How to: Make your own website
Soooo, you want to get your business or personal life online? Good idea...probably.
The first thing you need to do is create a plan. I know this sounds boring. Everyone I come in contact with despises the planning stage. But this will seriously reduce the amount of time you will spend creating content and making the site look pretty.
I actually created a design plan worksheet that you can use in .pdf or Word format. PDF if you want to print it out, Word if you want to work on it on your computer. When you go to that page, the downloads are in the right hand column. The planning process could take 10 minutes and save you hours. Plus, it helps to have your original thoughts written down when you are entrenched in the work and forget why you're doing this in the first place.
So, once you know what your goal is, what your functionality requirements are and thought about the colors and design you want to use, you have to create a navigational layout plan. You can easily create a hierarchy plan with pen and paper.
Most people start with "Home" at the top and have pages radiating from this: About, Contact, Products, Help, etc. These are called second level pages.
Third level pages could include a "confirmation" page after people submit a form. If you are creating a small ecommerce site with paypal, you can also create a "order cancellation" page, a "checkout complete" page and a "product sold out" page. Some hosts allow you to create a custom error page to direct users to when they hit a wrong link.
Try this: www.marykatecreate.com/monkeys.html
That's my custom error page!
So, now your planning stage is complete. Ta Da! Congratulations. That was half the job.
Now, from that plan you can decide how to create your site. It helps to get your domain and hosting plan set up. I highly recommend godaddy.com. It's CHEAP, super easy to set up, they have automatic free downloads, and the options grow with your expertise. Some people I meet are spending upwards of $800/year for hosting, when they can get it from godaddy for under $100 for the cheapest plan. I have no idea why these hosting companies are so expensive...it's a phenomenon I would like to study.
Setting up hosting in itself is a learning experience! So get that out of the way.
Now you need some type of software to create your site. If you buy a hosting plan with godaddy.com you can use their "Hosting Connections" page to automatically download a number of free open source content management systems onto your account that will create a beautiful site for you.
DO NOT USE MICROSOFT OFFICE TO CREATE YOUR SITE!
Pretty, Pretty, Pretty please, do not do this to yourself or others. I even hate Frontpage! Here are some good reasons not to use Microsoft Office or Frontpage:
1. It will create horrible, ugly, disgusting, non-standard code which will make search engines and web browsers shy away from your site. aka: You will get no traffic.
2. Frontpage requires you to configure its extensions on your hosting account...extra work!
3. If you ever run into trouble, no designer or web developer will ever work on your site without having to totally redo it.
Okay, so...now that I've got that out of my system, let's continue.
Use a free content management system to create your whole site. You can pick some out and test them at this website: OpenSourceCMS.com. Make sure you get a list of what is available already on your hosting account and that will seriously help you narrow down your options. There are hundreds to choose from.
To give you a heads up, there will be a learning curve when you start using these CMS's to build your site. It's okay to learn, your online life will be so much better!
So, there you have it. In a nutshell, these are your steps:
1. Create a plan
2. Buy a domain and hosting plan (start with the smallest and upgrade if you need more)
3. Download and learn how to use an Open Source (free) Content Management System.
Here are some other hints:
1. Get a google analytics account so you can track users and visitors...it's free
2. Optimize your images for the web. If you have photoshop, fabulous! Set the image to 72 dpi and save for the web. The rule is no image should take more than 8 seconds to load on the slowest dial up and that is for main images like headers. If you have Microsoft Picture Manager installed on your computer, go to "edit" and "compress" photos, and choose "compress for web."
3. Don't publish your site until it is complete. Sometimes you need to publish your site before you can install and configure setups online. Wait to do this until you have enough time to work on it immediately.
Got any horror stories about building your own site? Those are my favorite, email them to me or leave them in a comment.
The first thing you need to do is create a plan. I know this sounds boring. Everyone I come in contact with despises the planning stage. But this will seriously reduce the amount of time you will spend creating content and making the site look pretty.
I actually created a design plan worksheet that you can use in .pdf or Word format. PDF if you want to print it out, Word if you want to work on it on your computer. When you go to that page, the downloads are in the right hand column. The planning process could take 10 minutes and save you hours. Plus, it helps to have your original thoughts written down when you are entrenched in the work and forget why you're doing this in the first place.
So, once you know what your goal is, what your functionality requirements are and thought about the colors and design you want to use, you have to create a navigational layout plan. You can easily create a hierarchy plan with pen and paper.
Most people start with "Home" at the top and have pages radiating from this: About, Contact, Products, Help, etc. These are called second level pages.
Third level pages could include a "confirmation" page after people submit a form. If you are creating a small ecommerce site with paypal, you can also create a "order cancellation" page, a "checkout complete" page and a "product sold out" page. Some hosts allow you to create a custom error page to direct users to when they hit a wrong link.
Try this: www.marykatecreate.com/monkeys.html
That's my custom error page!
So, now your planning stage is complete. Ta Da! Congratulations. That was half the job.
Now, from that plan you can decide how to create your site. It helps to get your domain and hosting plan set up. I highly recommend godaddy.com. It's CHEAP, super easy to set up, they have automatic free downloads, and the options grow with your expertise. Some people I meet are spending upwards of $800/year for hosting, when they can get it from godaddy for under $100 for the cheapest plan. I have no idea why these hosting companies are so expensive...it's a phenomenon I would like to study.
Setting up hosting in itself is a learning experience! So get that out of the way.
Now you need some type of software to create your site. If you buy a hosting plan with godaddy.com you can use their "Hosting Connections" page to automatically download a number of free open source content management systems onto your account that will create a beautiful site for you.
DO NOT USE MICROSOFT OFFICE TO CREATE YOUR SITE!
Pretty, Pretty, Pretty please, do not do this to yourself or others. I even hate Frontpage! Here are some good reasons not to use Microsoft Office or Frontpage:
1. It will create horrible, ugly, disgusting, non-standard code which will make search engines and web browsers shy away from your site. aka: You will get no traffic.
2. Frontpage requires you to configure its extensions on your hosting account...extra work!
3. If you ever run into trouble, no designer or web developer will ever work on your site without having to totally redo it.
Okay, so...now that I've got that out of my system, let's continue.
Use a free content management system to create your whole site. You can pick some out and test them at this website: OpenSourceCMS.com. Make sure you get a list of what is available already on your hosting account and that will seriously help you narrow down your options. There are hundreds to choose from.
To give you a heads up, there will be a learning curve when you start using these CMS's to build your site. It's okay to learn, your online life will be so much better!
So, there you have it. In a nutshell, these are your steps:
1. Create a plan
2. Buy a domain and hosting plan (start with the smallest and upgrade if you need more)
3. Download and learn how to use an Open Source (free) Content Management System.
Here are some other hints:
1. Get a google analytics account so you can track users and visitors...it's free
2. Optimize your images for the web. If you have photoshop, fabulous! Set the image to 72 dpi and save for the web. The rule is no image should take more than 8 seconds to load on the slowest dial up and that is for main images like headers. If you have Microsoft Picture Manager installed on your computer, go to "edit" and "compress" photos, and choose "compress for web."
3. Don't publish your site until it is complete. Sometimes you need to publish your site before you can install and configure setups online. Wait to do this until you have enough time to work on it immediately.
Got any horror stories about building your own site? Those are my favorite, email them to me or leave them in a comment.
posted by Mary at
8:41 AM
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