Mary Jane Hochderffer

What You Need To Build A Website - The 3 Basics

Knowing what you need to build a website is the first step in being able to work from home on your computer. Learning how to build a website yourself gives you an advantage over other website owners.

Knowing what you need to build a website is the first step in being able to work from home on your computer.

Even though there are already-built sites available online, learning how to build a website yourself gives you an advantage over other website owners because once you have this knowledge, no one can take it away from you.  You will be able to design new sites any time you want and expand your business ventures at will.

Assuming you already have a computer with Internet connection, here are the 3 basic elements you need to build a website:

1. A Domain Name

The domain name is the name of your website. For example, "www.my-domain-name.com".

You will need to buy your domain name from a domain registration company where you pay an annual fee for the right to use that name. Fortunately, this is very inexpensive --average cost $10-$15/year.

This does not get you a website, just the name.

The name should be relevant to the product/s you will be selling or promoting -- and easy to remember.

There are oodles of companies that register domain names. Doing a Google search of 'domain names' will yield plenty of reputable choices.

2. A Web Hosting Company

Basically, a web hosting company connects your website to the World Wide Web.

Every website needs a web host.

More often than not, when you purchase your domain name, your domain registrar you will also offer you the option of purchasing hosting with them. You do NOT have to do this, but, for the beginner, it often makes things easier.

For a good hosting company, don't expect to pay much more than $15-$20/month, although hosting packages do vary in cost. You can always do a Google search for 'hosting companies' if you want to shop around for rates.

Creating a hosting account is very easy.  You can literally have your own hosting package within minutes.

Once you have a domain name and web hosting set up, you are ready to create your own website. So now you will need:

3. A Web Editor

In order to design and create a web page on your computer at home, you will need to use what is known as a web editor.

A web editor is the software that converts the text and content --that you will write on your computer-- into ‘computer language’ for your web hosting company to understand.

With a web editor you will be able to:

• Create multiple web pages
• Use different fonts and colors
• Add images and tables
• Re-size pages to make them look more professional
• Publish your pages so they show up on the Internet
• Create links to other pages in your site and to other websites

You can pay a lot of money for a web editor, but this is NOT necessary. There are plenty of perfectly good web editors available for free.

You now know the 3 basic components of what you need to build a website.

The foundation of any successful online business is knowing how to create, design, and publish a website.

Just by reading this article you are already ahead of most people who say they want to work on their computer from home.  90% will never even bother to investigate what the 3 fundamentals of building a website are, much less use that information to start a web based business.

It is important to remember, however, that in order to build a website, you actually have to DO it.  Creating a website is a hands-on experience.

So, spend time familiarizing yourself with your web editor. All you need is a bit of practice and you will be able to put up web pages spontaneously and quickly.  It won't be long before you will be able to get a site created and online within an hour.

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