Is It Ever REALLY That Easy?

It’s a war zone out there…companies fighting to get to the top of the search indexes, SEO and Web Standards committees duking it out over the best practices, IT and Web Development departments canned to save a buck for CEOs, unemployment soars, e-commerce sites getting blasted by hackers, government wiki leaks..KABOOM!

..and from the ashes…rises the little freelance websites that withstand the test of time. (dun-DUUUUUUUN!)

Today, it is widely known you can start your own website, whether personal or business, with online website builders that do it all for you in a few simple clicks, for a relatively good price (I say relative, because sometimes you get what you pay for). Who needs to waste their time in understanding code, when it can all be a visual experience, putting it up, and getting on with your life?? Heck, even I try to strive for automation when it comes to site development…if someone out there has created a code or atmosphere that I can utilize on my own or at least improve upon…why not?!

The problem is when that ideal scenario becomes reality, and you suddenly find out very quickly that it takes a lot more work than originally intended to host your site (where it will live), set a domain name (stickystrudel.com), keep it updated  regularly with new content, and if you’re a business or at least wanting to sell products/services, market your work!

This ongoing guide is intended to provide you with a discovery of many of the ways most people, including yours truly, have found to easily create, install, and maintain a professional looking, and relatively simply kept website…without sacrificing your sanity or your bank account.

To begin, we start with the idea.

What is it going to be all about? Reading this article, you probably have a good idea about what kind of site you want. Projecting that idea onto a web space is the hard part. You can have a personal site with mostly your own content, your own businesses website that can show your services, portfolio, contact information, etc., or you could also run an e-commerce site that offers direct sales to the products/services you offer. Now, if you want me to save you the time in offering some links to some pretty good online website builders out there, here you go…

Note: These are my personal picks, and from how I’ve seen/experienced, these are my favorites for quality, price, and support:

Weebly - www.weebly.com

SquareSpace - www.squarespace.com

WordPress* - www.wordpress.com

Blogger* – www.blogger.com

*- Yes, these are blogging platforms, but within these content management systems (CMS, comprehensive online software that handles your website’s content and presentation of your site)

..the rest of you…keep reading

Coming to Terms..

Now don’t be confused by all the lingo that comes with the web-building territory. By now, you’ve already checked the search engines with words like ‘build your own website’ or ‘website building’, etc…and are tearing your hair out trying to figure out the best options, or which direction to go next. So, (this can also be an opportunity to ask questions in the comments below) here is a small list of terms that you can familiarize yourself with when it comes to the online jive:

URL Uniform Resource Locator) basically, the web address, how websites are identified (i.e. http://www.zachmcqueary.com)

Bandwidth: Speed capabilities of upload and downloads, either from your internet connection, or the capacity of your web server where your site will be stored. Bandwidth capacity will affect how fast people are able to access your site, run streaming video, pull images, or run certain code.

Server: Essentially, they’re computers that sends web content to your web browser.

• Web Servers – A computer, usually owned by a web Hosting company (GoDaddy, 1and1, Network Solutions, etc.) that can store your website and make it accessible for people to access. They can also offer various storage capacities, bandwidth speeds, email capability, useful tools and technologies, databases to store your site’s storage data for say content or other information.  This also ties into Domain Hosting (Domain Name = “zachmcqueary.com”) that can register particular domain names…think of it as real estate. Some people/companies buy up many domain names imaginable and sell/rent it off to individuals like real estate (but I really consider them like sleazy patent scavengers). You can also have what are called DNS or Domain Name System servers that are responsible for informing all other computers on the Internet about the domain name and the web site address.

Programming Languages: Like anything in the computer world, things are created using code. Think of them as building blocks to build practically anything. Behind the scenes of everything you see on the screen is run by code, and code can have its own language depending on what you’re building. In the web world, the most common can be:

• HTML -(the new wave is known as HTML5 – <code>)
• PHP - (a more diverse language that can pull data from more places to insert into HTML)
• Javascript - (not the same as Java or JScript) known for more stylish and functional behaviors on a website, and the new wave for this language is known as..
• jQuery – which is a slicker, more compacted version of Javascript, what you see most sites that have wonderful sliding tools, floating objects, and interactive elements)
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – point of reference for web pages to set colors, font sizes, positions, and a whole lot more
• SQL - (Structured Query Language) primary for accessing database information, and manipulating the stored data

For more definitions, visit the W3C Web Standards website, or ask questions in the comments below.

With that out of the way, my first suggestion is to decide whether you’re going to be sinking money into hosting your website on any one of these self-hosting platforms (WordPress, SquareSpace, etc.) OR hosting it on your own web hosting providers (GoDaddy, 1and1, etc.)…you can also build your own server, but lets stick to the basics for now.

My Personal Take

I am currently hosting my account on GoDaddy, which so far has been a relatively good host. Others have their own opinions, and certainly there are many bugs to work out, but I’m running on a basic account on GoDaddy. My bandwidth capacity isn’t the best, but until my site visits warrant upgrading…we’ll cross that bridge then. NOW, the nice thing is that GoDaddy had an automated software installing section where you can download software directly to your account! In this case, I was able to install WordPress directly onto my account, which is what allows me to add new content, plugins, and many other adjustments through a relatively user-friendly and comprehensive back-end administration.

So along with GoDaddy web hosting + domain name purchasing, WordPress content management system, I was able to set up a pretty decent website to house my business practices, and use as a storage and portfolio for other websites that I can develop. The possibilities are truly endless.

So…as your brain melted yet? Hopefully you have some gray cells left to continue to our next installment of the proper steps to Choosing a Web Host and finding the right fit for your ideal website.

As always, be sure to let me know if there are any particular questions you have pertaining to setting up your own online website, if you would like a quote for my services, and topics you would like me to discuss in further posts.

Until next time

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