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Starting your own website: the 3 main components


Starting a website is an exciting adventure that can be a bit overwhelming, especially for beginners. If, however, you break it down to the three main components -- domain name, web hosting and website –, the entire process becomes a little easier.

Domain Name
The domain name of your website is the address that people use to visit your site on the internet. This url is unique and its extremely important. You should choose a domain name that properly represents your organizations, business, blog or brand. Domain names are sold in annual increments. Most people purchase the domain name at one year at a time. However, you can buy the domain for multiple years at a time.

Web Hosting
Once you registered your domain name, you will need to purchase a web hosting package. The hosting package you choose should depend on your needs and budget. For a simple site, the basic package would probably work fine. If, however, you expect a high amount of traffic to your site or you will be using an abundance of images and/or videos, you should choose a higher web hosting package. Click here to view various hosting packages for beginners.

Some people purchase their web hosting with the same company that they bought their domain name. This isn’t a requirement however, and you can buy hosting from a completely different hosting company. If you do buy the domain name and hosting from different companies, you must point your domain to the hosting account. This can be done by changing the name servers for the domain. That way, when a visitor goes to the domain, they will be able to see your website hosted at the hosting provider.

Website
Your website will consists of HTML – or other coding – that displays images, text, videos and various other multimedia elements. There isn’t just one way to build a site. There are a wide array of methods. In fact, you can create a bare bones site by simply using a text editor. Keep in mind, however, that this isn’t ideal and you should instead look for software to help create the website. There are several free programs that help create sites. Ruby, Perl, PHP and Python are a few of the programming languages that are required when creating dynamic sites. While the mere thought of trying to learn all the coding can leave your head spinning, don’t fret. The free web designing programs are there to help you through the source and coding no matter what your level of experience with web site creation is.

I know when I first started my blog I was pretty overwhelmed. I sure wish I would have know how to break it down into these three simple components back then. Now that I know how simple it really is it makes it seem much less stressful.