"How do I set up my own website?" I have come across this question on public fora(or have had it asked to me directly) a number of times in recent years. So here's the gist of my experience of creating my own website, for everyone's benefit!
The process of setting up a website can be broken into four steps:
Creating your website's content(web pages)
Registering a domain name(what you type into your browser's address bar)
Finding a place(server) to host your web pages
Promoting your website(to attract visitors)
And finally, I'll also tell you how you can earn money by putting up ads
on your website(courtesy Google AdSense).
1. Building content
Just like you need to have a manuscript ready in order to publish a book, you need to first create the web pages that you will eventually put on your website. Quite simply, web pages hold the content that you see when you visit a website. For instance, when you visit https://vijaypadiyar.in, the content that you see actually comes from a file named index.html that I've uploaded on my web server.
Web pages are written in a language called HTML. But one doesn't need to know HTML at all to create web pages! You can build web pages using graphical programs like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage. Using these programs, you can easily add text, images, links, etc to your pages. Note that the pages must be saved with a .htm or .html extension. Also note that you must have an index.htm(l) file in your website, as that is the default home page.
Freebies:Most of us can't afford Dreamweaver and FrontPage. Not to worry! There are free tools that let you design web pages, such as NVu, PersonalWebKit and CoffeeCup HTML Editor, and Microsoft's free FrontPage Express. There are also numerous websites such as OSWD.org where you can get thousands of free design templates for your web pages.
- Registering a Domain Name*
A domain name or URL is a textual name for a website. It is in the form of https://yourdomain.com and uniquely identifies a website. Now, how do you get a domain name for your website? Answer: through a Domain Registrar. These are firms that register a domain name for you. You go to their website, choose your preferred domain name and make the payment, and they register it on your behalf so that you are its legal owner. Charges vary marginally from registrar to registrar and also depend on the extension chosen(.com, .org, .in, etc). I have booked my domain name(vijaypadiyar.in) through Rediff Domains, an India-based domain registrar.
Freebies: There are free options for those who don't want to spend money to buy a domain name. Sites like https://unonic.com, https://c-o.in and http://www.dot.tk offer totally free domain names(such as https://yourdomain.eu.tf or https://yourdomain.c-o.in).
A few points to keep in mind when getting a free domain name. The site that gives you the free domain name must provide:
URL redirection
URL cloaking
Path forwarding
Other useful features include:
3. Finding a host
You need to upload the web pages you've created to some computer that's permanently connected to the Internet and is powerful enough to handle a potentially large number of visitors to your website. Such computers are called Web Servers, and have a huge amount of processing power, storage space and a superfast and always-on connection to the Internet.
There are several firms that offer hosting space for a fee. The fee depends on:
Amount of hosting space(for a small website, 25-50 MB is enough)
Monthly bandwidth(500-1000 MB/month is sufficient for starters)
Features offered(e.g. PHP/Perl, SQL, FTP access, Cron jobs, etc.)
These firms usually advertise various plans on their website. You need to choose a plan that's suitable for you and a firm that's reliable and inexpensive. I use the Starter Plan from BizzHost, an India-based host.
Once you purchase a plan and make the payment, your account is setup and you're given a username, password and a separate folder on their server only accessible by you(usually /home/username). You then need to upload the web pages that you've created to your server folder(typically via FTP), so anyone can access it over the Internet.
A paid host will also give you a list of Name Servers(usually two). Once you have the NS details for your host, go to your account on your domain registrar's website, navigate to the'Edit DNS' section and enter the Primary and Secondary NS domain names and save it. This effectively binds your domain name to your website host. This information will take a few hours to propagate across the Internet, following which any computer from anywhere in the world will be able to look up your website.
Freebies:Once again, there are free hosting firms that provide free space for uploading your web pages. Some of the well known ones include 50Webs, AwardSpace and so on. You can get a comprehensive list of free web hosts from https://free-webhosts.com.
Before closing in on a free host, look for these important features:
No forced ads(many free hosts, such as Tripod, add their ads at the top or bottom of your web pages and disfigure them)
FTP support
Disk space and monthly bandwidth offered
Check if subdomains are supported(If so, your site's URL will be something like yourdomain.freehost.com. Then you can redirect your free domain name such as http://www.yourdomain.eu.tf to this URL)
Also check if you can put your own ads on your web pages(to earn money off your content).
Please bear in mind that free hosts are not always reliable, so you might have more downtime than you would with a paid host. Also, free hosts are known to abruptly close down their services and disappear suddenly, so always keep a backup of your web pages somewhere to avoid a rude shock one fine day!
- Promoting your website*
Setting up your website is one part of the story. It's of no use until people know that your website exists! For this, you need to submit your site to various search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live Search. All major search engines have a "submit site" form on their sites, so find it and submit your site.
Another easy way to promote your site is to add your site's URL to your email signature, so that whenever you email anyone, they come to know about your site.
Monetizing your content: Here's how you can make some money from your website! Google AdSense lets you insert ads on your web pages and pays you whenever someone clicks on them. You can choose which ads you want to display, where you want to display them and also edit the colors and fonts so as to integrate the ads with the look and feel of your page. That's because ads that are strategically placed and are blended in with the rest of the page tend to be more clicked on, as opposed to ads that stand out prominently from the other content.
