4 steps away from your own website by Josh Green
In the last decade, the Internet has become one of the most important and
effective platforms in which to promote yourself and your products. But if
you're not an experienced webmaster, getting such a project underway can seem a
bit overwhelming. However, this article will show you how such a project can
become both a fun and an enriching experience for anybody who wants to create
his or hers own website. You will learn how to built and maintain a practical
and efficient website for all your visitors to enjoy.
The Plan:
The first and undoubtedly most important, but often forgotten, step is drawing
up a plan. In this stage of the process, it is the time to lay out the details
of your website project. Of course your website is a work in progress, and you
will most likely change many things along the way, but if you do not have a
clear idea of the direction you want your project to go in, you may find
yourself overwhelmed by the magnitude of such an ambitious project and give it
up all together. Here are a few things I strongly suggest you do not overlook
when planning for you Internet project:
Give yourself a deadline:
Of course this is not set in stone and there are no consequences for not
finishing in time. But it is a good idea to set deadlines in order to maintain
some sort of order in your project.
Make a list of people who can help:
We all have that friend or relative who is good with computers or even an old
college buddy who has a knack for writing articles. You can ask them if they
can help you in any of the aspects of your project.
Make a budget:
How much are you I willing to invest is an important question you must ask
yourself at this stage. You will have to do a bit of research at this point.
Again, none of the decisions you take on are set in stone, but having a good
idea of how much designing your website, registering you domain name or hosting
you website will cost is an important part of the first step.
Define your website:
A few questions you should ask yourself at this point are what will the overall
theme of the website be and who is your intended public. A good idea for a
first website would be to build it around a passion of yours.
Plan the overall look of your website:
Without getting into specific detail, such as logos, pictures or color scheme,
it is a good idea at this stage to have a clear idea of what you want your
website to look like. Depending on the overall theme and nature of you website,
you will have to decide on the look you will want to achieve. For example, a
site talking about your favorite sport or television series will not have the
same look as a website promoting business related books.
Decide how much time you want to put in:
Finally, in this step you will have to take some time and think about how much
of the work you would like to do yourself and how much of it is going to be
done by professionals. There are certain aspects of a website that are more
time consuming than others, so you will want to spend your time on the things
you deem most important.
If you're having problems with this stage, don't get discouraged. Like I said
earlier, it is without a doubt the most difficult stage in the process. While
you can have professional do things for you in subsequent stages, deciding the
overall look and theme of your website is a decision you have to take all on
your own.
The content:
The next step in creating a popular website your visitors will consistently
come back to is to offer them the information they need through useful and
up-to-date content. If you have already defined a clear picture of what your
website is about in the first step of the process, you can now easily
understand what your potential visitors are looking for. You should also decide
at this point, in what way you would like communicate this information.
Articles and tutorials are a great way of offering free and compelling
information to your visitors.
There are numerous website that offer articles you could use on your website.
You can browse through an extensive collection of articles and add them to your
website. As long as you follow the guidelines set by the website and the
respective authors, you may use these articles on your site as a way to offer
compelling content for you readers. There are several of these article
directory websites out, such as goarticles.com, easyarticles.com and
articledashboard.com just to name a few. It may also be a good idea to write
your own articles. This isn't as difficult as it may seem, especially if your
site's theme is based on a subject you're particularly passionate about. You
may even share your articles on these article directory sites. In return, your
article may be published on other websites with an active hyperlink to yours.
You may also have a product to sell or to promote. Even though this part of
your website is indented to get you a profit, this does not mean you can't
offer any relevant free information to your user. In fact, offering the reader
a good and honest review of both the pros and cons of purchasing such a product
can be a great way of concluding sales.
Another great way of helping your visitors in their search for answers is by
redirecting them to other websites that offer complementary information. You
should however note that asking for permission to link to these websites is
highly recommended and is the ethical and acceptable way of doing things.
The Design:
Graphic design:
As important as the content is in getting your readers to come back to your
site, the graphics and overall appearance of the website is just as important
in creating a great first impression. Everything, from the color scheme, the
graphics used, such as your logo, to your picture selection all work together
toward achieving the look you ultimately want your website to have. The
important thing is not to get carried away with the graphics on your website.
If you take a look at any corporate website on the Internet, you will notice
they have a nice clean look, relying on nicely positioned photos and carefully
selected graphics. You should also try to remain fairly consistent in your
overall layout. Essentially, every page on you website should look the same.
This will maximize your sites usability, allowing visitors to navigate with
ease throughout your website.
One option can be to use templates that can be either found for free on the
net, or that come with software you may purchase. It should be noted that this
will require some form of coding skill to add the content you need for your
website. You must also realize that finding a template that perfectly matches
your needs may be hard to find, but remains a viable solution for your first
website. Now for those of us who want to create a customized website that will
suit our requirements, hiring a professional designer is another possibility.
Of course, this can cost a considerable amount of money in the long run,
especially if you plan on creating more than one website. Therefore, learning
how to create simple graphics for your website is a great way of saving money
that could eventually be spent more wisely on a good hosting company for
example.
Mastering a photo editing program such as Photoshop may take several years, but
creating simple graphics such as a logo, a banner or a content box is possible
with a little help and practice. A great way of learning to design graphics for
websites is with the help of tutorials. You can find loads of free tutorials on
sites like tutorialoutpoust.com, pixel2life.com, good-tutrorials.com and many
more. With a step by step visual approach, you'll be creating beautiful
graphics in no time.
Coding:
With your content and graphics now ready, you can now move on to the next step
of creating the actual website. You must code everything into a language called
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that Internet browsers can recognize. Now any
experienced programmer can manually code HTML using a text editor such as
Notepad. You may try your hand at manually coding a website if you're up for a
challenge. You may be able to code a simple website using free online courses
such as the ones we find at w3schools.com.
Of course, these days they're exists a multitude of software such as
Dreamweaver that can help you program entire websites quicker and more
efficiently. Like Photoshop, it may take a while before you get the hang of
this program, but you may easily create a simple and appealing website that
fits your immediate needs with the help of free online tutorials on websites
such as pixel2life.com and many more.
Another option would be to have a professional programmer create a website to
your specifications, but again this can be quite costly in the long run. It all
depends on your budget and the nature of your intended website. If it's a
commercial website, you may feel that investing in a designer and programmer
may be worth it because there is a possibility you may make the money back
fairly quickly.
Get up and running:
At this stage of the process, you are just one step away of realizing your
dream of having our very own website. Once your website is ready, it is time to
get your pet project out there to the World Wide Web, for the whole world to
see.
Web Hosting: This is the time for you to choose where you are going to put your
site. There are multitudes of hosting services available for you to choose
from, but it is important to do so according to your requirements. There are
many places on the web where you can host your website for free. Of course,
there will be some conditions imposed on you in return, such as adding an
advertising banner. If you have an Internet connection, your Internet Service
Provider will most likely have a space where you could place your website for
free. Although limited in space, this can be a viable second option for your
very first personal website. You could also use this space to test out your
website. If you plan on operating a commercial and professional looking
website, you will have to purchase space from a hosting service. Depending on
your needs, there are an endless amount of hosting packages that will be
offered to you. The size of your website and the amount of visitors you expect
are some of the factors you must consider before signing-up with any hosting
service. I recommend using Godaddy.com's hosting service. They offer several
packages to choose from, all of which are relatively cheap and reliable.
Domain Name:
This is also the stage where you must register a domain name. Your domain name
will be unique name (address) that will best represent your website. A good tip
is to keep the name relatively short, so that your viewers will remember it the
name next time they want to visit your website. For personal websites, a good
idea would be to use your name. As for business related websites, this stage
may be a bit trickier because a lot of the best domain names have already been
taken. This is where your creativity comes into play. Once you've done your
research and have come up with a good name, I once again recommend visiting
Godaddy.com and learn more about their offers.
Maintaining you website:
After all that hard work, you finally have your website up and running. At this
point in the project, you can take a breather and be proud of what you have
accomplished, but you also have to keep in mind that it is crucial to your
website's success that you maintain your website. In fact, maintaining your
website is perhaps the most important aspects of running a website. Some of the
steps you will have to take are: making sure your links remain functional and
keeping your content up-to-date. Aside from the fact that frequently updating
your website's content will help you with your ranking in search engines; it
will also benefit the lifeblood of your website, your users. Offering useful
and up-to-date information to your visitors will inevitably keep them coming
back for more.
About the Author
Josh Green is a senior editor for AssociateInsider.com.
Visit the Associate
Insider website today for this and many more informative articles,
stunning web design tutorials and reviews of the best tools available.
|
