Do It Yourself Websites
For those of you who either cannot afford to have a web site professionally done or would rather just do it yourself here is what I would suggest doing:
- Purchase a Domain Name
Try to make your domain name short and sweet or if not that at least easy to remember. If this a business web site try to get a .com domain, i.e. "yoursite.com". You can purchase your domains at the web hosting companies I list in the next section. Registering a domain name will cost about $25.00 for two years, though some hosting companies will give this to you for free when you sign up to have a web site hosted.
- Obtain Web Hosting
There are a million places to get web hosting, but I'll suggest two that I use. I've always gotten good service from these companies and their rates are very reasonable: around $60.00 a year. - Use Open Source Content Management Systems
If you don't want to take the time to learn html or a programming language there are still an enormous amount of options for you to get a web site up and running. What you want is a good Content Management System (CMS). These systems allow you to update your web site from a backend administrative area that you login to on your web site. These systems can be very powerful allowing you to add pages, images, change colors, layout, etc. Most of them have very good support through their forums.
You can find many free templates for these systems that can match the look and feel of what you are looking for for your site. The easiest way to add these systems to your site is through the control panel of your web site in an area called Fantastico. Once you sign up for web hosting you will receive an email from your hosting company with a username and password to your site. Using these you can log in to your Control Panel where you can set up your email, check your statistics and use Fantastico or Fantastico De Luxe to configure the programs below. It's easy, fast and simple.
Here are some of the programs I've used or know about:
- Images for your Web Site
There are many places on the web to purchase inexpensive images for your web site. My favorite is: - Image Editing Programs
Images for the web need only be set at 72 pixels per inch resolution. I and many other web developers use the following two programs: - FTP Program
At some point you will probably need an FTP program to upload files. This will give you a fair amount of control on many of the above systems. Often you'll need to upload files (template or module folders) in order to modify the above programs to meet your needs. Again, there are many, many FTP programs out there. I don't use a Windows computer so I'm not familiar with that platform, but you can probably find an opensource FTP program easily. Many of them are listed here.
- Adobe Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver is used by many, many professional web developers (including myself). It is an FTP program, a text editor and a "What You See Is What You Get" Web Design and Development tool all in one. It'll cost you and it'll take some time to learn, but if you're a little more serious this is a must have tool. Visit their web site here.
