Building a website is a great way to share your ideas and thoughts with the world. But if you've never done one, it can seem daunting. There's all that http-dot-whatever and <tag this=""> and <tag that=""> and how do you get pictures and text in there? Well fear not, this article will help you to grasp the intricacies very quickly!

Designing Your Website

Get inspired. Look at websites with great designs and think about why they're great designs. It usually comes down to the information, resources, links, and pages being laid out in a way that is easy to see and use. To get ideas about how to design your own site, look at sites which do similar things to get ideas about where you should put different types of content.

• Stay realistic to your skills.
• Ease of access is the most important thing. If you don't have a certain piece of information easily visible, make sure that getting to that information is very logical.
• Generally the simpler the design, the fewer the pages, the better.

Purpose of Your Website

Choose a topic and purpose. If you already have a fairly good idea about what your website will focus on, skip this step. If not, here are some things to help you figure that out. First, understand that there are billions of people on the Internet, and a large percentage have websites. If you limit yourself to something that hasn't been done, you'll never get started.

• When you think, "Internet," what is the first thing that comes to your mind? E-commerce? Music? News? Socializing? Blogging? Those are all good places to start.
• You could create a website that's dedicated to your favorite band, and have a chat area where people can talk about it.
• You can build a page for your family, but be careful about things like this. The internet is full of unsavory characters and information you put up about your family could end up being used against you. Consider adding password protection to your personal family website.
• If you're a news junkie, or want something less filtered than traditional media, build a website and get publicly available feeds from news providers such as Reuters, BBC, AP, and others. Build your own customized news aggregator (what used to go by the quaint name of "newspaper"), then see and show all the news that's fit to digitize.
• If you're creative at writing then you can start a blog where you can write about anything you want and attract monthly readers!

Make a Plan          

 Building your website is going to take a commitment of time and possibly money, so set a limit on both, and then dig in. The plan doesn't have to be a big, complicated spreadsheet, or a fancy graphic presentation, but at the very least, you will want to consider what it will do for you and the visitors, what you'll put on the website, what goes where on the webpages.

Gather the Content

Gather the content. There are lots of different types of content and many have their own considerations. You'll need to figure out what's best for your website and your needs. Some things to consider including:

• A store. If you want to sell things, you'll need to figure out how you want the items to be available. If you have relatively few things to sell, you might want to consider having a store with a hosting service. Amazon, and Cafepress are all well-established store hosts which let you sell a variety of items and set your own prices.
• Media. Do you want to display videos? Music? Do you want to host your own files or do you want them hosted somewhere else? Youtube and SoundCloud are great examples of hosting options, but you'll need to be sure that the way you design your website allows these media types to display correctly.
• Images. Are you a photographer? An artist? If you plan on putting original images on your website, you might want to use a format that can help keep them from getting stolen. Make sure the images are relatively small or that they are hidden behind some Flash code, so as to keep them from being easily saveable.
• Widgets. These are mini-programs which run on your website, usually to help you keep track of who visits, what they're looking for, and where they're from. You can also find widgets for booking appointments, displaying a calendar, etc. Look into what might be useful for you (just make sure the widget comes from a reputable source).
• Contact information. Do you want to have contact information on your webpage? For your own safety, you should be careful about what kind of information you have available. You should never display things like your home address or home phone number, as information like this can be used to steal your identity. You may want to set up a PO box or a special email address for people to contact you at, if you don't have a business address.

Draw a Flow Chart

For most people, the website starts on the home page. This is the page that everybody sees when they first go to www.yourSite.com. But where do they go from there? If you spend some time thinking about how people might interact with your site, you'll have a much easier time down the line when you are making navigation buttons and links.

Plan for user devices and situation

In recent years, smartphones and tablets have become incredibly popular platforms for browsing the internet, and they require websites to be designed for them. If you really want to make a website that will stand the test of time and be accessible to the highest number of viewers, plan on making different versions of your site for different devices, or plan to use a responsive design that adjusts as necessary.

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Whenever you start a new Business you need to invest some money, Same case here that you need to invest money if you want to start a Blog for making money from it, But if you want to start a blog just for fun and enjoyment you can do it free by using WordPress.com or Blogger.com (I Will Explain read this).

Things Needed for a Blog:

You will need two things for making a Blog and these are:

• Domain Name
• Web Hosting

Domain Name:

Domain name is a name people use to reach your website or Blog just like www.Blogginggame.com is a Domain name and you reach Blogging game by entering that URL in your browser’s Web Address Bar.

You can register a Domain name by going to any Domain name registrar’s website and choosing a domain name and yes you if that name is already registered you have to choose another one.

After registering a Domain name you have to change its DNS settings according to your Web Host Server’s DNS setting, after DNS setting will take effect you will be able to work on your website.

Web Hosting:

You need a Computer or you can say that server to store all of your website’s data so that people could see it. You will store your all data in some Web hosting company’s server.

There are many Popular and reliable Web Hosting companies But we recommend Ask For Host for your website because We found it most reliable company for website hosting services.

You have to Buy a Hosting account with good package from Ask For Host(Recommended) and Check out its Name servers and redirect your domain name to those Name-servers from Domain name Provider’s CPanel.

It takes almost 24-48 Hours for DNS settings to take effect and you will be able to install any CMS (we are going to explain this later) and Start working on your Blog.

What is CMS?

CMS Stands for Content Management System. Websites are made up of HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and many other Web Programming languages.Typically working you have to code each and every web page which takes too long. CMS Helps you to create, Edit, Publish, and manage your all website’s web pages in very organized, Clean and easy way.

Content Management systems are themselves made up of different Programming languages like PHP, CSS, HTML, XML, Javascript, etc. There are many Content Management systems out there but We recommend WordPress (I am going to explain this later) Which is mostly used CMS in the world.

 “WordPress”?

As I explained above CMS are themselves coded and developed using different programming languages. WordPress is a Content Management System which is based on PHP and MySQL. Moreover it is World’s most popular CMS for Blogging Platforms and Business Websites.

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Decide what method or tool you will use to build it

When you have the basic idea down and have a plan for how it will be laid out, the next to think about is how you're going to build it. The options seem endless, and people will try to sell you this or that 'fantastic' application, and every other thing that you "absolutely must have" on your site, however the reality is that there are a few great tools for building websites, and one of them will be best-suited to your situation and needs.

Build it yourself

This is the first option. If you have a website-building application like Adobe Dreamweaver, it is not very difficult to create a website from scratch. You might need to do some coding but don't panic! HTML looks complicated, but it's like listening to Shakespeare—it's hard at first, but once you get the feel of it, it's not that difficult.

• Pros: website design software simplifies the process of building sites by letting you drag-and-drop images, text, buttons, movies, and anything else you can think of, usually without ever having to dig into HTML. Many web design applications will even let you create sites specifically for your smart phone or pad. If you are building a basic, personal website, this is really a great way to go.
• Cons: there is a learning curve, and though you don't have to dig into HTML, it's not totally geek-free. If you are in a hurry, this might not be the best solution. Perhaps the biggest con, though, is that if you are not a graphic designer, youcould end up with a page that hurts the eyes. To mollify this somewhat, there are a number of free templates in the applications, and on the internet, but be aware of your limitations—if you have any!

Use a content Management System

This is the second option.WordPress is an example of a great option for building websites. It helps you create web pages and blog posts quickly and easily, set up the menus, allow and manage user comments, and has thousands of themes and plugins that you can choose from and use for free. Drupal and Joomla are other great CMS options. Once the CMS is hosted, you can manage your site from anywhere (in the world) that has an Internet connection.

• Pros: Very easy to use, quick to get started with one click install, and lots of options for the beginner (with enough depth for more experienced users).
• Cons: Some themes are limiting, and not all are free.

Build the Website from Scratch

This is the third option. If you decide to build your website from scratch, you'll need to start using HTML and CSS. There are ways to extend your HTML skills and add more features and more depth to your website. If you are developing a professional website, these tools will help you get that edge that is needed in any business venture.

• CSS, which stands for "Cascading Style Sheets". CSS gives more flexibility for styling the HTML, and makes it much easier to make basic changes—fonts, headers, color schemes—in one place, and have those changes ripple through the site.
• XHTML is a web language set by W3C's standards. Almost identical to HTML, it follows a stricter set of rules for marking up information. What this means, for the most part, is minor changes to the way you write code.
• Look into HTML5. It's the fifth revision of the core HTML standard, and will eventually subsume the current version of HTML (HTML4), and XHTML as well.
• Learn a client-side scripting language, such as JavaScript. This will increase your ability to add interactive elements to your site, such as charts, maps, etc.
• Learn a server-side scripting language. PHP, ASP with JavaScript or VB Script or Python can be used to change the way web pages appear to different people, and lets you edit or create forums. They can also help store information about people who visit your site, like their username, settings, and even temporary "shopping carts" for commercial sites.
• AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a technique of using a browser sided language and a server sided language to make the page get new information from the server without refreshing the page, often greatly reducing user wait time and vastly improving the user's experience but increasing bandwidth usage. For a website that will see a lot of traffic, or an eCommerce site, this is an excellent solution.

 Hire a Professional

This is the fourth and final option. If you are not up to designing your own website, or learning new coding languages—especially for more advanced sites—hiring a professional may be your best option. Before you hire, ask to see a portfolio of their work, and check their references carefully.

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Domain names were created to make IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses more human-friendly. An IP address is a unique set of numbers that is assigned to every computer on the Internet. Think of IP addresses like street addresses - they identify where a computer is located on the Internet and help route information so that it can easily travel between computers. But IP addresses, like this one, don’t exactly roll of your tongue, do they?

And then just imagine having to memorize such a string of - seemingly random numbers for every single website you wanted to find on the Internet. If only there was an easier way. Actually, there is.

While computers require IP addresses to locate one another, we humans can use domain names. The Domain Name System, or DNS [D-N-S], takes domain names — the kind of web addresses that people understand, like goddaddy.com — and translates them into IP addresses that computers need to communicate. So instead of 97.74.104.218, you can simply remember computoronics.com. Much easier, right?

When visitors enter your domain name into a Web browser, the browser uses your domain name to find the correct IP address and, in turn, passes back the website associated with that IP address.

Think of it this way; your domain name functions like the contacts you store in your mobile phone. When you touch the name of a contact that’s stored in your mobile phone, your mobile phone automatically dials the number you’ve saved for that contact. You don’t need to know where the person you’re calling is located, and you don’t need to even enter their specific phone number. All you do is touch the contact and mobile phone does the rest.

Remember, domain names provide you with a simple, human-friendly way to locate websites on the Internet.

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Register Your Domain Name

If you’re on a budget, there are strategies for buying a cheap domain name. Find a domain name that is easy to remember and easy to spell. If you use domains ending with .com, you will end up with more traffic, but most of the easy ones are taken, so be creative!

• Look to Hostgator, GoDaddy, or Register.com are good in india.net if you're in the other country to research and find the ideal domain name for your website. Wordpress also includes a feature whereby you can use a name that's tagged with their site, for example, mywebsite.wordpress.com. But if the name you choose is also available as a .com, they will notify you when you sign up.
• You can purchase domain names if they have been "parked" or are for sale online through business sales sites. It's a good idea to get legal and financial advice before purchasing an expensive domain name.

Inspect your website

Before you post your site, it's wise to test it thoroughly. Most web design software has a way to test your site without taking it online. Look for missing tags, broken links, search engine optimization, and website design flaws. These are all factors which may affect your website's traffic and revenues. You may also generate a free full-functioning site map to submit to search engines like Google, in a matter of minutes.

Test your Website

When you finish your website, do usability testing. You can do this by asking a few friends or family members to try it out. Give them a specific task like "edit your profile" or "buy an alpaca sweater from the bargains page." Sit behind them and watch them navigate—do not help them. You will likely find areas where you need to improve navigation or clarify some instructions. Alternately use something like zurb.com to user test on specific demographics for different types of engagement. When testing a website in 2014 it's becoming important to keep the platform in mind and make sure the website is usable from smartphones and tablets as well as desktops.

• Keep a list of things you notice that seem difficult or non-intuitive for the user.

 Launch it!

 Choose a web host and upload your website. Your web host may have an FTP feature, or you can download your own FTP program like FileZilla . If you hired a professional to design the website, they should be able to take care of this for you (but it still pays to ask questions so that you understand what is happening).

• Note that there are ways to host your own website for free.

See our next article: Website consdsidration

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If you have been thinking of making your own website to take advantage of the Internet boom but don’t know about website hosting and other services that are essential for creating and hosting a site, this article is meant for you. There are many basic questions about website hosting and other web hosting services whose answers are sought by the beginners. Here we try to answers all such frequently asked questions on website hosting to guide the beginners.

What is Website Hosting? 

Hosting a website means making a website available to public worldwide. When you create website, it is composed of web pages having text, images, videos and other content for people to see them. However, people can see your website only when it is available on the Internet. To make your website available on the Internet, you have to store it on a computer called web server. When you buy some space on a web server and store your webpages there, your website becomes hosted and can be seen by anyone.

What is Web Server? 

A web server is the computer on which the web pages of your website are stored. It delivers or ‘serves’ the content of your website to the users through Internet. The computer which acts as server has to have very high specifications. It is also connected to the Internet through very powerful link. The web hosts or the web hosting companies have their own servers on which they rent out space to you so that you can host your website and make it accessible to the general public. 

Who is Web Host? 

Any person or company who owns a server and rents out web space for website hosting can be called the web host. Some web hosts do not own servers but rent a server from some large web hosting company and then resell the space under their own brand. This is called  reseller hosting service and such web hosts are called web resellers. The large web hosting companies even own their datacenter (collection of servers) where they can host millions of websites. Datacenters have many computer servers connected to the Internet with fast connections, back up and high security. Most of the web hosts provide not only web space but many other services related to website hosting and are thus also called web service providers. 

What Services are given by Web Hosting Companies? 

Space on their servers is, no doubt, the most important product sold by a web host. Many other products and services, essential for website hosting, are also provided by them such as domain name registration, email hosting services, and SSL certificates etc. Some of the service providers also give the facility of website builder tools through which you can create your own website without the help of web designers and developers. However, the most important products of a web host are the different types of web server hosting so that their clients might choose the hosting space suitable to their specific needs. 

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If you have a web site, you should seriously consider registering your own domain name. A domain name is a name like "computoronics.com" or "facebook.com", which you can use to refer to your website. Note that you do not have to be a company or organisation  to register a domain name. Any individual can do it too.

Importance of a Domain Name

There are a number of good reasons for having a domain name:

• If you ever change your web host, your domain name goes with you. Your regular visitors or customers who knew your site name as www.computoronics.com (for example) would not have to be informed about a change of web address (also known as "URL"). They would simply type your domain name and they'd be brought to your new site.
• If you are a business, a domain name gives you credibility. Few people will be willing to do business with a company that does not have its own domain name.
• If you get a domain name that describes your company's business or name, people can remember the name easily and can return to your site without having to consult their documents. In fact, if you get a good name that describes your product or service, you might even get people who were trying their luck by typing "www.yourproductname.com" in their browser.
• If you want good sponsors (advertisers) for your website, a domain name is usually helpful. It tends to give your website an aura of respectibility.

Step By Step Instructions

If you want to register a domain name, here's what you need to do. Please read it all before acting.

• Think of a few good domain names that you'd like to use. It won't do to think of only one — it might already be taken (it probably is!). 

• You will need either a credit card or a PayPal account to pay for the domain. This is a requirement of most if not all registrars. It will allow you to claim and get the domain name immediately on application. This is not an option (unfortunately).

• If you already have a web host, obtain from them the names of their primary and secondary nameservers. Don't worry if you don't understand what these things mean. Just save the information somewhere. The information can usually be obtained from their FAQs or other documentation on their site, usually under a category like "domain name" or "DNS" or "domain name transfer" and the like. If you can't find it, email them. You'll need the information to point your domain name to your website after you buy your domain. Having said that, if you don't have a web host yet, don't worry. Just read on.

• If you do not have a web host, you can always allow the registrar to park your domain name at a temporary website specially set up for you. This way you can quickly secure your domain name before it's too late and still take your time to set up the other aspects of your site. As far as I can tell, most registrars (or probably all) automatically park your domain by default whether you ask them to or not, so if this is your situation, you probably don't have to do anything special to get it done. Some of those registrars also provide you with a free email address at your own domain name while it is parked at their site, like sales@example.com (where "example.com" is your domain).

1. Confirm that the name you want is available. You can begin your search at a name registrar such as GoDaddy. Be creative, as your domain will be the central focus of your entire site.

2. If the name is available, you will have the choice to register the domain on several different top-level domains if available, such as .org, .biz,.com,.in and .net. If the name is not available, simply try again. Hundreds of millions of domains are already registered, so this step can be difficult. Don’t give up!

3. After selecting the top-level domains you wish to register with, the last choice to make is for how long you want to reserve the name. You can buy domain names in year-long increments, up to a maximum of ten years.

You might be able to save some cash by picking a slightly different domain name.

4. When you have finalized the name, the top-level domains it should be on, and the amount of time you want to hold the rights to the name, you need to pay the registrar to make the registration for you. Once you pay, you own the domain name.

Now that your domain is registered, all you need to do is specify where computers looking for your domain should go (namely, the IP address where your domain’s website is hosted) by updating your site's nameservers. If you do not have a place to host your website or information, most registrars have hosting as an available option during the registration process. Taking this option is the easiest path, because you don't need to worry about any additional setup.

List of Domain Name Registrars

There are numerous domain name registrars. Listed below are just a few, along with my comments, if I know anything about them. Note that the domain name industry is highly competitive, with prices wildly fluctuating throughout the year, every year, so it's impossible to really mention accurate prices below unless I spend all my time updating this page. Please check their sites for the latest rates. (Note: all prices below are in US dollars.)

• World's Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com  — This extremely popular registrar (probably the biggest today) offers .com domain names for $9.99 (plus 20 cents) per year (or $6.99 plus 20 cents if you transfer from another registrar). They have a web interface to manage your domains, free web redirection (where people who visit your domain will get transferred to another web address of your choice), free starter web page, free parked page or free "for sale" page, and an optional private domain registration where your domain is registered in the name of a proxy company. They offer .com, .us, .biz, .info, .net, .org, .ws, .name, .tv, .co.uk, .me.uk and .org.uk, etc. Note that (as with all registrars) the exact price varies depending on which domain you are registering (for example some domain suffixes are more expensive than others). Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted.
• Namecheap  — This company provides .com domains for $10.69 (plus 18 cents) per year ($9.69 if you transfer from other registrars). Along with your domain, you get free email forwarding, free web redirection (where anyone going to your domain is automatically directed to another address of your choice), free domain name parking, etc. For the first year (or at least, at the time I checked their prices), you can also have their WhoisGuard (where your particulars are masked from public view) for free. They have a wide variety of domain name extensions available, including .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us, .co.uk, .co, .de, etc. You can use either a credit card or PayPal for your purchases.
• 1&1 Internet  — This is primarily a large web host that is also a domain name registrar. You are charged $6.99 for .com, .org, .net, .us domains. They also offer .info domains for $0.99 (first year only) and .biz at $8.99. The fee includes private domain registration, which means that your particulars are hidden from public view (done by registering the domain in the name of a proxy company). You also get a free email account, DNS management, domain forwarding and masking, and a starter website with each domain. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted by this registrar.
• Dotster.com  — This fairly popular registrar provides fairly cheap domain prices ($15.75 plus 20 cents per domain), a convenient web interface to manage your domains, an optional privacy facility where your domain name is registered in the name of a proxy company, etc. They offer .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us, .ca, .tv, .name, .cc, .de, .sr, .md, .co.uk, .us.com domains, etc. If you're transferring a domain here from other registrars, the price is even cheaper ($6.99 plus 20 cents). Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted here.

After You Register Your Domain Name

If you're not sure what to do after you register your domain name, please read the How to Make / Create Your Own Website.

Conclusion

Once you've decided, you should not procrastinate. I've lost more than one domain name by procrastinating (I lost the latest one by only one day). After all, at the price you're paying, it works out to be less than $1 a month for the majority of the registrars.

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