Setting up your first website

There are three items that you will need to get your website online.

1) A domain name (e.g. www.yourdomain.co.uk)
2) A web hosting package (provides web space and email facilities)
3) A means of designing your website (e.g. Microsoft Frontpage or an Online Site Builder)

Step 1 - Topic

It is always best to stick to a single topic or a group of related topics. If you really want to make a website, but if you don't have any ideas of what topic to make it about, it is probably a waste of time making one.

Step 2 - Domain Name

Choose your domain name wisely, make sure it is easy to remember and easy to spell. Your domain name is your website address. If you purchase more than one domain name it is easy to point your extra domains to the original domain. Always check that your name is available before you settle on a name for your site.

If you are unable to get the exact name you require, choose another one. Your site title should be the same as your domain name as people won't remember your domain name, but will remember you site title.

The shorter the name the better!

Definition of domain name: The "address" or URL of a particular Web site. There are three parts to the domain name:-

Part 1 - The "www." stands for "World Wide Web"

Part 2 - This part is usually the name of the site or business (e.g. "staylinkeduk")

Part 3 - The Top Level Domain (TDL) (e.g. ".com" or ".co.uk").

Step 3 - Design

Now that you've decided on a domain name, it's time to actually design your website!  This is the most creative and rewarding part of the process.

There are essentially three options, depending on the amount of customization and flexibility you want and on how much you are willing to learn.

  • Choose a web design package for novices.  You should look for a package that includes lots of professional looking templates that you would feel comfortable using - just because you want to keep things easy doesn't mean they can't look good!
  • Choose a more advanced web design package, like Microsoft's Front Page.  With this solution you will need to learn a little more about HTML, but you will also have the flexibility to express yourself any way you want.
  • Hire a professional web design company to create your site.  This option is more attractive to businesses than to individuals, but if you're looking to accept orders on your sites or have very sophisticated graphics, this is a good way to go.

Make sure that you design your site so that it stands out. Choose a name that is creative, a site design that is striking and imagery to go along with your site name.

Step 4 - Website Hosting

Once you've decided on and registered a domain name, you need to choose a service to host your web pages. The web host provides you with space for your web pages, tools to create the web pages, and support if you run into problems.

Step 5 - Uploading Your Site

Ok, you have built your Web site, spell checked it in the language of your choice, all the links work. Time to upload it to the Web. Moving Web pages from your computer to the lump of disk space reserved for you by your host is achieved by using something called File Transfer Protocol or FTP.

FTP is a standard protocol used for physically transferring data and images between computers connected to the Internet. To use it, we run a special program called an FTP CLIENT. There are plenty of programs to choose from and most of them offer 30 day trial downloads.

You will need the following information from your Web host before going any further:

  • Your host's FTP ADDRESS.
  • Your USER NAME.
  • Your PASSWORD.

If you have purchased hosting from Stay Linked UK you will have been sent the above information via email. Look under the section titled "Publishing Your Website".

Once you have collected the above information, you will need to download an FTP CLIENT, if you have not already done so.

Step 6 - Search Engine Rankings

Google is by far the largest search engine and will probably provide you with most of your visitors.

The higher you are in Google's rankings, the more people will find your site. 

Google ranks sites by relevancy, and by their PageRank. PageRank is a number between 0 and 10 that Google calculates, based on the number of links to a site. (If there are lots of links pointing to a site, it's probably a good site).

Approach high-PageRank sites in your topic, and ask to exchange links with them.

More incoming links = Higher PageRank = Higher Ranking in Search Results = More visitors find your site

Along with paid web hosting, having your own domain name will help your rankings in Google. There are lots of cheap web hosting providers out there, so you can do things fairly inexpensively.

Step 7 - Selling Products on Your Site

Free information will be picked up by search engines, and will draw visitors to your site.

Don't make the common, mistake of turning your site into a shop.