Creating your own website can be useful for a variety of purposes. Whether you want to share your knowledge on a certain topic, start an online business, promote a community, or simply keep an online journal of your activities, having a website will allow you to make your content accessible from any connected computer. Theoretically, it could also allow you to have a larger audience for your ideas than you ever would. If you have useful ideas or observations to share, you can share them with a few dozen people throughout the day if you’re lucky. With a website, you can share them with hundreds or even thousands.
Having a basic understanding of HTML coding can help you design your own website.
Possibly the easiest way to create your own website is to use an online website builder tool. These services often provide intuitive interfaces for adding text, images, links, and other pieces of content to a web page. Many of these tools have a WYSIWYG web design platform, which means “What you see is what you get”: what you create in the design interface is what your visitors will see.
Pay close attention to the aesthetics of the site, including layout, color, and fonts.
If you want more options and functionality on your website, as well as your own dedicated web address, you’ll need to create HTML pages, register a web domain, and get a hosting server to upload your pages. Web domains can be registered with any number of registrars – Godaddy.com is one of the most popular. Search for “hosting” or “cheap hosting” to find thousands of available hosting companies. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re paying more than $10 US dollars (USD) per month to host a low-traffic website, you’re paying too much. Many companies offer space for even less.
A host will provide a username and password to access a server where new web pages are stored.
To create HTML, you can either write it from scratch in Notepad or use a WYSIWYG software program. HTML is not a programming language per se and as such is much easier to use than true programming languages. You can learn basic HTML in less than an hour and start using it to create your own web pages.
After your pages are created, they need to be uploaded to your server. You will receive a username and password from your host once you sign up with them. You can use them in an application called an FTP program to connect your computer to the server and then upload the entire pages from the computer to the server. Once uploaded, your website will be visible on the World Wide Web for all to enjoy. In a few days, the pages with inbound links will be indexed by the major search engines and will start appearing in the search results.
Creating your own website can be a way to start a new sales business.
