Make Ur Own Website

Advances in technology mean that today you can make ur own website, without any specific skills or knowledge.

In this article we will cover the basics of creating ur own websites as well as compare the different methods. This will help you to find the method which best matches your needs.

Domain Name
This is the address of your website. If you type it into your web browser window it takes you to the site's home page. The domain name of this site is hubpages.com

Web Host
This is the computer on which your website is hosted.

One of the most important step when creating a website is, hosting it right. I work as a web application developer and I frequently see web hosts who save money by putting too many web sites on the same web server or by under spending on support.

Decent web hosting costs around $5 a month and hosting the domain name cost around $6 a year.

Here are 5 good web hosts for your website:

1. Blue Host - easiest good host for beginners
2. Host Gator - best for experienced publishers
3. Host Monster
4. Go Daddy
5. Just Host

A traditional web site works a bit like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Word documents. You use Word to open Word files and read what's inside them. You use your web browser(Internet Explorer) to open html files and read what's in them. These html files could be either on your hard drive or on a remote web server.

With the traditional system, you need to know how to read html code. CMSs where created to allow you to create web sites without knowing that.

CMSs have 2 things going for them

1. They are extremely easy to install and use, you can add lots of content in no time at all.
2. People have created many powerful plugins which enhance the look and functionality of these CMSs
   

You install a CMS onto a web server, like you install a program on your computer. Once installed you add content to it, through your web browser.

There are a number of CMSs. I am going to discuss the top 2: Wordpress and Joomla they are both free and they both have a large community that provide support and plugins for them.

If, you have a web hosting account with a good company. You can login to your account and look around. They will most likely have the facility to install either of these CMSs with a few clicks.

A blog is the best solution for a website to which you frequently ad new articles. It keeps the freshest content on and near, the home page, of the site. So it's great if you want to build a loyal following of readers who visits your site regularly.

On top of that blogs with regularly added content is very popular with search engines and can get lots of high value traffic from search engines.

You can find lots of Wordpress plugins and support at their home page: wordpress.org.

Once you have installed Wordpress Google free Wordpress themes. Get a free theme and use it to give your blog a better look.

You don't need to buy a book to get started blogging, but ProBlogger is the best blogging book out there. I own it and I absolutely recommend it.

If you want to make ur own website with a more traditional layout. Joomla is the quickest and easiest way to do it.

Google free Joomla extensions, to find plugins that expands Joomla's functionality and Google free Joomla templates to get a nice skin for your Joomla site.

Of course you don't have to use a CMS. It is possible to create ur own website using html. Below is a great tutorial showing you how to create your own webpage using nothing else than Notepad and Firefox.

Obviously you can't create very complex or large pages with an editor like Notepad. For that you need something like Microsoft's Publisher or Dreamweaver.

Publisher comes standard with Microsoft Office, so you probably already have it. It's a great web page creation tool for beginners.

Dreamweaver is the alternative for professionals. I use it to create php pages and it's very good for that purpose.