How to Create a Website

adminMarch 19, 2023

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YOU ARE READING: How to Create a Website AT Vccidata_En

by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com

This tutorial will show you how to create or create a website. It is intended for beginners and amateurs alike and will guide you through the entire process step-by-step from the start. It makes very few assumptions about what you know (other than the fact that you know how to surf the web since you’re already reading this article on the web). Because some steps are more involved, this guide also includes links to selected relevant articles on thesitewizard.com that you must click through for more information.

The basic step-by-step guide to creating your own website

Get your domain name

The first thing you must do before anything else you should get a domain name. This is the name you want to give your website. For example, the domain name of the website you are reading is “thesitewizard.com”. To get a domain, you have to pay an annual fee to a registrar to get the right to use that name. When you get a domain, you don’t get a website or anything like that. It’s just a name. It’s like registering a company name in the brick and mortar world; Getting a company name doesn’t automatically grant you the business premises that go with it.

Reading: How to create a website in laptop
- For a detailed step-by-step guide on how to get a domain name and the things you need before registering, see How to register a domain name.
- If you haven’t decided on a domain name to buy yet, you can check out some tips for choosing a good domain name. For those who find their preferred domain is already taken, see Should I use a temporary domain name until my preferred domain becomes available? so that you do not unnecessarily put obstacles in the way of your own path.
- It may also be wise to take a look at some of the important precautions to take when buying a domain name, just so you don’t make the same mistakes as other newcomers make.
- If you’re tempted to skip this step entirely, see Is it possible to create a website without buying a domain name?
Those who have more questions about domains can take a look at my list of frequently asked questions about domain names.
Choose a web host and register for an account

A web host is basically a business that has many computers connected to the internet. When you place your web pages on their computers, anyone in the world can connect to and view them. You need to sign up for an account with a web host in order for your website to have a home. If acquiring a domain name is like acquiring a business name in the brick-and-mortar world, acquiring a web hosting account is akin to renting office or commercial space for your business.
- There are many problems in choosing a good web host. Read the article How to choose a web host to find out what to look out for.
  
  One factor that can affect your choice is whether or not to use SSL for your website. A website that uses SSL has a web address that starts with “https://” instead of “http://”. In the old days, webmasters usually only bothered to use it if they were selling goods and services and needed to collect credit card numbers, or if they had some sort of setup that required their visitors to log in with a password.
  
  However, nowadays the entire internet is slowly moving to a state where everything has SSL. So it’s a good idea for new websites to use it from the start. This way you can avoid the hassle and risk of converting an existing website from HTTP to HTTPS, which you may have to do in the future if you don’t do it from the start. For more information, please read the first few sections of this article, those that explain what SSL is (in more detail) and its pros and cons.
  
  As far as I know, all commercial web hosts generally have SSL certificates installed for your website. However, the price varies from company to company. Some will give you a certificate for free. Others install a free certificate for a one-time fee. Some require you to purchase a commercial certificate (which incurs a recurring fee). You may want to take this into account when comparing prices from different web hosts.
- Once you have an idea of what to look for, go to the Budget Web Hosting page to search for a web host.
See also: Hybrid Resume: Template and Examples for Any Job in 2023

After signing up for a web hosting account, you need to point your domain name to this location. For information on how to do this, see the guide How to point a domain name to your website (or what to do after purchasing your domain name).
Designing your web pages

Once you’ve decided on your domain name and web host, the next step is to design the website itself. In this article, I am assuming that you will do this yourself.If you hire a web designer to do this, you can probably skip this step, since they’ll do it on your behalf.
- While there are many considerations in web design, your first step as a beginner is to actually get something on the web. The fine-tuning can be done after you figure out how to publish a simple web page. One way is to use a WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) web editor to do this. Such editors allow you to design your page visually without having to deal with the technical details. They work like a normal word processor.
  
  There are a number of free and commercial web editors. If you’re using Windows, one of the best (free or otherwise) is Expression Web, developed by Microsoft. It was originally a commercial program sold in stores and the like, but the company eventually made it available for free. It has a full suite of features, along with the skewer and glitz typically only found in commercial software. My Expression Web tutorial walks you through the steps to create a fully functional multi-page mobile-friendly website. By “mobile-friendly” I mean that your website will work well on both desktop/laptop computers and the smaller screens of mobile devices such as phones and tablets. For information on how to get the editor, see the tutorial.
  
  Another free editor with versions for Windows, macOS and Linux is BlueGriffon. For instructions on how to get and use this editor, see the BlueGriffon tutorial. Like the Expression Web manual, the tutorial shows you how to use the software to design a multi-page, mobile-friendly website.
  
  If none of the above appeals to you, here are tutorials for other WYSIWYG web editors, including one for Dreamweaver, a commercial web editor, and KompoZer, another free (albeit very outdated) web editor. There are also numerous other programs listed on thefreecountry.com’s Free HTML Editors and WYSIWYG Web Editors page.
  
  If designing a website with a web editor seems very daunting to you, another alternative is to create a blog, which is basically a website where you post articles using just your browser ( ie no editor is needed). If that sounds like you, see How to create a blog for more details. Note that despite their name (which implies an online diary or journal), blogs can also be used for commercial websites where you sell things, so don’t rule them out as an alternative.
- While designing your website, you may want to read the article Appearance, Usability, and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design. It takes a quick look at some of the real-world problems that every web designer faces.
- An essential part of web design is search engine compatibility. Search engine advertising does not start after the website is built. That starts with web design. The article 6 tips to build a search engine friendly website is a must read. Furthermore, How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google is important for the simple reason that Google is the most popular search engine out there, at least as of the writing of this page.
- There are many other problems with web page design. The above will get you started. However, if you have time after putting something on the web, you might want to check out my other articles on web design and website promotion and search engine ranking.
Testing Your Website

Although I list this step separately, it should be performed during your web design cycle. I put it here to give it a little more emphasis as too few new webmasters actually do it properly.

You need to test your web pages while designing them in major web browsers. Nowadays this means checking your website in Chrome or one of its derivatives, Firefox as well as on your mobile phone. The latest version of Microsoft Edge, released on January 15, 2020, also qualifies as a Chrome derivative. So if you have it, you can use it instead of installing Chrome. The desktop browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and Edge) are all available for free.

Note that different brands of mobile phones do not have the same browser. Unfortunately, unlike the desktop browsers, phones aren’t usually free. So just test your website with whatever phone you have at the moment. However, if you have access to both an iPhone and an Android, check your site with both.

For those who have the time, you might also want to check out Internet Explorer 11, which is still used by some people (such as those using Windows 8.1 and earlier). For those who don’t have the required version of Windows (e.g. because you’re using a Mac or a newer version of Windows), you can get software called virtual machine, which mimics a completely separate computer running in your real one machine runs computer.Microsoft provides free packages that include the required version of Windows as well as different versions of Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge that you can run in your virtual machine to test your website. If you are interested, read How to Check Your Website with Multiple Browsers on a Single Machine article for more details.

See also: How to Start a YouTube Channel: 10 Brilliant Tips

If you want to improve the likelihood that your website will work in future versions of all web browsers, you should validate the code for your web pages. In layman’s terms, this means that you should check that your webpage’s underlying code, called “HTML” and “CSS”, does not have any syntax errors. You don’t actually need any technical knowledge of HTML and CSS to validate the page as you can use one of the many free website validators to do the hard work. On the other hand, if the validator tells you that your page has errors, it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what’s wrong (and whether the error is actually a serious one) if you don’t have the knowledge required. However, some validators actually make suggestions on how to fix the error.
Capturing Credit Card Information, Make Money

If you sell products or services, you need a way to collect credit card information. If so, take a look at How to Accept Credit Cards on Your Website. I also have a step-by-step guide to adding an order form or Buy Now button to a website using PayPal for those who use PayPal.

If you need advertisers for your website, you may want to read How to Make Money From Your Website and the follow-up article How to Increase Your Website Affiliate Program Revenue. For a list of advertisers and affiliate programs, see Affiliate Programs: Free Sponsors and Advertisers. These companies are constantly looking for new web publishers to display their advertisements.
Get attention to your website

Once your website is ready, you can submit it to the search engines. This requires you to create a webmaster account with both search engines, confirm that you own the site, and submit it to them. It’s free.
- Google Search Console
- Bing Webmaster Tools
In general, if your site is already linked from other sites, you can do so don’t even have to do the above. The search engines will probably find it themselves by following the links in these places.

Aside from submitting your website to the search engines, you probably also want to promote it in other ways, such as the design of the web: ads in the newspapers, word of mouth, etc. As per my article More Tips mentioned for placement of Google search engine results, you can also advertise in the various search engines. Although I only mentioned Google in this article as that was the topic of this discussion, you can also advertise on other search engines like Bing. This has the potential to rank your ad high on the search engine results page and possibly even on other websites.

There are also less obvious ways to promote your website that you may want to explore.

Conclusion

Of course, the above guide does not claim to be complete. It’s a summary of some of the essential steps to get started with your website. If you want more information, you should read the other articles on thesitewizard.com. However, the tutorial above should be enough to help you get your website online.

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How to reserve a domain name. Do you need a web host if you want to reserve a domain for future use?
Do I still have to pay a fee to keep my domain name after I’ve bought it? Can I change registrar? Can I cancel my domain name?
Is it possible to create a website without buying a domain name? The high price of “Free”.
Should you get a domain name with spaces or periods in between for better readability?
What does it mean to park a domain name? Domain Name Parking Explained
Should you choose a Linux or Windows web hosting package? Is there such a thing as a Mac web host?
Which web hosting package/plan should you choose? How to plan for the required traffic (bandwidth) and disk space
What is MySQL? What is a database? What is SQL?

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