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Creating a Website
Wow! The Internet has brought so much freedom to mankind like never before. I know you know what I am talking about. It has eased trading through e-commerce. Now no one thinks about snail-mail; with the click of a button I can communicate with anyone in any part of the world. You can take your MBA courses while you are right at home. The frequent trips to one's workplace have been cut out by the concept of 'telecommuting'.Oh! Lets not forget that one can use an 'alias' while in cyberspace. Just look at that!
But there is another side that has stimulated the growth of the Internet. Can we call it 'The Gold Rush'? Now many want to be in cyberspace because of the purposes of making money. Who doesn't want to be the next Marc (of Facebook) or the next Sergey Brin. I know that we have been inspired by these entrepreneurs plus the stories of how some at-home moms and teenies are making some money on the Net; or the stories of how some have even quit their 8 to 5 jobs because of the opportunities offered by the Net of making money. But (lets be real!) to make it big on the net requires working HARD and working SMART. Furthermore, to be the next Chen (of YouTube) requires one to have a UNIQUE idea for you to achieve the same success.
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Some years back it used to cost a fortune to start and run a website. Those were the days when some people had their own servers installed in their homes. But now with so many webhosting companies around, the cost of starting a website are low. To cut the story short, anyone, from BigTech Ltd's CEO to the grave digger, from the old to the young, great or small, can start and own a website.
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Sometimes I think that what attracts many to starting their own website are some of the features utilized in some websites' pages. Just think about the animations, the background sounds, falling snowflakes...(I call these the twinkle-tittles). Because of these, some are pushed to start websites so that they can replicate what they have seen in www. thatwebsite.com.
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Well, enough of that slightly educative small talk. Lets start learning about how to create your own website coz I can sense your impatience. Let us start with the question: What is the history of the Web? From there on will go on to the planning stage before one starts actually building the website. It is good that one plans for their website lest, as St. Paul says, you end up boxing the air.
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What do you know about the Web?
The question above seems easy to answer but the truth is that I will get numerous answers without getting a clear answer. Why? Its because many people associate the Web with what attracts them to it in the first place. So the answers I would get would be: its one of the communication channels (think blogs, email and such things), its where we get information from ( Wikipedia comes to mind), and answers that hint at e-commerce and e-businesses. The Web, according to Wikipedia, "...is a system of inter-linked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet". That means that it is a system of pages, images etc. that are linked to each other and they can be accessed via an interconnected system of computer networks (this is what is called the Internet).
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Planning for your website.
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Now you know what the Web is now let me ask you one more question. Who is the creator of the World Wide Web? Anyone? The answer is Tim Berner-Lees, an English physicist. The Web, like any other invention, began from very humble beginnings. It actually started on a simple desktop PC programmed to access some files stored in a CD-ROM. That is what Sir Tim actually started with. Actually, before Tim succeeded in doing this, and afterwards being the first person to start a website, there were several hypertext protocals around. What do we learn here? That everything has a beginning and that every journey begins with one step. So, let us start learning on how to plan for your website.
Planning stage.
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Types of websites.
It would be good for you to think of the type of website you would want to have during the planning stage. This is closely linked to the purpose of your website. For an overview of the types of websites follow the link below.
Types of websites.
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Domain Registration.
Once the Planning for your website is over the next step will be to register the domain name.
Domain Registration.
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Have you already read about domain registration? Just asking. If you have and before we go to the next step of searching for a web host then let us digress into some of my little creations concerning...
Domain Names.
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Where will I create my web pages?
Already registered your domain name? Now its time to start building your website. But where will you create your web pages? The place where you do this is the web host. Currently, there are so many web hosting companies around such that the costs of web hosting have come down. Now let us delve into web hosting...
Web hosting.
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Time to start creating your web pages.
Once your web host has confirmed that your account has been set up you are now ready to start building your website. However, you must wait for Domain Propagation to take place before you start using your cPanel. This will take some few hours. Once your domain name has propagated (your web host should provide you with this information when starting out) you can begin constructing. To build your web pages you will use an HTML Editor. There are a number in the market and they come either as Offline Editors or Online Editors. The offline editors are of the likes of Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft's Frontpage. These editors require to be downloaded to your computer from where you will build your web pages. The Online Editors are those given to you by the web host. These editors allow you to create your pages online (no downloading any software here!). The beauty of some of these editors is that they have templates from which you can build your web pages. Some of the editors do not require you to learn HTML coding. Your work is to choose the template that you want and then type in the content. So don't go "I don't know HTML". Also, as I mentioned earlier on, your web host can provide with a Free website builder but this may be an online editor.
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NOTE: Some editors require one to download a software called FTP Client to their computer. This software will allow you to upload, download and edit your web pages.
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A Peek into Web Development.
What we have been doing upto this point is called Web Design. Web Design is just the work of laying out how you will present your content. Those who are conversant with web design know how to include animations, graphics, images and such things. About.com's Web Design/HTML can give you a more information on what constiutes Web Design. Web Development on the other hand is the overall process of making your website and this includes: planning your website, its analysis , web design, implementation, promotion of your website and finally, innovation. For more information on web development you can go to Web Development.
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NotePad.
Can you remember this site's host? It's Sasahost Web Solutions. The web host...
Sasahost features.
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There are sites that review web hosts. You can use these sites to shop for a web host based on the reviews that they get.
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