How To Create a Website

Registering Your Sites Domain Name

Before you can have a website on the internet you need to get a domain name. For example, bluesfear.com. There are tons of places to register a domain name, I recommend Register.com.

Try Register.com

Getting a Reliable Web Host

After you have your domain name registered you need to find a reliable web host. A web host provides space and bandwidth so that your website can be placed on the internet.

Some important things when choosing a web host provider are that they offer enough space and bandwidth and support all the major scripting languages such as php, cgi, perl, ect. A good amount of bandwidth is 10 Gb/month and about 500 Mb of webspace.

Your heres a few good web host providers. I've used both of these webhosts in the past before I got my own dedicated server and can voutch that they both provide great servers.

Setting Up Your Domain Name to Work With Your Web Host Provider

Ok now that you have your domain name registered and have a web host provider you need to setup your domain name so that they work with each other.

Your web host provider should have sent you an e-mail that contains all the information you need
to set this up.

1) Go to the website where you registered your domain name. Login to your account. In the menu, there should be a link that says something like "DNS" or "Domain Name Server" or "Name Servers". Click the link.

2) On this page there should be 2 empty fields that look something like this.

Enter the Primary and Secondary DNS names that your web host provider sent you into there appropriate box. You don't have to worry about the IP address, this will be automatically filled in by the server. Hit save and log out.

3) Your site is now setup, but it will take anywhere between 24 -72 hrs before everyone can view your website, including yourself. This is normal, so theres nothing to worry about. If your site still isn't' working after 72 hrs, go back and make sure you entered the information correctly, if you did then contact your web host provider for assistance.

Free Web Hosting

If you don't want to spend any money registering a domain name and purchasing webhosting, there are plenty of sites out there that offer free web hosting with free sub-domain names.

One thing to remember is that these free services offer a very limited amound of bandwidth and webspace and none support scripting such as cgi, php, etc. Most also have some sort of pop-up or advertisement on your page.

Here is a list of some free web hosting providers

http://free.prohosting.com/
http://www.fortunecity.com/free-web-hosting.shtml
http://www.freeservers.com/

Picking an HTML Editor

Ok, now that you have a domain name and a web host, you are just about ready to start creating your website. But before we do you will need an HTML editor.

You can make your webpage in a text editor like Microsoft Word or Notepad, but this requires that you know a great deal of HTML coding. Actually Microsoft Word will convert your text to HTML, but I wouldn't recommend using it since it adds alot of extra coding to each page making them very large.

Instead I would suggest purchasing an HTML editor such as Dreamweaver, FrontPage or GoLive. I use and recommend Dreamweaver.


Dreamweaver - Macromedia.com
FrontPage - Microsoft.com
GoLive - Adobe.com

Uploading Your WebSite to the Internet

Ok, now that you have created a webpage in your HTML editor you need to upload it to your web hosts server.

You can do this in 2 different ways.

1) You can use the built in Upload Manager that your web host provider has. Just login to your web hosting account and you should see it, its probably called File Manager. If you don't, your web host might not have one.

Or

2) You can use an FTP program. - I recommend doing it this way since its much faster and easier.

There are many FTP programs out there, I personally like SmartFTP plus its FREE!

Now when you start up an FTP program you need to know 3 things. Your host address, username and password.

Host Address - ftp.yourdomainname.com
Username - same as your webhosting account
Password - same as your webhosting account

Then just connect to your webhost.

Once your logged in you will see a bunch of folders, you want to always put everything you upload into the public_html folder. Just upload your page and wala, you have a website on the internet.

** Naming a page "index" will make that page your start page **

Thanks for reading this tutorial on how to create a website. I hope the things covered in here have made it a bit easier for you to start your own website.