How do I create and host a website? Is the question I was asked by many? In this post, I want to provide steps to be taken to build and host your own website.

How to design your web site

The first stage in building your site is deciding, what do you want the Website to Do? So before you begin make sure you ask yourself these questions.

1. Why do I want a website?
2. Will I need to update the site frequently?
3. Will I use the website to attract new visitors?
4. How much am I prepared to pay?
5. Will I be doing it myself?

Once you have a general idea of what you want from your website you can then move on to the second stage of deciding do it yourself or Have someone do it for you or a mixture of the two. Then you have to chosen design method, generally they classified into two types, they are static and dynamic.

Static ones are HTML or more commonly Today HTML/CSS. These sites are very easy to build (There are many templates available) and are simply edited using a web page editor, and are supported on all hosts.

Dynamic Ones use some form of server-side technology and database or is it just a couple of HTML pages only. If your website needs a database and some server-side scripting to process the data sent from users of your website then you have to choose the server-side technology and database.

The main options are as follows.
Java – Servlets, JSP and probably some framework also.
ASP.NET
PHP

Database can be anything you want. There is no hard and fast rule about database. You can use any database of your choice. Price and features are to be considered. If you need a moderate database then any database management system like Oracle, MS SQL Server and MySQL would do. They are given in the order of price, Oracle being the costliest.

Once you complete design and development of the website and tested it on your local environment, it is ready to be hosted and made available to the world.

How to Register a Domain Name

Deciding on a domain name is a very important part of the process as this name will be what everyone types into their browser to locate your Web site. The domain name could also become part of your city’s identity on business cards, stationery, etc. When I wanted to create a website for myself(Narendra Padala), I went for domain name narusoft.co.in. If you are lucky, you get the name of your choice. In case you don’t get the name you want then probably you have to add any suffix or prefix. For example, it is onlinesbi.com for State bank of India.

Reserving a domain name is easy and very cost friendly. The cost per domain name per annum starts at Rs.350/-. There are various offers by resellers. Check out the following links for that. These websites allow you to check the availability of domain name with different extensions. They also generally provide hosting facility, in case you want it.

http://nare204389.supersite.myorderbox.com/index.php
http://www.bookandhost.com/
http://www.networksolutions.com
http://www.domainsforyou.net
http://www.getwebdomains.com

How to Host a website

Hosting the website is the process of making your website available to everyone in the world. You broadly have two options.
1. Host it on your own.
2. Host it on hosting company’s server.

Host it on your own server is a costly affair as you have to buy server and other infrastructure to run your server 24×7. You also need people (administrators) to manage your server 24×7. Your server is to be connected to Internet with its own IP address and with good band width.

Generally for startups it is ideal to host your website on somebody else’s server. There are a lot of companies offering hosting services like windows hosting, Linux hosting etc. You can choose the one in your local market. Or it could be anyone with good track record and quality service.

There are lots of companies providing hosting services. The price also depends on the technology you used and other services such as email that you need.

Generally hosting PHP based website with MySQL is the cheapest. Next comes Java with MySQL and then ASP.NET with MS Sql Server.

When you take hosting services for your website, you are given an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) account, which allows you to access your area (a folder) in the server. You have to use one of the FTP tools to log on to server with your account details and transfer your files from your system to host. There are a lot of FTP clients that you can use to upload files from your system to server. I have used many of them. I found File Zilla free and simple to use.

How you transfer your database depends on the database you are using. For example, in case of MySQL, you can use Import/Export tool provided by MySQL or create tables in the MySQL database using PhpMyAdmin. It all depends on your database product.

How to maintain a web site

Generally no website is created once and used forever. So, you need to add new content to your website from time to time. That is done by website owner. You need to upload new content to host from your system using FTP account whenever you need to change the content of the website.

If you are hosting your website on your own server then changing content in your server is equivalent to changing the website.

This isn’t going to give you that wonderful, relaxing reading room I talked about up above. Have a good concept and want to build a website?

Keep Learning …Narendra Padala