This article presupposes that:

• You have little or no knowledge of building a website.
• Have little technical knowledge of web design and
  development.
• Have little or no knowledge of HTML. (If you did, you
  probably would not be reading this!).
• Have no time to learn HMTL.
• You have a strong desire to build a web site (it can only
  even be 1 page) and get it on the World Wide Web
  fast.


The basic steps you need to take are as follows:

1. Register your domain name. (A domain name is your
    unique address on the internet).
2. Sign up with a web hosting company (ISP - Internet
    Service Provider).
3. Create your website.
4. Upload it to the internet via your web hosting
    company's server.

That's it!


Quite simple, isn't it? But for the newbie it holds a certain fear, like getting into a car for the first time to learn how to drive. Well, put your fears aside. Anyone who knows how to surf the internet can build a website. I will not go into the subject of why you would want to build a website, or what content you will need for your website, or whether your website is for business or pleasure. I will be your driving instructor if you like. I will describe the basics to get you on the road and driving. Where you go from there is your choice.


1. Registering your domain name. There are a number of companies you can contact to get your chosen domain registered. Some will register your domain name for free provided that you also signed up for web hosting. Others will give you free hosting but will want to show advertisements on your site and use their generic domain name.


To keep matters simple, I am going to assume that you will pay for your domain registration and web hosting and will use the same company for both. Domain registration and web hosting are not expensive these days, and you can shop around for the best deal. Type 'web host' or 'web hosting' in your Google or Yahoo or other search engine to get names of web hosting companies.


Of course, like everything else, you get what you pay for. I use several host providers for my sites, including Awareindia a company I've outsourced and which has proven to be good value. They also offer domain registration.


(If you want to build many websites and host them with one Internet Service Provider who offers unlimited domains and subdomains with the same package, I recommend D9hosting who I also use as one of my ISPs).


Assume you want to register mysite.com as your domain. You would use the domain search engine usually provided by the domain registrar / ISP to find out whether this site name is available. (You do not need to join the ISP to find out whether your chosen domain is available.)


Once your domain name is registered and you sign up with the web hosting company they will confirm the registration and 'park' your domain page on the internet until you are ready to upload your web site. They will also give you important information that will be necessary to upload your site - i.e., the FTP server address, your username and password. Keep this information in a safe place. You will need it later to log on to your web host's server.


2. Building your website. All you need to do now is to build your website. There are many web editors and templates that you can use to build your site. You can use cutting edge editors like Dreamweaver and you will probably want to use one after you've got a bit more experience of web building under your belt.


I have found that one of the most intuitive and easy to use web editors is XSitePro. It is excellent for the newbie as well as the professional for quick and easy website building. If you can use a word processor, you can build a website with this editor. (This site was built with XSitePro).

You get excellent tutorials with it and you can be building your own web site in a matter of hours. The learning curve is short. You don't have to learn HTML, the markup language you had to know in the 'old' days in order to construct web pages. With XSitePro and similar web creation software you can now create a web page with the click of a button. You can also export the site into Dreamweaver if you want to edit it further or to use the easy uploading interface of Dreamweaver. There is also an XSitePro forum where you can get help.



3. Uploading your website. What will give you great pleasure is to see your creation on the World Wide Web. You can upload your website via XSitePro's Publishing interface or the Dreamweaver interface, or use an FTP program like Filezilla (which is free), or even use your Internet Explorer browser to drag and drop your files into your web host provider's server.



Search the internet or your web host provider's site for tutorials on how to upload your website. Basically, you would log on to your web host provider's server and upload your files into the directory designated by your web host provider - usually a directory called public_html. Remember to upload all web site files and most importantly your home page or index file (which is normally named index.html). Without your index.html file the browser will not be able to find your website. And, if everything has been done correctly, you will see your brand new web site on the internet by typing in your domain name.


Simple, really. Give it a try. You will make mistakes but there are no better tutors than Messrs.Trial and Error.


Good luck.

PS

For detailed video instructions on each of the above steps click on MinisiteSecretsRevealed.

Tenjacks
25 June 2008

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