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After planning the design and
content of your website, it's time to actually physically
set up your website. This is the step where you
put all your designs and plans into action, creating
a website that will attract visitors and earn income. |
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a) WEBHOSTING
A webhost is a company that stores the pages and pictures
and other files of your website. When a person visits
your website, they will request these files from your
webhost's server so they can view the website. When
choosing a webhost, be careful to choose one that is
reliable. After all, if your webhost has problems for
any reason, people won't be able to visit your website,
and you won't be earning any money.
In addition, different webhosts have varying services
and tools that they offer. Some of the more important
points to consider when choosing a webhost are as follows:
- SPACE AND BANDWIDTH - Space refers to how much
file storage space is available for your website.
For a standard website with about 20 pages with graphics,
30MB is plenty. Online stores might require more space
depending on how many products and pictures you have.
Bandwidth refers to how many files can be downloaded
and viewed by visitors per month. A normal website
with reasonable traffic (200 visitors a day) will
need about 2GB bandwidth. Again, if you own a business
with lots of products and webpages, you might need
more bandwidth.
- DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS - Usually, webhosting accounts
are charged per domain, with $10 per domain being
a reasonable price. However, you can buy larger hosting
packages that allow you to host multiple domains and
websites on the same account. Subdomains are just
different sections of your website's domain, with
5 subdomains the rough standard. You will need to
make sure how many domains your account entitles you
for, in order to calculate which is the better webhosting
package.
- EMAILS AND AUTORESPONDERS - Emails are the various
email addresses that visitors can write to you. Most
websites will use about 2 or 3 emails (maybe a webmaster
email and a support email). Autoresponders are email
addresses that will reply someone with an automatic
email. You will only need autoresponders if you are
on vacation and wish to leave an automated reply in
case anybody emails you.
- SCRIPTS - If you want to add extra functionality
(such as forums or polls), you will need to be able
to run scripts. Make sure your webhost allows you
to run scripts for your website. The more common scripts
are Java, PHP, Perl and CGI.
There are a number of companies out there that offer
free webhosting, but they usually have severe limitations,
and might place their own ads on your website. If you
are serious in building your internet business, it is
recommended to sign up for a proper webhosting service.
We recommend HostGator, which provides different levels
of webhosting depending on your requirements and budget,
with various useful tools as well. In any case, you
shouldn't be paying more than $10 a month per domain
for basic webhosting services.
b) PROGRAMMING
Some people with sufficient HTML knowledge use word
processing programs to directly code the HTML for their
websites. For the rest of us who don't have such skill,
we recommend one of the popular graphical programs like
Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage. These
programs allow you to create your webpages with mouse
clicks with little need for knowledge in HTML.
If you want to make your website look like another
website, you can "copy" their HTML and modify
it to fit your website. In Internet Explorer, click
the "View" menu, then click the "Source"
option. This will show you the HTML code for the website.
You will need some HTML knowledge to make sense of this
and use it on your website.
If you need more information and examples on the many
things that HTML can do, you can visit the online tutorial
at W3Schools.
c) FILE ORGANIZATION AND TRANSFER
Once you have your webhosting set up and your webpages
completed, you need to transfer the completed pages
to your webhosting server. If you are using a graphical
program like Dreamweaver to work on your webpages, you
can configure Dreamweaver to transfer the files for
you.
If you are doing it manually, you need to transfer
the files via FTP. Your webhost will provide you with
an FTP server, with a user id and password for you to
access your account on the webhost. Once you connect
to the account via FTP, you will be able to upload (transfer
files from your computer to the server) or download
(transfer files from the server to your computer) or
modify files as required.
You can FTP to the server using your computer's Windows
Explorer, by entering the FTP server's address in your
explorer's Address Toolbar. Or you can use specialized
FTP programs such as AceFTP.
d) ADDITIONAL SCRIPTS
If you want to add extra functionality to your website,
such as polls, newsletter subscription forms and other
interactive programs, you will need to install scripts
onto your website.
If you are looking for scripts to create a newsletter
mailing list, do note that some webhosting services
also provide mailing list scripts. If your webhost doesn't
provide it, BigNoseBird has a good email list management
software.
For other scripts and functionality, you can check
out the popular scripts at websites such as BigNoseBird
and HotScripts.
When you've finished setting up your website and getting
it launched, the next step will be to start looking
at the various means to attract visitors at:
http://www.onlinebiz-help.com/step4.html
About The Author
Steven is the webmaster of http://www.onlinebiz-help.com.
His website contains various resources on affiliate
programs and internet marketing advice to help you succeed
in your internet business, including a Step-By-Step
Guide to get you started.
webmaster@onlinebiz-help.com
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