Friday, November 20, 2009

Setting Up Your First Website

By Terry Roper

It can be overwhelming trying to figure out how to set up a website for the very first time. In this article we'll discuss the basic steps you need to take to get your website up and running and so you'll understand how it all works too.

Initially we'll discuss the essential components necessary for creating a website. If you get the big picture of how they all work together then it'll makes things much smoother for you because you wont be in the dark on why you need to do certain things.

Ok first off I should explain that there are two basic requirements for getting a website live: A domain name and hosting. Its important to get hosting because the hosting company will store all your website files on a protected server so that your website is protected and you can accept visitors to site. The hosting company keeps all your files on their computers. You could host from your own computer but its very risky because its very easy for hackers to hack personal computers. This service is very cheap and usually starts at about $5/month.

After you get your hosting set up you next need to get a domain name. The domain is the www.yourdomainname.com part of a website. There are many places to get domain names but I mainly use GoDaddy. It is the industry standard and provides excellent service.

Next you'll need to connect your domain name to your hosting account so that when someone types in your domain name to go to your website it accesses the files that your hosting company is housing. When you sign up for hosting they'll give you what are called nameservers. You attach these to your domain name to make that connection. If you just go into your domain name account there should be an option to change your name servers. As soon as you find that just plug in the name servers you got from your hosting company and you're good to go.

The last step in getting your first website set up is top install a good CMS or content management system. With a content management system you'll be able to easily operate your website and make changes to it. I always go with Wordpress because its so easy to use and I recommend installing that for your first website.

After you have your CMS installed you've done it! The last thing to do now is to simply add content!

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