So you want a site? (part 1 of 4)
Posted on April 30, 2005
This article addresses anyone who would like to have a site and is looking to find out what it takes to have it.
Note: the explanations bellow are really basic and light, therefore they might seem incorrect to anybody knowing the Web development slang.
There are 3 main issues you have to take care when thinking in having your own site:
- Having a domain name - e.g. mysite.com
- Having the content for the site (web application)
-
Having the server to host the content
Having a domain
This is a simple one. You just have to own a name for your site, which is called a domain name. In order to see your site, people will have to type in the browser your domain name: e.g. yoursite.com. The most complicated part about having a domain name is to find one suitable: it might be difficult to find one available, but there are some online tools that will help you find one. Here you have one: http://www.nameboy.com/ - just type in the name for your site and you’ll find out if its available and have some other suggestions for it. Just play around until you find one that you like and its available.
After finding your preferred domain name you just have to buy it. To make it simple, head to http://www.enom.com (the first domain names provider that comes into my mind, there are plenty others) and register your domain.
Having the content for the site
This one is difficult. You need to have some content in your site and in order to have it you need to know a little coding. Just point your mouse anywhere on this page and right click your mouse and chose View Source. You’ll see what I’m talking about. The unreadable text you’ll see is HTML, the most common code for making sites. As you might not know to code, there are simpler ways to create the content for your site based on free software available, the so called CMS - Content Management Systems applications. The CMS are web applications that have user friendly GUIs where you can type in the content just like you do when writing a Ms Word document. To install such of software, you have to look for a hosting company that offers this service for free (see more bellow at the host section) or have someone paid to install it for you.
Having the server to host the content
This one is simple. You now have the content, and the domain. You have to publish them in order to be available to the public. You have to find a hosting company that will offer you some space on a server to copy the content, and point the domain to it. Once you have this done, everybody typing in the browser your domain will be able to see your content. If you are living in Europe, there is one Web host that I particularly enjoy for the reliability of the services, and you can find it here.
In the next parts I will describe more about each of the three steps above.
Related posts- Romanian Entrepreneurship Blog
- Entrepreneurs: role model in local business
- Where did that site go?
- Part time business life-cycle (part2)
- How do the spiders see my site?
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