Make a Website
A lot of people still do not realize that every single person can, quite literally, go on the World Wide Web and learn how to make a website. Yes, you heard me right. You don’t have to be a mastermind or brain-box and you certainly do not have to spend years studying the process. In fact, with the tools available on the market today, you can actually learn how to make a website within a day. In this article, we’ll discuss the various ways to get yourself up there, live on the World Wide Web and how to make a website to make your friends envious!
The First Step of How to Make a Website
Anyone who has learned how to make a website for themselves will tell you that the most important step actually happens before you even sit down in front of your computer. Proper planning is of upmost importance and will ensure that your project flows smoothly and the end result is exactly what you want it to be. So, grab yourself a piece of paper and a pen, put the kettle on and begin thinking about these questions which will help you to plan your site.
1) Why do you want to know how to make a website? Is it because you want to display your photographs? Do you want to keep an online journal or blog? Will the website be for your business and does it exist to bring you more customers? You must know the exact reason and keep that in your mind at all times. Write it at the top of the page and don’t be distracted away from your goal.
2) Once you’ve found your reason for learning how to make a website, you’ll be in need of some inspiration. This will come from reviewing other websites that are in your niche. If, for example, you want to build a site for your business, take a look at your competitors’ sites (you can find these simply by using a search engine such as Google). As you research these sites, make a few notes of the main things that strike you when you first open that site. What appeals to you? What do you dislike? What features and facilities would you like to implement on the site that you plan to build?
3) Research your keywords. Keywords are searched in the search engines and enable people to find sites relevant to the topic they are searching for. For example, if you want to learn how to make a website for your plumbing business, you should use a keyword research tool to find out the exact terms. There is no need to pay for expensive tools when you can simply use Google keyword tool. Make a note of all the keywords that are relevant to your site and how many people use each keyword.
4) This is the fun part of learning how to make a website and it is designing your site. You need to make a note of the different webpages that you will build and they will all lead off the homepage. The titles of the pages will generally include the keywords that you collected in step three.
Have a think about the content of each page. You should try to make it at least 300 words long so it will be search engine friendly. Also try to use a little visual media on your pages. Visual media can be anything other than just plain text and this can be in the form of videos from YouTube, Photos from Flickr or your own drawings and diagrams which you have scanned and uploaded to your computer.
So, with the above done, let’s get started with the processes of how to make a website.
You may think that you need some pretty in-depth knowledge of HTML and CSS to learn how to make a website and in reality, you couldn’t be more wrong. What you do need, however, is website builder software; the best on the market today is the BlueVoda website builder. It isn’t an online tool; this is software that you will download to your computer.
Once the download has finished, open up BlueVoda website builder and you will be faced with a user-friendly WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. Anything you do in the BlueVoda website builder application will be displayed as your final website will when it’s live on the web.
Chances are that if you dive straight in now and begin building your website, you’ll become fed up and de-motivated. A good suggestion is to take a couple of hours getting to know the software. Play around with learning how to make a website by changing the fonts, text sizes and colors. Add templates, logos and backgrounds as well as learning how to insert images and videos. Experimenting with all the features of the BlueVoda website builder will result in a much more rewarding experience.
The great thing about BlueVoda website builder is that you are supplied with a full library of tutorials on how to make a website and these cover all the steps you’ll need, including the creation of a menu bar which provides easy navigation to people viewing your site.
Once you’ve played around with the BlueVoda and feel confident enough, you can begin to put your plan into action. Make all your pages and insert your images. Remember to frequently press the preview button so you can see what the pages will look like when they are live on the World Wide Web. When learning how to make a website, always, always check as you go.
How to Make a Website: Naming your pages
There are some aspects of how to make a website that are rigid and cannot be changed however this will not make one difference to the overall appearance of your site. One of these aspects is how you should name your pages. The home page is the first page that someone will see if they type the domain name directly into the address bar of a browser. Never call a home page “Home”. Instead, title the file “index.html” (without the “s).
Also if you think back to all sites that you have looked at over the years, there are no capital letters in the URL addresses. All your pages’ filenames should be in lowercase. You can also never have spaces. In addition, you must add the keywords you decided on earlier as you learn how to make a website.
If we think back to our plumbing business example, I would not name a page as “plumber for hire”. There are spaces in this and the page will not work once it is uploaded to a hosting account. Instead the file should to be named as follows: plumber-for-hire.html
How To Make a Website
Another aspect of naming your pages when learning how to make a website is to keep your URLs as short as possible. Long URLs are not search engine friendly and you have less chance of appearing on the front pages of Google if they are way too long and convoluted. If you are using a tool such as BlueVoda website builder, then there is also no need to add .html or .htm onto the end of your. Let’s recap on the golden rules when naming your pages.
1) No capital letters
2) Use hyphens instead of spaces
3) Keep the names as short as possible
4) Don’t add additional terms onto the end, that are sometimes seen on other sites
How to Make a Website: Going live on the World Wide Web
So you’ve learned how to make a website but the process is not quite over yet. You want people to view your website and they can only do this when you publish your pages. If using a tool such as BlueVoda website builder, then you need to sign up for a VodaHost hosting account with which you’ll get a free domain name.
Once you have an account set up then you can publish your pages and the great things is that BlueVoda website builder saves you the hassle of messing around with old fashioned FTP file up loaders. Simply go into the file section of BlueVoda’s menu and press “Publish”. It will then connect with your hosting account. Repeat the process for each page and soon you will have a full blown website on the World Wide Web. Congratulations!
How To Make A Website: You need a mentor.
Chances are that if you have never learned how to make a website, that your confidence in yourself may be a little low. What happens if something goes wrong? How will you resolve it? You wish you had a teacher that you could explain the mistakes step by step.
The good news is that when it comes to knowing how to make a website there are lots of opportunities to grab a little bit of help. First of all turn to the software that you used to build the website. So if you used BlueVoda website builder, you will find out, they have their very own forum where you can connect with other people that are also learning how to make a website.
If you have a problem, then you can start your own thread and get direct answers from the moderators. Alternatively if the software provider does not run their own forum, there are plenty of general forums out there and you can find these by searching Google.
Don’t be afraid at any time to ask for feedback on your site. Everyone who has learned how to make a website will be able to tell you of mistakes that they made and what they wished they had known before they started. By talking and discussing with as many people as possible, you can widen your knowledge base.
There are also plenty of blogs on the World Wide Web which give step by step instructions. Please be aware that each software provider will have a different process so in this case if you use BlueVoda website builder, make sure to follow their tutorials and forum so that you are not given incorrect information.
How to Make a Website: What Do You Do Now
Your website is finished and it is all published to the World Wide Web. The only essential things you need to do now is remember to keep your hosting account and domain name registration up to date so that your website never gets taken down. You can, however, take your website to another level and that is by promoting and advertising that you are now open for business. The following are suggestions on how you can do this:
1) Set up a Facebook page that will help attracts visitors.
2) Join the community of Twitter and Linked In and get to know other professionals in your field.
3) Build some backlinks to your site by submitting to article submission sites.
4) Add yourself to local directories under the niche that your site is in
5) Add your website address to your business card and email signature
6) Leave comments on other blogs so that people get to know about your site
7) Join forums and add your site URL to your signatory.
How to Make a Website: The Benefits
Some people may find the task of making a website quite hard as they do not have much computer experience or knowledge of website builder software. If you find that this happens to you, just remember the benefits of knowing how to make a website. The main one is that you have total creative freedom and choice about the path that your website will head off in. You no longer have to consult with a professional webmaster who will charge you a lot of money just to make a few little changes.
Chances are that once your site is a couple of months old that you will want to make some changes or tweak a few aspects. By knowing how to make a website, you can do this all at the touch of a button. Learn how to make a website and if you find that you are particularly good at it, you could even set yourself up in a new career. You never know, you could become the next professional website builder and be in demand from friends and family.
