How To Set Up A Website

Register a domain name:

A domain name is the name of your site. For example this site's domain name is 'your-lifestyleonline.com'.

You will have to decide on your preferred  name for the site. There are many sites available to both check the availability of your preferred name & if it is available, purchase it.

It is a good idea to have several name variations incase the one you want is already taken. So, supposing you want 'mywebsite.com' alternatives may be 'my-website.com' etc.

.com, .com.au or something else?

This depends on the purpose & target audience of your site. If you are an Australian business providing goods or services then .com.au is your best option. You will need an ABN to register a .com.au domain name however.

Other Australian prefixes include id.au if you wish to register your personal name, .org.au for registered charities & non profit organisations.

Freely available prefixes without restrictions include .com, .net, .biz, .org & .info.

Webhost

A webhost is a company who owns web servers. These allow you to store all the files of your webspace. For example this page is a file, it has been uploaded to a web server which is connected to the internet, allowing visitors to access & read the article.

Once you have registered your domain name you will need to find a webhost to upload (transfer from your computer to the web server) your files. If you are only running a very small site your ISP (internet service provider such as Bigpond, Optus etc.,) may offer limited space with your internet package.

Do your homework before signing up with a webhost. Hosting Reviews is a great site to get information on recommended webhosts.

Registrar & DNS

The actual address of a website is in the form of numbers (which would look like this; 123.456.789.123). This is known as the IP address. Obviously, having to remember a bunch of numbers would be near impossible, which is why websites create memorable domain names (such as your-lifestyle). The DNS (domain name server) translates your website name into these numbers.

Once you have opened an account with your webhost you will be provided with DNS (domain name server) information. The company you registered your domain name with should also act as a registrar.

You will have to register with them & log in & enter your DNS information in the appropriate fields.

Editing software

If you are a business & have no website building skills I would recommend you hire a website designer. This will guarantee your site has a sleek & professional look.

Most website designers will do all the legwork for you & register your domain name & either find you a host or store the website on servers they own or webspace they rent.

If you do want to create your own website you can either code the site yourself, but you will need to learn html (HyperText Markup Language), or you can use software specifically designed for creating webspace. Prices of this software vary. Common programmes include Microsoft Frontpage & Macromedia Dreamweaver.

Meta tags:

This is information which is stored in the 'head' of your webpage which provides the search engines (Google, Yahoo etc) with information about the page. The visitor can't read this unless they choose to 'view source'. It just helps the search engines. For example, the three meta tags on this page show;

Title:

<title>How To Set Up A Website - A Step By Step Guide</title>

As the name suggests, this is the title of the webpage.

Keywords:

<meta name=keywords content="domain registration, website, website hosting">

These are common & relevant keywords that have been used in this article.

Description:

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A step by step guide to setting up a website including topics such as domain registration & webhosting.">

This is a brief description of what the article is about.

There is much speculation that meta tags don't hold as much weight as they used to because people had been abusing them. However, I have always used them & so far seem to rank fairly well with the search engines. I would recommend not abusing them though. If you have written a page on how to set up a  website, don't use irrelevant keywords such as 'mortgage, lawyer, vodka' to bolster your ranking. They are not relevant to the topic in most likelihood will cause your ranking to be penalised.

Uploading your files to the www:

Once you have created your page(s) you will want to upload them to the webserver. An easy way to do this is via software which will FTP (file transfer protocol) the files across.

The page you will use as your homepage (the page visitors will see when they type in www.yourwebsite.com) is saved as 'index'. So always save your homepage as 'index'.

Free websites:

There are many websites available that will give you free webspace. Choosing this option means that you do not have to register a domain name, find a webhost etc. The downside is that you will probably have advertisements on the page. If you are looking to set up a small/private website then this option is fine. However, if you are setting up a business website or would like to make money from advertising yourself it is better to buy your own hosting etc. See below on how to do this.

Summary:

So, in simple terms you will need to;

1) Register a domain name

2) Find a webhost

3) Enter your DNS information with the relevant registrar

4) Upload your files to the webhost

Glossary:

DNS: Domain Name Server. The actual address of a website is in the form of numbers (which would look like this; 123.456.789.123). This is known as the IP address.  The DNS (domain name server) translates your website name into these numbers.

Domain name: The name of your site. Your-Lifestyle.com.au is the domain name of this website.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol. This is a simple way to transfer files between computers across the internet.

Head: This part of the page is not displayed in browser windows. It contains information about the page.

HTML: HyperText Marup Language.

ISP: Internet Service Provider. This is who you connect to the internet with. Such as Bigpond or Optus.

Meta Tags: Information placed in the head of your page to provide information on it. Such as a title, keywords & a short description of what the page is about. There are other meta tags that can be used, one of which tells the search engines which page(s) they can spider.

Registrar: This is where you register your domain name & input your DNS information.

Server: A machine that stores your webpages.

Upload: Transferring files from a local computer to a server.

Webhost: A company who owns servers which are storage space for your website.