Web Design & Web Development

How To Create A Website Build Your Own Website - A Simple Step By Step Guide Last Updated: April 2009

1. Register your domain name.

The first step in website creation process is to register a domain name. Your domain name is your unique address on the web. It is the one squeezed between a www and a domain name extension such as .com or .co.uk. For example: www.YourDomainName.com.

It can contain any combination of letters, numbers and hyphens (-). It cannot start with a hyphen and cannot be longer than 63 characters.

To use a name as your domain-name you have to register it with an authorized website domain name registrar. Web hosting companies usually offer packages that come with free domain name registration. If, however, you want more control over your domain name VisioSoft recommends using a separate registering company.

When selecting a registrar make sure they offer a control panel with which you can manage processes such as registration renewals, personal details update and personal information hiding. Personal information hiding, also known as WHOIS privacy, means the registrar will hide your personal details from the WHOIS database which is available to everyone including spammers..!

Popular domain name registrars we work with:

UK	USA
Fasthosts From £2.95 /year 123-Reg.co.uk From £2.99 /year	MyDomain.com From $6.60 /year NEXX.com From $7.95 /year

2. Create and/or compile your content.

Your website content is about you, your company and the products and services you offer. It could be presented using any combination of plain text, animated text, sound, images and videos. You should prepare your content before web design and web development stage.

3. Divide your content into pages and work out the page flow.

Organise the content into pages of related information. Every page should focus on one main theme. The general principle is to have a home page, an about page, a contact page and a number of products, services or information pages.

4. Design the look and feel of the website - Web Design.

Start the web design process by creating a page heading with your company name, logo and links to other pages. Include this on every page in your website. This will be the general look of your website.

Be simple and to the point. Can visitors tell what your site is about at a glance? Or do they have to hunt for the main message in the crazy fonts, graphics and flash animations jungle?

5. Build the website - Web Development.

This is the stage in which you put the whole thing together. For a very simple template-based website you could use the site building tools provided by your web host. To develop your own website you need to know at least XHTML and CSS. For a professional and dynamic site you need to be familiar with some web presentation and programming technologies such as JavaScript, Flash, PHP, ASP.net, C#, JSP or Java, and development tools such as Dreamweaver or VisualStudio.net.

6. Get a web host.

Once you have developed your website on your own computer you are ready to get a Web Host. A Web Host is a company which provides servers to store your web files and serve the pages when requested by a visitor.

Choosing a host for your website is very important. Please read our Web Hosting - How to Choose guide for more information. (The page is currently being developed. Please visit us again.)

Popular UK & USA web hosting service providers we work with:

UK	USA
Just Host From £2.95 /month UK2 From £3.95 /month Super Green Hosting From £3.95 /month 1 & 1 From £1.49 /month Fasthosts From £3.75 /month One.Com From £ Free /month 123-Reg.co.uk From £1.85 /month	Bluehost From $6.95 /month NEXX.com From $7.95 /month Lunarpages From $4.95 /month Fast Domain Hosting From $5.95 /month Hostgator From $4.95 /month ImHosted From $6.95 /month Web Hosting Buzz From $5.95 /month

7. Deploy the site.

Deploying a website means transferring all the files associated with your website to the webspace on your selected host's server. It is also referred to as "uploading" or "publishing". Once deployed your website is available for everyone to view through the internet.

The transfer is done using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Your web hosting company usually provides FTP client software and an FTP address associated with your domain. One of the most common FTP Client Softwares is called FileZilla Client. It is an open source software and free to download from filezilla-project.org.

8. Promote your website.

Now that your website is up and running it is time to let people know about it.

Visitors arrive at a website in three ways: by direct entry, via search engines or by clicking on a link from other websites.

Direct entry happens when people type in your website address on their browser. To attract visitors directly you have to rely on traditional methods such as advertising in print media and also by word of mouth. You can also use online marketing techniques such as news and user group postings.

To get visitors via search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN Live, your website has to be listed in search engines and rank well (usually in the first three pages of search results) by the search engines. The fastest way to get your site listed in the search results of a search engine is to register or submit the website to the search engine. Submitting your website to a search engine guarantees listing, but not good ranking. The keys to good ranking are: targeted content full of searchable keywords and phrases; search engine friendly structured documents; and good quality links from other websites.
Please visit our Search Engine Optimisation page for detailed information on this subject. (The page is currently being developed. Please visit us again.)

Links from other websites to yours (also called inbound links or back links) are very important in two ways. Firstly, they will refer visitors to your websites. Secondly, they will increase your page ranking in search engines as search engines consider inbound links as votes on your website. Beware though - inbound links coming from bad sites such as link farms or unethical sites can mark you down.

9. Monitor visitors and the performance of your website.

Monitoring visitors and the performance of your website provides you valuable information. You can monitor your website by using a website statistics tool such as Webalizer. Usually your web host provides this free of charge. All you have to do is turn it on. Another excellent free monitoring tool is provided by Google. It is called Google Analytics. Please visit Google Analytics site for more details.

Website monitoring tools will typically show you things like the number and sources of visits (i.e. direct, search engine referred or linked from other sites), the geographical location of visitors, etc.