Making your own website might sound like an intimidating job but there are actually numerous ways in which you can establish your own site. In this blog, I’ll help enlighten you about these different ways and leave you to decide whichever method suites you best. Whether it’s just for bragging rights or for academic purposes, I’ll will guide you every step of the way until you can say that you have successfully built your very own website. Let’s get you started on some of the basics.
Before you can build your own site, you must first know what a website is. A website is a collection of webpages that is accessed through the internet. A website can serve a variety of purposes depending on the contents of the webpages that comprise it.
If you want to build your site from scratch, you must first choose a website building platform or language with which you have ample knowledge and skill. Some basic skills you need to learn are HTML and CSS. The next thing you need to do is to identify the purpose of your website. Identifying your site’s purpose is very important because it will be used as your basis for the design and content of your site. After determining the purpose, you can then start conceptualizing the design of your website based on the purpose of your site. If it is for professional purposes, make sure to make the site look formal and legitimate. That way, you can establish a degree of trust with the visitors. As for various recreational purposes, you may experiment with different exciting layouts. Make sure that the site is easy to use and the layout is pleasing to the eye. Also ensure that important points or components are positioned in strategic areas wherein they can easily be seen by the site visitor. After designing your site, you must now gather content for the site. Like the design, the content must also be based on the site’s purpose. For example, if your purpose is to share various media or files on your site, you can look for or make your own videos, photos and articles which you want to include. You can categorize them and add a search function to make it easier for the visitor to determine if your site contains the things he need. When all of these requirements are met, you can then start building your website using the platform of your choice.
Another option which is becoming widely popular is through the use of a Content Management Systems or CMS. Ultimately, the use of CMS is one of the easiest ways in building and maintaining websites. With this option, you don’t necessarily need to have great skill with HTML or any other web coding languages. Even nontechnical can edit pages and expand the site’s content. With using a CMS, you can readily install themes for the appearance of your site. All other components like adding an article, a new page and other contents can be done through the easy-to-use graphical interface of the CMS that you are using instead of having to tediously code each section of your website. With the help of a CMS, what used to take hours can now be done within minutes once you know your way around the CMS of your choice. Some of the most popularly used are WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla! Most of these CMS are open-sourced or free to download.
