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As a computer programmer and website builder I often get questions about how a website works, what is hosting and
do I need that? Where can I get a domain name? What is a searchengine? I want a website how do I start etc.
Well, if you want to understand more about how to get a web site and don't know how or where to start, then keep on reading. Because when you are not familiar with internet or websites and related terms about scripting, browsers and servers then it is difficult and you have no clue what people are talking about. And why should you know it? You finally just want to use your website and don't want to bother about all the technical details. Thats fair enough, but perhaps you want to understand a bit more about how it all works. Then you know what 'they' talk about. I explain the seven steps you need to get your own website up and running. Not to technical, or to difficult, but understandable. Are you ready? There we go...
Let's take the example of Alex and Laura, they run a shop named 'Lexura' in the place Merseyport. They sell books, stamps, records old and new and they thought of a website, because then they can show their stock to the world and get more customers. They can send their products by post and get paid by bank or internet. Not a bad thought, what should they do now?
Well lets start with the name of the domain. The domain name is your internet address, preferably this is a name with your shop name in it. You can do this step later if you like, but it might be handy to have an address, so you can create a logo, print your letters, advertise etc. For Alex and Laura it would be good to have the name www.Lexura.com or www.lexura.co.uk. But the name may be taken so they have to think of something else like www.lexura-merseyport.com or www.lexura-merseyport.net. Think of a name that is easy to remember, thats important to your customers.
There are several websites were you can find out if a name is already taken. If you try to find the name through your browser, it might say 'Page cannot be displayed', but that doesn't mean that the domain name is free. Someone may have the name but not a site. A good website to check for the existence of a domain name is me2uweb.net. You can also buy the name there and they do webhosting, but we will get back to that. Let's assume the name 'www.lexura.com' is available, then what? There are two options, remember the name and get it later when you have the website finished, or get it now, then you are sure the name is yours. You can buy a domain name for one or more years. After that time you have to buy your name again, but you will be notified. On the other hand when you buy a name for a long period it will be cheaper, but if the shopname changes, you might be with a useless domain name. So choices, choices, options, options... A name will cost between £5 and £8 per year, it depends on the extension (.com .co.uk .net etc.)
But let's say you bought the name (through internet with a credit card) or buy the name later with the hosting package (might be gone when you finally want to buy the name but on the other hand you are able to change your name if thats needed). Please note that its very useful to buy the name and the hosting package at the same company. There are companies that offer you a free name if you buy a hosting package, but when you are not pleased with their services and you want to change to another hosting company, you cannot move your name!, because they are the owner and you were allowed to use the domain name as long as the site is hosted by them. If you have a name and want to use a new hosting company, they will get the details to connect your domain name to their hosting package. And finally when you have a name and don't want to change your hosting, be sure that they can host your new site. So a lot of thinking, puzzling, meetings etc. but you have a name you did step 1.
What do you want to tell your visitors with your website? It's clear that in our example Alex and Laura want to sell. They have (new and used) books, records and stamps. So their main thing: stock listed on the website. With the digital camera Laura makes pictures of some old books and wants these photos to be seen on the site. You might want to send a newsletter to your customers, visitors. The newsletter can contain your latest added products and most important: you keep in touch with your customers, so they won't forget you. And the letter will be send by E-mail! A page with your conditions, how about delivery costs, insurance, item send after receiving payment etc. Perhaps you need a page with latest news or special offers about your products. And of course you enable your visitors to search on your site for items. Think of a page where they can send E-mail to you. The best thing you can do, is write all your wishes down and don't worry if you forget something or ask to much. The webbuilder may have more ideas and can advise you later. Ah that was step 2, a logical step and a tough one. Later you might get more ideas, just add them, because we are still developing your website.
You now have the content of your site and how are we going to show this? This is actually the most important thing, it gives visitors an impression of your company. Look at your website as if its the cover of a magazine, if the cover is good, you wil continue reading. If you want to design your website, get a big piece of paper and draw how you would like to see your pages. You might want a banner on top of the page with a slogan, or your company logo, or a picture of your shop, or nothing at all. Where on the screen do you want the navigation menu? The leftside, rightside, at the top? It is your site, so if you have any ideas just write them down. And then of course the colors, that can be a hard part. Finding matching colors is difficult and mind you on every screen colors are looking in a slightly different way. And what about the used font type? Does the type reflect your image? You might think that this is nonsense, but look at existing web sites and see how they did it. Web designers make styles to control every pixel of your screen. It can look simple (see Google) and very effective, or complicated (no I don't give an example here). My advise is, keep it simple, your visitors should be able to see all the time the navigation menu and don't want to get lost on your site. In a few mouse clicks they should be able to find a product, create an account, login or get a lost password etc. The easier you make it, the bigger the chance of getting a new customer.
Now we have an address for your site, the content and the design, so the site can be made. If you have any programming skills you can write your own scripts. If you know a bit about webdesign you may even download a complete package of internet with all the scripts. Usually there are several templates to select your design. If this is your choice, step 2 and step 3 were not needed or you must rewrite the scripts to get the site the way you want. It is just an option, but let's go back to our example, Alex and Laura, they have the shop Lexura and they did the three previous steps. They have given all the information to the webdesigner. And now it's his job to make a website. The making of a website is usually on a local machine, there's no website address available for public. On his own computer the designer simulates internet, it is easier for him to develop the site. If you want to know more about the making, just continue reading. Otherwise you can skip this part and go to Step 5.
The website of Lexura contains a lot of information about products and customers. To order a product the customer must have an account at the site. To add a product Alex and Laura need an administration section. To store and retrieve this information the designer needs to create a database, then he must work with a scripting language. Ah yes let's get technical! He will write all the scripts for the site, to get, change and/or save the information provided by customers or Alex and Laura. When that's done, the engine of the site is working and he does the design. And there you are, on the local machine the brand new website finished. Let's show this site to Alex and Laura. They were very pleased. Now the site needs to be hosted.
To understand a bit more about what to do and why, I will explain a few things about what hosting is. So take a deep breath and there we go. A hosting computer is allways connected to internet and contains the pages of your website. From that hosting computer pages are sent to your (or your visitors) screen, the host serves the information, therefore you may call the host server.
Yes we need some pictures to make it clear.
The red arrow shows the way your page is going to your screen.
What happens when you click on a button or a link?
Then information will be sent the other way, from your computer to the host.
When you understand this we are already halfway and you will not be examined or rewarded, just read this over again to get the picture right.... OK now the next step, because the webdesigner made scripts and where are they and what is it doing?
Yes a lot of work of the designer is not visible. He probably made brilliant scripts to retrieve information and forfill the needs of the visitors, but you just expect after a mouseclick, that things are working. The scripts are also on the hosting computer and they work only over there. And this is the important part. The host must have software to run the script. Here is the point where the scripting language of the designer and the active software of the host computer must match. There are different scripting languages and therefore there are different hosting packages. Let's take a look at the next picture there we have a script running. Imagine the user entered a searchtext and is looking for a record of the Beatles and to start searching he clicks a button. Here is what will happen:
After the button click (follow the red arrow) the information is sent to the server, the script starts and looks in the database. There are two records of the Beatles (follow the green arrow now) and at the host computer a page will be made and send back to your screen. Well thats all! Congratulations, you know the basic things about hosting. and if you know what scripting language is used by your designer, then you know what kind of package you need. Often used are PHP and MySQL scripting. Ask your designer if he used any libraries, they must be available in your package too. Your hosting company will offer you a database (perhaps more then one), a number of E-mail accounts, space reserved on the server, an amount of bandwidth and some other options. It is wise to choose your package with your designer, he knows what you need.
After this sidestep we go back to our project, the site needs to be hosted.
After Step 1 we now have one of the next situations:
* You have not bought a name and you have not chosen a hosting company.
That's easy, order your name and package and your domain can be available in 24 hours.
* You have bought a name and you have not chosen a hosting company.
When you have a website name, ask/inform your new hosting company. They want to be sure you are the owner. And to transfer or use your domain they may need some inlog information. And order of course your package.
* You have bought a name and you have a hosting company.
Check if your hosting company supports your scripts, if they don't, read step 1.
Well done, the site is finally up and running and now you have to add your products to the site. This will be a time consuming job. You may even consider not to show the site to your public until you have enough items to show. Talk it over with your webdesigner, he can help you with showing a page that the site will be opened on a certain date. Meanwhile you can make the stock on the site bigger.
Your website will be visited by searchengines like Google and Yahoo. Don't worry you don't need to do anything. However, these robots look for information about your website. They look for a description of your site and for keywords. Your designer probably asked you to give a brief description of the site. This description will be put in your page(s), so are the keywords. Think careful about the selected words, in our example we should have books, records, stamps, Beatles etc. But when customers enter these words in the searchengine Google they will get thousands of pages and you will be on a page where visitors never will look. So add the keywords Merseyport and Lexura, your local shop visitors may try these words. Mind you it can take months before a spider visits you. The ranking of your site depends on the number of visits you get on your site and the number of links on other websites. To become nr 1 can take a long time.
If you still have any questions, just send an E-mail
EdM Computer Services was founded with the mission of providing fast, friendly and affordable computer solutions to the Merseyside and North West district for both businesses and homes. As a small business we too understand the value of keeping an eye on the bottom line, which is why we focus on value-added computer solutions which are designed to keep your IT costs down and your productivity high.