What is hosting. What is domain name. How can I design a new website. What you need to build a website explained step by step.
You have been wanting to start your own blog or website but are not sure where to start. Well you are at the right place, read on to know what you need to build a website.
Before you start, Lets look at what you need to start a website ?
To start any website you need three main things
1) A domain name
2) Hosting
3) A platform to design your website
If what I said above did not make any sense, then do not worry. We are going to go through these terms one by one.
Domain Name Explained
What is a domain Name
A domain name is nothing but a name of a website or blog. For e.g. when you hear http://www.google.com then this is actually a domain name. The domain name of the website you are reading is http://www.sharingourexperiences.com
Before you can start a website or blog you need to buy a domain name for your site. And Remember just having a name will not mean that now you have website but yes it is the first step to getting started.
Where can I get a domain name from
You can get a domain name from domain name registrars or in some cases web hosting companies.
First check whether the domain name you want is available, If yes then go to a domain name registrar and buy the domain name for a year. This will register your domain name with an organization called ICANN.
You will need to pay an annual fees to the registrar to use that particular name. Remember you have registered your site for only one year and this registration will need to be renewed every year.
Note – some web hosting companies like Dreamhost and Bluehost also throw in a free domain name when you buy hosting from them so you may want to explore such options before buying a domain name from anywhere else.
Some well known Domain Name registrar’s are
– Chemicloud (My favorite)
– Bluehost
– Namecheap
– Bigrock
– Go Daddy
Don’t worry we will talk about this in greater details later. For now you just need to be aware of that there is something called domain name and you have to buy it from somewhere.
Note – I am personally getting domain and hosting for all my client sites from here nowadays as you get domain absolutely free
Hosting Explained
What is hosting
To start with you can think of hosting as a space where you website will be stored and that provides services that will connect your site to internet i.e once you host your domain name your site will be visible to the world.
Web hosting companies provide technology and the services needed for a website to be viewed on the internet. Websites are stored or shall we now say hosted on special computers called servers.
When anybody wants to view your website, they will type your domain name into their browser (the icon you click on when you want to open any website it could be internet explorer, chrome, Mozilla etc), their computer will then connect them to these special computers called servers and your website will be delivered or lets say visible to them.
So again in short web hosting is a service that allows you to post a website on to the internet.
Where can I get web hosting from
You can buy hosting for your site from web hosting companies. There will be yearly plans available so you can chose and buy hosting as per your need.
Some well known web hosting companies are
– Chemicloud (My favourite)
– Bluehost
– Bigrock
– Go Daddy
– Hostgator
Again, don’t worry we will talk about this in greater details later. For now you just need to be aware of that there is something called hosting, mainly a computer where your website will be stored and you have to buy this.
The domain name of our website http://www.bloggingmadeeasier.com is currently registered and hosted at Chemicloud. We started with Dreamhost for few years then moved to Siteground and are currently using Chemicloud for our site http://www.sharingourexperiences.com and now also for bloggingmadeeasier.com .
Not only for these two websites but I have been using above hosting providers for my other client sites
So Hosting providers I recommend are
- Siteground– Excellent support
- Bluehost – Cheaper and internationally recommended
- Dreamhost – Good when you are starting out and if you don’t like they have 45 days money back
- Chemicloud– a hidden gem. Not very known but excellent support and they transfer site for you for FREE. Even for basic plan
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Platform for designing website explained
Now you have a domain name and its hosted and its time to actually start working on your website.
Do you need to know a computer language to start ? The answer is No. One common myth is that you need a coding background or technical knowledge to start a website.
Well let me assure you that this website has been created with Zero coding. How I achieved is with a platform like WordPress.
There are other platforms like DRUPAL and JOOMLA available but I will not talk about them.
As I find wordpress very user friendly, it has a great support forum, many free plugins and statistics show that more than 50% of the sites nowadays are made using wordpress.
Well, this brings me almost to the end of this blog.
Summary of what we covered today
So now hopefully you know the below terms and can understand
1) What is a domain name
Domain name is name of your website
2) What is Hosting
Space where your website is stored. A hosting provider provides a computer where your website is stored. (This is in very simple terms and not accurate)
3) What platform you can use to design your website
You can use multiple, but here we are going to talk about WordPress
What Next
Most of you would be wondering so do I buy domain and hosting right away or is there a free version that I can use.
When we talk about WordPress there are two things, you will come across WordPress.com and WordPress.org. For now you can consider WordPress.com as the free version and WordPress.org as the paid version.
Which one will work for you depends on what you want to do with your site. I have covered it in more details in my next blog What is WordPress, WordPress.com and WordPress.org – How to build a website continued
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