Your first web site: what components do you need?

Starting out a website involves a few main ingredients that you need, as well as many optional pieces. In this article, we will discuss the essentials you need to at least be viewable on the internet. Main components are having a domain name and web hosting for your files, the actual physical files like HTML, that make up the design of the page and the option to secure your content against non encrypted attacks. Let’s get further into each.

Registering a Domain Name

When starting up your website, you need a domain name to help people remember how to get to your site. A memorable domain name is something like google.com, which everyone knows. Upon getting your initial site up and running, you could choose the route of a cheap domain name provider to help start your web business. Their features are quite similar to the bigger companies, if not the same, and are a great cost effective solution.

Web Site Hosting

Your web site files need to be stored online for people to get them. No matter what type of content you are displaying, including images or PDF files, they have to be accessible on a computer server that is always on. This is where an affordable web hosting solution comes into play. For a relatively inexpensive price of less than five to ten dollars a month you can get your web files hosted for others to see.

Web Page Design

Your web site will be designed with a variety of HTML files, Images, Videos, Flash and PDF files. A web developer can create this for you or you will do it yourself. The better the skills of the person doing it, the better your site will look like. You can use tools like Dreamweaver or other web hosting sitebuilders to create your site. Again, the tools used will be directly related to quality.

Secured Hosting Service (Optional)

Having your hosting secured is an optional practice for most sites as there is usually just static data. If your site is collecting information such as credit card data, then you will need to looking into buying ssl certificate for your website to ensure your visitors data is protected. With collecting any credit card info or sensitive data, you must use a web certificate to make your site change from http to https. The transformation to an https site is what makes the site use the certificate to encrypt the transmitted data, so it is kept away from prying eyes. It is a necessity for these sites, but not for regular sites.

The three requirements have been listed that you need, with the fourth optional secure option. Once you have decided on that, you can further dwelve into finding other web site solutions including a possible content management system you may want to use.