site, you need a home to host it i.e you have a legally registered name for your restaurant and now, you need premises where customers can visit. To do this, you need to find a Web host (web host is a company with many computers connected to the Internet). In order to make your web site accessible to the world, you need to place your web pages on the computers of the Web host. Once you have selected your Web host, sign up to create an account and you point your domain to that account on your web host. The popular Web hosts you can go through are DreamHost, Blue Host, GoDaddy etc. This is one of the few options. You can also host your web site on your own. This is one of the options. You can also host your web site on your own where you do not have to depend on the limited access provided to you by your Web hosting service. You have an office of your own with your own computer and other tools required to host a web site, like Internet connection, etc. You are the authority who handles the entire process and hence, you need not pay anything extra for any storage utility. In short, you are the BOSS!
Though this is very appealing, there are a few hitches. Having your own set of equipment to host your own website will cost you a lot. It is very expensive. Also, you need a continuous, high bandwidth Internet connection which doesn’t come cheap. You can only handle all of it on your own if you have sound knowledge of the equipment you will be using because you won’t have a well-trained and experienced technical staff working for you. There can be some major and minor errors while working, you should be able to solve them.
Design your web site
The word ‘web pages’ in the previous step is what constitutes the web site. The thing that covers the screen when you click on a link to any web site is a web page. Your web site can have many web pages depending upon the content of your web site. The actions you perform on one web page leads you to the next one. Web pages are basically the style and soul of your web site. Your web site will look exactly what you make your web pages look like. So, it becomes crucial to appealing web pages with fluid translation to the next web page. If you are designing your web site, you need to have knowledge of HTML language which is used to design the content layout of the page and CSS for styling. If you have hired a professional web designer to do the job then you need not worry about the programming part. If you are using a web site builder, all the themes and designing elements are already provided, all you need to do is drag and drop the elements onto your web page.
An ‘About me’ Page
You must have an ‘About me’ page. This page describes what your web site consists of, its features and a list of things distinguishing it from other similar web sites. The ‘About me’ page makes your web site a lot more trustworthy. It is your way of directly communicating with your viewers. So, be very honest and give a detailed description of your web site.
Choose a unique Theme
Apart from your domain name, the other thing that makes your website one of a kind is the theme of your web site. The visual graphics are bound to catch everyone’s eyes and reflects what your web site is all about.
But make sure your theme is not very over-powering because you do want the other elements on your web page to be visible and easily accessible. Keep it simple and unique.
Arrangement of elements on your web pages
The flow of your web site should be user-friendly. It should be logically correct. You cannot have the ‘submit’ button before the user has entered his details. Also, the ‘log in’ or ‘sign up’ widgets should be positioned such that the user doesn’t spend much time searching for it.
Make sure the important and required elements are well within the sight and the extra elements do not cover the page. The main reason for your web site is to give your viewers a hassle-free experience and it is the designing that is crucial.
Examine and test your web site
Testing is something you should be doing throughout the process of creating your web site. This ensures that there are no bugs or issues with any functionality of your web site. With every web page you create, check if it’s working on all the major Internet browsers like Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc. These browsers are free of cost and hence, availing them for testing is not a concern. There is no other way to test how efficiently your web site is working because eventually, it’s on these browsers that your web site will be operating on.
Make sure that you test all your web pages working thrice or four times before being sure. Any errors after the web site is online will cost you your viewers. Also, validate your web pages so as to ensure that your web site will work on all the future versions of the browsers.
Time to make people aware
Finally, your web site is up and running and so, it’s time to gather viewers. Basically, it means you need to make sure that your web site is SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISED (SEO). To make your web site noticeable, you need to submit it to search engines like Google and Bing. Use the following links to do so:
Google’s Link Submission Page
Bing’s Site Submission Page
These search engines only help the viewers to visit your web site but what is more important is to make the people aware that your web site exists. This can be done by publicising and promoting your web site. Go traditional by putting ads on magazines and newspapers or use the widest network, Internet, to promote your web site. Placing ads on search engines and using Internet companies for press releases which can help your site to be acknowledged by other sites and blogs.
Keep updating your web site as per requirement
If you are worried that once created and hosted, you cannot make changes to your web site then don’t be. You are the creator of your web site, any changes you wish to make later on in the future, and you can always do so by using the editing tool provided by your host. Also, you can download web site editing software like ActiveState Komodo, HTML-kit, etc.
You also need to take the feedback of the customers into account and modify your web site accordingly. This will help your customers believe that you are here to serve them. So, do have a method of obtaining customer feedback and don’t ignore their complaints. They will praise your efforts only when you appreciate theirs.
Don’t sit back, KEEP WORKING!
As tempting as it may seem, your work is not yet over. Building and hosting your web site is just the beginning, you need to maintain and refresh it from time-to-time. The last thing you want is your web site to become outdated and stagnant. Don’t let your hard work go into waste. Make your web site look new every month, add new features to it, change the look by changing the themes or colour patterns. Invest in your web site, not just financially but with your efforts and your time.
So, this is the complete guide to building your own incredible web site. Now that you know what lies ahead, hopefully, you will enjoy each and every bit of this experience because having your own web site gives you recognition, it’s like your personal brand and not to mention that it is currently in trend.
The post How to Create a Web site? appeared first on eduCBA.