Introduction To Building Your Own Website

Web developer desk with computer, tablet and mobile, responsive web design and digital marketing concept

Web design and online businesses are for you if you want to make money online, and who doesn’t want to earn money sat down in front of a monitor?! Well in order to do so you need to create your own website to sell a product/service. The quality and effectiveness of your website will come down to your knowledge of web design, and the effort you are prepared to put into creating your website. You’re most probably reading this if you are a newcomer to web design, and you’ve come to the right place to give yourself the best possible start in making money online by creating your own website. You’ve also been clever enough to realize there is a massive opportunity to make money online, but you’re not sure where to start, sound familiar? This is the first of a series of articles in which the basics of web development and marketing shall be outlined, in order to set you on the path to online success.

The number one problem that newcomers to this industry face is knowing EXACTLY how to start. The common first mistakes include downloading eBooks galore, sign up for lists, purchasing a product or two and spending hours on forums. Which are all admirable, but not the most effective way to creating a successful website. The first three you need to remember and learn is, some simple web skills, remembering that the website is the center of your business and that all in all it’s NOT that difficult! Your aim after absorbing this series of articles is to be able to create web pages at will, make changes to existing webpages, upload pages to get them online, link to other pages and be able to add an opt in form to your site.

Why would you want to create a website and online store for your business? Well in fact in this day and age, downloading and purchasing online is a common part of day to day life, the demand for information is huge.

So, first things first, in order to create your web pages you will need TWO need elements. A Domain Name and a Hosting Account. A domain name is the address of your website. To get a domain name, you will have to pay an annual fee (This does not get you a website, just the name). The companies that register domain names are called registrars i.e. GoDaddy. A hosting company is a company that connects your website to the World Wide Web. Every website has a hosting company. You create your webpage at home, you then send it to your host. The hosting companies have very powerful servers, and they put your web page on the World Wide Web.

There are a few key words you may be familiar with but not exactly sure what they are, sop here’s a definition of the ones you NEED to be aware of……

Browser- A program that allows you to view web pages i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox.

URL- Uniform Resource Locator. This is the address of a web page. Every web page has a URL, it’s basically a domain name.

Server- A server is a powerful computer that stores the files of many users. Your website hosting company will have many servers.