Hosting Your Own Website! July 10, 2008
Did you want to own your own website or publish your personal web page?
Nearly everyone with an Internet connection possesses the ability to learn how they could easily do this. If you can use the internet and a computer, you can quickly and easily publish your own site on your own chosen hosting package.
Once you are familiar with the basics, you will soon have your own, site up and running on the net for all to see.
What do you need to make this happen?
First; you will need some storage space for your site, this will be located on a Web server. A Web server is like a normal computer, except this computer (server) is on continuously 24 hours a day. Most web hosts refer to this as uptime many now actually will give a guarantee of 99% uptime! Uptime is important, because if your web hosts server is not running then no one will be able to find your web site. By placing your site on your hosts server you can be certain that your site will be available to other Internet users or browsers of the web.
First a suitable host must be found.
That is not difficult; there is an enormous selection of web hosting companies that you can pay for, as well as lots of free offers of hosting on the Internet.
Lets start with the free hosts.
Some free hosts are listed here:- http://www.tripod.com/, http://www.freewebhosts.com/ http://www.webhosts4free.com/
The only problem with using these types of hosting services is that you have to enter such a long name in the web browser before anyone can find your site. Not everyone wants to enter a long URL to find you. With this type of hosting you dont have your own domain name; it is just added on to their domain name! Not easy for people to find or remember your site name.
There is another type of free hosting.
Web hosts like http://www.freedomain.co.nr/ or http://www.uk2.net/ will let you buy your domain name from them, and they will host it for free! The catch here is that they will put banners on your site to advertise their services. You do not have any control over what they place on your site as far as their advertising goes.
I would say that if you can afford it, you should have your own web host, free hosting services are alright for hobby sites, but if you want to be taken seriously or even to earn some money from your web site then you do really need to pay for hosting. By paying for hosting you usually get better service, faster load times, MYSQL data bases, PHP, CGI, Perl support and much more besides. The monthly fees are not too expensive and for only 7.00$ per month you can get a really good package.
There are so many paid hosting companies that it is difficult to recommend one above the other. Hosts offer different packages as standard and some will let you choose which services you want as add on. If you like a package that you see offered by a hosting service, it pays dividends to check them out. Try emailing their customer services, do you get a reply? Do they have a forum for their customers to ask questions? Do they have a telephone number you can phone them on if things go wrong? Do they actually do technical support and will they support you if you get things wrong. Google is always handy here. Type mychosenwebhostcompanyname complaints in the search box and see if there are any complaints about the company you are considering.
Do you need to buy your own domain name?
You should. Try and choose a name that is in line with the site you are going to have hosted. How to buy your domain name Top level Domains are names that end in (com, net, org). You can register this yourself nowadays at really favorable prices. Different Hosts offer this service, a popular one is http://www.godaddy.com/.
You can use their service to register your own .com Domain for as little as 8.95$. You will own that name then for 12 months. To keep it simple when you are starting out it is best to allow your web host to purchase your name for you and include it in the hosting package. If you host one place and buy your name from another, it can get complicated.
After you have registered your Domain name, and chosen your Web host, you will have Web space, to put up your site.
Designing your site.
Some hosting companies offer free site design software included in the cost of the hosting package. Most of these are basic. If all you want to do is a basic site then this may be ideal for you to use.
You will need to think about the design, layout, structure, and the contents of the site. Individual web pages make up the whole site.
You should think about the site as a whole, what will its purpose be? What will it contain, put it together so that not only you can follow it but your visitors will be able to quickly and easily navigate their way through your site. The homepage is really the most important page and should link to all the other pages of the site by means of a good navigation system.
At this design stage, make yourself notes, this is important and will make it easier for you to design your site.
Free Software you can use to put your site together.
For the design and construction of the web pages to make a site, there are lots of free HTML editors. Most web sites are made using HTML. One I would recommend is http://www.pspad.com/ you can download this and a lot of other programs free of charge from the Internet.
If you can use a keyboard and a mouse, then you should be then able to produce a simple web page, easily and quickly. One of the best tools for anyone starting out and you shouldnt be without one is an WYSIWYG editor, this type of program allows you to see the site or page in your browser and you can check how it is going to look on the web without actually putting it there.
Once you have built your site and added the contents, you should make sure that all the pages are linked together, this is referred to as Navigation, and most people are used to the navigation buttons being on the left hand side of the page. Your WYSIWYG program will have this feature built into it ready for you to use.
Some of the best web sites include a Sitemap; this lists all the pages available within the site. Usually this is all on one web page so you can clearly see the whole contents of the site you are looking at.
A sitemap plays an important role, not just for your visitors, but also for the search engines. I would recommend a good site map for this reason.
Naming your pages…
It is really important that the Home page of your site is named index htm or index HTML, this is the page that is shown to your visitors when they type you address into the search engines to find you. If its not there then your visitors wont be able to get to your site. You can name the other pages anything you like.
You have designed your site but how do you get it onto the web server?
You need to FTP (file transfer protocol) it up to your web space. With some hosts you can just upload using their system with others unfortunately you have to FTP. Again you can find may free ftp programs on the web if your host doesnt provide one. www.smartftp.com is an easy one to use. Just follow the instruction to connect to your web space, your host will have given you the correct details. Use the program, select all your files to be uploaded and GO, your site will be up on the web at the touch of a button. Job Finished.
If you have done everything right and put the files in the right directory you should be able to find your site on the Internet. Go to your browser, type in the domain name or website name and you should be taken directly to the home page we named index.htm Now go through your site yourself, test all the links using the navigation bar or buttons. You will now be seeing the site as it will appear to your visitors. If you get an error page or page not found, (404 page.) then you need to correct that bit of the site. If all you get is a 404 site not found message then you have uploaded your site to the wrong place on the server. You need to start again!
Good luck and get that site up there soon!
Steven Jonas, SEO Expert and Web Entrepreneur. Worked for major internet companies, for example Google, Enom, Monster.com. Find out more about Steven and his AdSense Secrets on his website: AdSense Revenue
