Having designed my first website in 1997 (I was in 9th grade then), I have a little bit more experience than many of you out there. Many of you would have needed to design a website or been a part of the team that set up a website.
Here is a step by step explanation of what needs to be done to set up a website. This might be known stuff to many of you, but I feel there are many who would find this information helpful.
- Have a plan – you don’t need to have a full fledged business plan, have a simple one page plan listing out what you need to achieve with the website.
- Purchase a domain name – in simple terms, a domain name is what you enter into the address field of a browser like Chrome or Internet Explorer to view a website. For example, the domain name of this site is nalakath.com (please note that the domain name does not include the www). You can purchase a domain name from registrars such as Name.com or GoDaddy.com or NamesClick.com
- Purchase a web hosting plan. A web host is where you host or store your website files. When a user enters your domain name into the browser, it actually points to the location where your website is hosted. Nowadays most domain name registrars have website hosting also. So please refer to the sites in step 3 to buy a web hosting plan. You can also set up your own email accounts such as yourname@yourwebsite.com in this step. Your hosting solution will mostly have at least 1 free email account as part of the package.
- Design your website – you can hire a professional website designer or do it yourself by using sites such as WordPress.com or Wix.com
- Test your website for full functionality. You can do this yourself and possibly ask a few good friends to help you in this.
- Once your website design is finished and fully tested, transfer the files to your web host. This can be done by your designer or you could do this using tools such as FTP or FileZilla. (Google them and you will find out more)
- Now your website is ready. You can now optionally set up social media accounts on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked in.
- Spread the news – let people know that you are online. Post it on your Facebook account, send an email out to your friends and relatives, tweet about your website.
Now each of the steps above can be as detailed or simple as you want it to be. It all depends on your needs and budget. if you need more help, shoot me an email. I will be glad to help.
