In today’s fast world, nobody should be without a website. It is amazing that there are a lot of businesses that have not yet found their way online. I built my very own website back in 1999 and I have been hooked ever since! There are all sorts of tools available for people that literally create websites for you without having to know a single thing about HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) or Cascade Style Sheets! Not only that, with the development of blogging platforms such as WordPress and Blogger, you have thousands of already built templates to choose from.
If you are not a tech savvy person and need help with building your own website, do not worry. I am going to outline everything that you will need to know in order to be a successful webmaster. Hopefully by reading this you will be able to bring your business online and benefit from having your presence on the web.
Deciding where to build your website
What I mean by this is that there are two options available. A person could build a website on their own domain and get a host, which obviously has some cost related to it. The second option has to do with getting a free blog on places such as WordPress or Blogger.
There are a few reasons why a business would want to host everything on their own domain instead of going with a free option. The word “domain” refers to the name of a website. For example, businessamateur.com is a domain name. We have our own host that we pay for in order to make this website live on the Internet.
Good thing about having your own domain and hosting is that a person has complete control over the content presented on their website. A domain costs somewhere around $9 for the whole year. Hosting cost depends on a few variables such as how many people visit your website and how much data transfer you need. One could always start out low and upgrade the account later when the need arises.
On the other hand if you choose to host your business or personal website on Blogger, you would get a domain name such as yourname.blogger.com. Whatever name you want to choose, you will have the word blogger attached to it. Since this is a free service and you are hosting everything on their server for free, there are some downfalls. One of the main concerns is that your account could be suspended and shut down permanently.
I personally do not recommend using a free hosting service if you are serious about your business. The low cost of buying a domain and hosting these days makes it extremely easy for you to build your own website.
Domain name for my website
So you have decided to build your own website. Good choice! Now lets see what options are available to you when it comes to getting a good domain name. As I have mentioned earlier, it costs somewhere around nine dollars per year to own a domain name. Any company that charges you more is probably not providing anything significantly better. I personally recommend Namecheap because they have an extremely clean interface that is easy to use. If you are aware of GoDaddy, that is another domain name service that is reliable.
Hosting for my website
Getting a reliable host is the most crucial thing to your website. If you do not have a good hosting company that can keep your website online, your business will suffer tremendously! Let me stress that point again – Get a good host!
Having said that, I recommend going with Hostgator. Many people choose to go with hosting provided by their domain name companies. Namecheap and GoDaddy do provide hosting solutions for people. Do not get a bad hosting company just to save a dollar. Do your research at places such as Web Hosting Talk.
Content management software
Managing your content has become so easy with WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla!
In fact, one of these content management systems is running on business amateur as well! You cannot go wrong despite what choice you make for your business. It usually only takes a couple minutes to install the software on your website and its extremely easy to use! All software comes with templates so you do not even have to build a web page. If you are not happy with the default option, you can research on Google to find one that you like. The best thing is, the content management software is all free! Yep, we love open source options!
Its understandable that building your first website can be a challenging task. With a little bit of knowledge and some help from freely available software, it can be as easy as 1 2 3 to build your first homepage. The more you practice, the more you will learn and get better at it. So get out there and crank out your first website!