An Angel on the (Cob)Web: How to Build a Website - Day 3

Day 3 Creating a Website Requires a Good Web Development Application

CSS and HTML knowledge will also allow the building of your new site

Although there are many scripts available from your Webhosting provider that will allow you to set up your new sites with the push of a button, I couldn't overlook this essential step.

It's important, when one manages a website to know all the different options that are offered. Here are a few of them:

1. Using your web host, you will set up a site using scripts like Concrete5, Weebly, Wix, Joomla, Nuke, etc. In my humble opinion, the easiest to start with are Weebly and Wix,however they might not provide you with all the features you need. In this case, Concrete5 is pretty well conceived.

Concrete5 is a CMS that is built on PHP. It is far more secure than many scripts I've already tried. To say the truth, the only site I own that's never been attacked by hackers was my Concrete5 site.

When you create a page, you're prompted with a pop up window that allow you to add all the information about your page, then you click on "ok" and you're brought to a blank page where you'll add your article, pictures, videos, etc.

The script works like Web 2.0 platforms: with the addition of modules. Edit each module, fill it with your content, save and, once you're happy with the whole page, you publish it. You can edit your page as many times as you want, you can decide on where the page must appear, you can create categories, sub-categories, and more...

2. You can use a blogging script like WordPress for example. Once again, it's automatically installed on your server and, once you found the template of which design suits your needs, you're ready to work with it.

3. Old fashioned way is to create your site using an editor like NotePad++ or NVU ("what you see is what you get" style editor). It's time consuming and you must be familiar with HTML coding.

4. You can use a tool like Dreamweaver and create your very own personalized website that can't be found nowhere else on the Internet just by getting more familiar with Dreamweaver and design your site yourself.

Dreamweaver CS6 can be installed on your computer provided that you still use Windows XP, Vista or 7. You must know that this version of the software won't be updated any more.

Provided that you're using Windows 7 service pack 1, Windows 8 or 8.1, you will have to make use of Dreamweaver CC (CC stands for "creative cloud"), which is the brand new version of this great software.

Once you decided the tool you're going to use, you will think about your site title as it will become the name of the file where you will upload all your pages.

For example, if your first website covers the dog-care category and if your website title is "Dog Care", then the folder name or subdomain where you'll upload your files will be "dog-care" or "dogcare" or "dog_care". Personally I prefer to use dashes or no space in file extensions.

Ready for stepping in your very first website?

What did you choose as a way to create your site ? WordPress? Any other automatic script? Ok you can skip this step.

However if you work the more traditional way, then this is for you! Now that you're ready, you can make the next step: run a search online and find a good FTP software that will allow you to upload your files to your server. Personally I use CoffeeCup Direct FTP. It comes with a free version but also has a paying one that lets you edit your files while connected to your host.

Create your first web page and upload it in the main public_html directory of your hosting account. This page needs to be named "index.html", "index.htm" or "index.php" (depending on if you want to create .html or .php pages).

See you later for day 4.

Posted by Holly Day