In this day and age, running a website is not only desirable for businesses and "tech nerds," but can also be a valuable and fun asset for an individual.
Building a website can be fun and easy, and is achievable by anyone willing to spend a little time and learn a few new things.
Before you are ready to launch your first website, you will need to understand the basics of how websites work.
The first major component in a website is hosting.
The term "hosting" simply refers to the computer and network that contains all of the data for your website.
Hosting is typically purchased through a web host company, but can also be done in-house for corporations or more experienced administrators.
Hosting your own website is a complex venture and is beyond the scope of this paper.
When you purchase website hosting through a company, you are actually purchasing disk space, processing power, and network bandwidth.
In the past, web hosts would typically charge based on network bandwidth, so larger, more popular websites would cost more to operate.
Today, hosts that offer unlimited monthly bandwidth are common as technology has advanced and competition has driven the prices down.
Finding a suitable host is easy, and can be done by simple web searches.
Hosting plans offer a wide range of services and resources, so rather than recommend specific hosting companies here, I will leave it up to the reader to find one that suits their individual needs.
The next thing you will need before you can launch your first website is a domain name.
The domain name is the common.
com,.
net, etc.
address you see all over the web.
This is the name that your website will be known by, so you will obviously want to put some time and thought into selecting an appropriate one.
You will also need to spend time searching for an available name that suits your planned website.
Private domain names have been available for nearly two decades, and many common or single-word names have already been registered.
The domain name is purchased through what is known as a registrar.
Many web host companies are also registrars, so you may want to take that into consideration when selecting your web host.
Having your hosting and domain registration in one place can be convenient.
Once registered, a domain name points to the DNS (domain name system) servers for the company hosting your website.
After the hosting and domain name are purchased and set up, it is time to build your website.
There are many different approaches to building a website, and they cover the entire spectrum of complexity and expense.
If you decide to try designing and building the site on your own, you will need to do a little bit of research and learn a few things.
A very popular way to deploy a personal website today is to use WordPress blog authoring software.
WordPress is very simple, powerful, and easy to install.
Furthermore, you can choose to build your site as a blog style site, using posts and categories, or as a typical website with static pages.
WordPress is free, and more information can be found at WordPress.
org If you really want to get into learning web design, you could try learning HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) do build your page.
These are relatively simple markup languages that are used for the majority of website design today.
Learning them takes some time, but they are intuitive and easier to learn than most high-level programming languages, such as C++.
The third option for building your web site is to have a professional web designer build it for you.
This is the most expensive option, but for the less experienced, it can often be the best.
Professional web designers will talk with you about your vision for your website, capture your individuality, but also offer helpful design advice and implement industry standards.
Whichever route you choose, you will certainly discover that building a website can be cheap, easy, personally and professionally beneficial, and a lot of fun.
Building a website can be fun and easy, and is achievable by anyone willing to spend a little time and learn a few new things.
Before you are ready to launch your first website, you will need to understand the basics of how websites work.
The first major component in a website is hosting.
The term "hosting" simply refers to the computer and network that contains all of the data for your website.
Hosting is typically purchased through a web host company, but can also be done in-house for corporations or more experienced administrators.
Hosting your own website is a complex venture and is beyond the scope of this paper.
When you purchase website hosting through a company, you are actually purchasing disk space, processing power, and network bandwidth.
In the past, web hosts would typically charge based on network bandwidth, so larger, more popular websites would cost more to operate.
Today, hosts that offer unlimited monthly bandwidth are common as technology has advanced and competition has driven the prices down.
Finding a suitable host is easy, and can be done by simple web searches.
Hosting plans offer a wide range of services and resources, so rather than recommend specific hosting companies here, I will leave it up to the reader to find one that suits their individual needs.
The next thing you will need before you can launch your first website is a domain name.
The domain name is the common.
com,.
net, etc.
address you see all over the web.
This is the name that your website will be known by, so you will obviously want to put some time and thought into selecting an appropriate one.
You will also need to spend time searching for an available name that suits your planned website.
Private domain names have been available for nearly two decades, and many common or single-word names have already been registered.
The domain name is purchased through what is known as a registrar.
Many web host companies are also registrars, so you may want to take that into consideration when selecting your web host.
Having your hosting and domain registration in one place can be convenient.
Once registered, a domain name points to the DNS (domain name system) servers for the company hosting your website.
After the hosting and domain name are purchased and set up, it is time to build your website.
There are many different approaches to building a website, and they cover the entire spectrum of complexity and expense.
If you decide to try designing and building the site on your own, you will need to do a little bit of research and learn a few things.
A very popular way to deploy a personal website today is to use WordPress blog authoring software.
WordPress is very simple, powerful, and easy to install.
Furthermore, you can choose to build your site as a blog style site, using posts and categories, or as a typical website with static pages.
WordPress is free, and more information can be found at WordPress.
org If you really want to get into learning web design, you could try learning HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) do build your page.
These are relatively simple markup languages that are used for the majority of website design today.
Learning them takes some time, but they are intuitive and easier to learn than most high-level programming languages, such as C++.
The third option for building your web site is to have a professional web designer build it for you.
This is the most expensive option, but for the less experienced, it can often be the best.
Professional web designers will talk with you about your vision for your website, capture your individuality, but also offer helpful design advice and implement industry standards.
Whichever route you choose, you will certainly discover that building a website can be cheap, easy, personally and professionally beneficial, and a lot of fun.