How do I create my personal website? It’s a very popular question since everybody sees the potential that comes with the Internet. You would like to get involved but you don’t know where to start.
The reality is that to make money online, you’ll need to produce your own website. Easier said than done? Not really, if you take the time to learn some basic skills. You’d be amazed to see how quickly progress can be made. Let me cover the essentials.
What you’ll need:
When you create your website, you need to give it a catchy and easy to remember name. That’s what is called a domain name. This is the part that fits between the “www” and the “.com”. You buy a domain name from registrars such as GoDaddy and NameCheap.
Secondly, you’ll need to choose a hosting company. Chances are the registrar you chose can also provide you with hosting services. But remember, you don’t have to buy these two elements from the same company. You can do a Google search for “hosting companies” to see what’s available. No matter which one you select, they all do the same work which is to connect your website to the World Wide Web.
Start creating
How can I transfer what I have in mind to my computer screen? There are some programs that are effective in helping you with that task.
First of all, you’ll need a web editor to design your web page on your computer. There are many. Some are available for free, but you can also invest in one that provides more features. If you’re about to create your first website, I’m sure the free software “Kompozer” will fulfill your needs.
You might find it a bit overwhelming to create a web page from scratch. Many tools are available to help you get started. Do a Google search for “free website templates” and you’ll have access to thousands of professional-looking templates you can start working with.
Once you are satisfied with the web page you created, you need to upload it to your hosting company. Even though you might be able to do it with your web editor, I suggest you learn how to do it using a FTP client (Filezilla works very well and it is free). FTP stands for Files Transfer Protocol.
You first log in to your hosting account. You will then transfer what’s on your computer to a specific folder at your hosting company. Note that when you create an account at your hosting company, they send you an email with all the information you need: username, password, nameservers, which folder you need to publish to, etc.