What You Need to Build a Website

There's a lot of information on this site and if you're a beginner, it can be overwhelming. I created this quick guide just to give you an idea of what's involved with creating a website.

I encourage you to read it through once without clicking on any of the links just so you can understand the big picture. Then after you've absorbed the info, go back and click the links for more info.

What You Need to Build a Website

1) Domain Name

The domain name creates the address of your site. So, mywebsite.com would be an example of a domain name.

Domain names are paid for yearly and you can register them here.

Looking for a FREE site?

I never endorse free webhosts. They are too unstable, you never really own your site and you do not receive a true domain name. Instead your address will be something like http://freesite.yourdomain.com. In some cases, the domain may be even longer.


2) Web Host

A website cannot exist without a web host. This is the company that houses your files and provides the environment for you to create and save pages to the Internet.

Web hosts are usually paid for monthly (some are yearly).

3) Web Building Software (Optional)

Some web hosts provide website building tools so you do not need any additional software. It's important you find out about this before you sign up with any host.

CoffeeCup & Dreamweaver are popular web editing software programs that people use to create and maintain their sites.

I used Dreamweaver to create this site.

If you don't use any software, then you will need to learn how to code HTML from scratch. All you do is open a text editor (Notepad or BBEdit for example) and then write the HTML that will create your page. It's pretty easy to learn.

Then you save the file as filename.html and save it to the Internet through your web host.

If you're not interested in learning HTML, I'd strongly recommend downloading some of my free HTML templates and buying a software program like CoffeeCup to edit and continue building your site.

Nvu and Komposer are two free editors you can download. As you might expect, they do have some limitations (free is not always best) but they can get the job done.

Other Website Features

Want a gaming site? Looking to create a message forum or chat room for your visitors to communicate? Maybe you want an online guestbook where people can leave you messages on your site.

This is where it gets a little tricky but don't let it discourage you. As the Internet matures, it's getting easier and easier to setup these kinds of things on a website.

Any kind of user interactive feature on a website requires some kind of script. A script is nothing but a file that contains a bunch of code that tells the browser how to behave.

Depending on what you want to create for your site, you'll need to go to your favorite search site (Google, for example) and search for the appropriate script (game script, message board script, etc.) Some are free, some are not-so-free.

Say you want a message board/forum, you can go to http://www.phpbb.com and get a free message board script. The trick is you have to install it yourself.

They do provide instructions and it really isn't that difficult but you'll need to get setup with your web host first.

Most web hosts will help you if you need some guidance and some even provide scripts to their customers for free. Powweb and Website Palace both do.

Important! Before you select a web host, make sure they support the kind of script and functionality you want to use.