If you are involved in a home-based business these days, you need to have a website to support your business. If you are going to have a website, you should know how to build a website.
Many people will tell you that you should hire someone to build your website for you. I do not recommend that course of action. You need to know how to build your own website. Here's why:
- You will have to install updates and do other maintenance from time to time. It could get expensive if you have to pay someone every time.
- You will have more confidence as you work with you website because you will know what went into it.
- When you have built one, you will have more confidence hiring one done in the future. You will better know that you have received what you paid for.
What Things are Required to Build a Website
The idea of building a website is a bit overwhelming, and at first it will appear that this isn't going to make it look any easier. Stick with my because I promise that it isn't that hard. To start out, you have to make a few decisions.
Decision #1 - Web Hosting
When looking at how to build a website, the first thing you need is a place to put the files that make up your website. That is provided through a web hosting account. Your hosting company provides the computer server that will make your website available for the world to see. This is the piece that will cost you some money. There is no way around it.
There are a lot of choices for web hosting. Many companies provide the service. HostGator, BlueHost and GoDaddy are 3 companies that I can think of without looking. My hosting account has been with HostMonster for my entire time online. (This is an affiliate link to HostMonster. I may receive a commission if you sign up and I would be grateful.)
Hosting Technology
Once you choose your hosting company, you also have to choose what kind of hosting account you want.
- Shared Hosting is the least expensive option. Your website will live on a server with many other websites and share the resources. This is where I started out and stayed until a few weeks ago when I upgraded to...
- Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a middle point between a shared server and a private server. Your website still lives on the same physical server as several other websites but you have dedicated resources. Your website will be faster here.
- Dedicated Server hosting gets you the entire physical server. This is your choice if you have a lot of traffic and need a lot of resources.
For most people, shared hosting is the best choice for getting started. It is a very affordable way to build your own website and get your feet wet in the online world. When you decide that you want to play bigger you will be able to upgrade to VPS like I recently did.
Decision #2 - Your Domain Name
Your domain name is your address on the web. For example, the domain name for this website is playlikeamillionaire.com. The "www" is the default subdomain and is not part of the proper domain name.
You have to decide what you want your domain to be. Technically speaking it costs money to register a domain but many hosting companies include a free domain name registration when you get your hosting account.
How to Build a Website
Now you have a place to put your website and the address to reach it. Now it's time to actually start building a website. That brings you to the third decision you have to make.
Decision #3 - Content Management System
You could choose to not use a content management system (CMS) at all and just build your website by writing straight HTML and adding in some PHP to make it a little more dynamic. That's what I did back when I started, before I knew what a CMS was. I don't recommend it.
A content management system allows you to put all of your focus on your content and handles all of the presentation logistics for you. Once you have it all set up, you can spend your time managing your content - writing and editing your articles and interacting with your readers. The software turns your content into a page that is viewable over the Internet.
There are many programs out that that you could choose for building a website. I'm not going to waste your time or mine talking about any of them other than WordPress. I haven't found any that are easier to use or better supported than WordPress.
Why Build a Website with WordPress
WordPress is how to build a website the easy way. The first thing about WordPress is that it is free. It is open source software that has been around for a long time and is constantly being improved by a large development community.
WordPress is very customizable. You can find hundreds of different themes to change its appearance and how your content is displayed. There are hundreds of different plugins that alter and add to the built-in features and functionality.
Most importantly, WordPress is very easy to use. The interface for creating your content is similar to any other word processor that you might use. If you know how a webpage works, with pictures and links, then using WordPress is fairly straight forward.
It's Your Turn
I've covered how to build a website here at a fairly high level. If you have a home-based business, such as network marketing or affiliate marketing, and want to build your own website to support your business, which you should, then I can help you more.
I am creating a free e-book that walks you through building your own website for your network marketing business. I go into much greater detail than I did here.
Are you thinking about building a website for your business? Tell me about it in a comment below and please share this post with your followers on social media.
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