Learning how to start a website is easy. Learn how to start a website!
Starting a website is a great idea, but how to start a website?
Well, you should first decide what kind of website you want. Is it simply going to be to display some information about your business and you will not need to often make changes or updates to it? Then a simple html brochure site will do, and if you cannot design or code this website yourself, you will have to hire a web designer to do so for you. HOWEVER,…
HOWEVER, you should not need to hire a web designer if you want to start a website for free, using a free WordPress theme – there are over 1 500 free WordPress themes to choose from. You can create your own free website using WordPress, without first having to know how to design or code a website in html coding.
WordPress is a Content Management System, so you will also get to add your own pages of content, add your own images, further slightly customize the theme with your own website header banner or logo or by adding your own choice of WordPress plugins and widgets, and you also get to make changes and updates to your website yourself (without having to pay a web designer to make changes and updates for you.)
When learning about how to start a website you will discover that you will need to register a domain name for your website, and that your website will need hosting. A domain name is the name of your website like for eg the domain name of this website is tant.co.za and the URL (website address) for this website is http://tant.co.za
The hosting is so that there is a place for your website to be uploaded to, so that it can exist on the Internet.
Hosting is also needed if you want a professional email address so that your email address is the same as your website name, for eg info@tant.co.za or enquiries@tant.co.za or something similar, or we could even have both or even three of four different ones all ending in @tant.co.za but we could not have these professional-email email addresses unless we also had hosting for the domain name.
Also, you would not be seeing this website if it did not have hosting.
We like to think of or explain domain, hosting and website like this:
domain – street address
hosting – a house
website and website pages – the contents of the house (people, rooms, furniture)
A street address is just a street address if there is only an empty plot there.
A domain name is just a domain name if there is no hosting or website.
People and furniture and rooms belong in a house, just like a website belongs in hosting.
If you are keen to stop learning about how to start a website, and just want to actually get started with your own website, we can help!
© Copyright Teresa Schultz 2014
