How to Have a Customized Website

Over the last fifteen to twenty years websites have been exponentially increasing. They're used for a number of things such as presenting information, getting input from users, displaying news and weather, keeping us up to date with world events, paying bills online, creating your business portfolio, managing your financial investments... as such the Internet has almost turned into a home away from home. It is as it is called... the world wide web.

What if you wanted to have your own customized .com, .org, or .net space on the web? You may be a not-for-profit organization that needs a way to put your information out to a large group of people without creating colorful brochures. You may be a small business that's just getting started and want a way to do battle with your competitors. You may be an independent contractor that needs some exposure... or an artist who needs a site to sell his music... or just a person who likes technology. Whoever you are, you need to follow these steps in order to create your own website:

Get a domain name.

You can go to checkdomain.com and do a search for domain names that aren't available. Of course you can't have a domain name that someone else is already using, and companies won't let you purchase them if this is the case either. You may do research and find that the .com version of your domain has been taken, but .org or .net is available. This may be a feasible option for your needs.

Just to be clear on what each extension is I'll explain them briefly:

.com - used for commercial entities, also the most commonly used extension

.org - used for not-for-profit organizations such as churches, benefits, causes, and other philanthropic entities

.net - used for networks, also a viable replacement for .com

Those are the main three extensions used on the web in the United States. Other countries have an added extension of their country. If you've ever been to the BBC home page, its domain name is www.bbc.co.uk. The uk at the end stands for United Kingdom. Being in America we don't have to worry about this. Your site would still be seen internationally no matter what extension you use.

Get a hosting account.

There are different types of hosting accounts as far as functionality. The biggest of those being website hosting, e-commerce hosting, blog hosting.

Website hosting is just that - for websites mainly. That isn't saying you can't do anything else with them other than websites, but that's what the specifics of the hosting server will be configured for. E-commerce hosting accounts are good for e-commerce websites. E-commerce websites are websites that are used for selling goods and services online. Ebay.com - probably the most widely known e-commerce website is a prime example. Amazon.com is a good example. Blog hosting is mainly used for websites that'll have a blog format.

Whatever format you decide, you need to purchase a hosting account. The prices vary based on amount of space you need, what features you want, and how long you want to keep the account for. Hosting accounts can be as reasonable as $5 per month or as high as thousands of dollars per month.

I'd recommend starting with godaddy.com and viewing what their hosting packages look like so you can get an idea of what kind of prices you're looking at. They also have a number of added features that you can include with your hosting package. Take a look at those as well to see what ideas may strike as far as what you want for your customized website.

Either get a developer or get some coding skills.

A website developer is a person that has the knowledge needed to build a customized website. What you'd be paying them to do is take the ideas that are in your head and wrap technology around it and place it on the Internet. Seeing as how the technology used on the Internet is ever-evolving this website developer will probably be on top of latest trends and techniques and be able to explain to you what things are feasible and what things are not, and how much it'll cost to complete and in what time frame. You can find website developers in a number of places. Most freelance sites have plenty of developers waiting for assignments. If you're trying to cut back on costs, I'd recommend placing an ad on craigslist.com for your city and seeing what people may turn up from that.

If you really can't afford to get a website developer you can attempt to build the site yourself. It will take knowledge of the following things: HTML (the markup language used to develop webpages), CSS (behind-the-scenes code that controls text and layout), and Javascript (scripting language that helps you make your website dynamic). There are plenty of tutorials on the web for each of the items I mentioned. I don't have any one particular website so search and see what works for you.

What I would recommend doing if you want to take the route of coding the website yourself is to go to your favorite sites, check the page source, and see how that particular site is built. How do you view a page's source code? Whether you're on a Mac or PC, the easiest way is to right-click with the mouse and select an option similar to "View Page Source." You should get a window come up that looks like code.

Now, after looking at this and you say to yourself, "there is nooooooo way!" I wouldn't be upset with you. I've been doing web development for over a decade and feel that way at times. In that case what I recommend is that you forgo the option of custom development and consider going with a template that's already been created. Many companies have pre-existing website templates where all you need to do is complete a form and it'll replace the dummy copy for you. You may lose some of your privileges such as file space or having your own personal domain name, but if you don't mind giving up those amenities then you have a lot more options for getting your information onto the Internet.