With the new era of technology and online facilities, many are trying to have an online presence through various online means. This includes setting up a business website to promote their companies’ products and services or simply creating a personal blog to to share about their interests and passions. This is one of the reasons why many people, even though not web designers or developers, are going for the do-it-yourself web design instead of spending quite some bucks to pay for a professional. This simple and straight forward article will help all newbies who are getting started in the web to set up their own website or blog.
What will you really need to get started with your website?
If you really want to build and set up a proper and well-coded website, you will definitely need to know about HTML; Hyper Text Markup Language, which is the language use through the web. However, if you are not familiar with HTML, you can still go for a ready-made website template or CMS (Content Management System). Two main things that you will need to put a website online is firstly a domain name which is the actual web address of your website and secondly you will need a web hosting service.
Domain names are in the format of http://websitetrafficz.com (also known as a Fully Qualified Domain Name – FQDN). The last part of the name e.g .com or .net is known as its extension (or top level domain) and extensions are normally based on the nature of the website where .com refers to commercial sites, .net to networking sites, .org to non-profit organizations or .gov to governmental websites.
How to obtain a domain name?
A domain name should be purchased from an authorized registrar. The price could vary depending on the extension you are buying. I will suggest buying domain name from Godaddy.com. After you have acquired your domain name, the next thing is getting your web hosting services.
Where to go for web hosting?
There are many companies and websites out there offering web hosting services. However, you will need to be very careful about choosing your web hosting provider. Not only the pricing and features are important but reliability and support are a must. What is the purpose of paying cheap for hosting when your sites are almost always down (offline)! That is why it is important to try and test the hosting services of the company before hosting your websites with them. I recommend that you go for a trial or free hosting plan before upgrading so that you can see both the good and the bad of their products and services. One that I would recommend after having been with them for more than 3½ years now; follow this link to be guided to their hosting services page. So, why do we need web hosting?
The main reason for our need for web hosting is simply that we will need some spaces online to place our files so that they may be viewable, readable and accessible internet users.
I have a domain name and I have web hosting. What do I do now?
Set up your domain name & hosting
Well, now that you have your domain name and hosting, you will need to connect the two. When people type in your website address (domain name) in their computer browser, they will have to end up seeing the web pages you created for them to see. These web pages are stored on your hosting server and in order to be viewable, your domain name or web address should point to these files. So, after buying your domain name, you will have to point it to the DNS or Nameservers of your hosting provider. It will take between 24-72 hours for a complete DNS propagation. So, don’t worry if your website is down or on and off during this period. After that your domain name will be showing up what you have hosted on your hosting space. Note that to change the nameservers of your domain name to that of your hosting provider, you will have to do so in the control panel where you buy your domain and also add the domain name in your hosting control panel.
If you are buying hosting services from the registrar you bought your domain name from, then there is no need to modify the nameservers information.
To add or modify the content of your website, you can use the hosting control panel’s file manager or ftp which is also quicker.
Hope the above help you and if you need other information, feel free to contact me through the website. I will be happy to help you out…