Veritech : Network Technology + Innovation

Some keen Internet users would love to have their own personal website.  YOUR website could be used to show your resume, develop your family tree, to keep in touch with friends, or groups with common interest (hobbies), blogging, etc.  In this article I present some ideas on how to get your own personal website started.

Prebuilt Sites

By far the easiest way to have your own website on the Internet is to use one of the many free or low-cost personal website providers.  These sites have built-in tools and applications which allow you to quickly build and publish your own website.  There are many options available, each one with its own targeted audience.  Some options include:

Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 – all for social networking

Yahoo!

Google Page Creator

Weebly – ideal for children

However, the pre-built sites limit you very much to the options they have.  Often they are cluttered with advertising, and will almost certainly not give you total control over the look of your website.  To develop your own truly custom site, you’ll need to venture into the next level of complexity...

Your own Domain Name and Webspace

Although you can start experimenting with website designs on your own computer, there are a couple of things you will need before your website can be published on the Internet.  Firstly you will need a domain name.  An example of a domain name is “veritechcorp.com.au”.  You should choose a name that suits your website’s purpose, your business or product.  There are domain names that are ideal for personal use, rather than business use.  For instance, domains ending with “.id.au” and “.geek.nz” are good for personal use.  “.com.au”, “.au.com” or “.biz” are great for Australian businesses.  “.com” domains are intended for businesses in the USA, however, are commonly used for global businesses.

If you have a not-for-profit organization you can use “.org.au” or “.asn.au”. 

The other thing you need to arrange is website hosting.  Website hosting is ‘where’ you place your website so that other Internet users can view it.  Hosting requires someone to provide internet servers that operate 24/7, technical support and other services to keep the website available.

For personal use, you really should take advantage of the free site hosting options; and there are thousands of them!  For a starter list, take a look at http://www.freewebsiteproviders.com/free-personal-xyz.php

You will soon find a raft of confusing options for you to choose from, such as upload limits, pre-scripts, PHP, CGI, FTP, add-on domains etc!  If you are just starting out, don’t worry too much about these options.  Just choose a website that you are comfortable with using.  As you develop your skills and understanding of websites, you will be able to choose more specifically.  Now, I am assuming your website is hosted for FREE, and the site is not of critical importance.  If you do place some value on your site, then you should find a hosting service that charges for its service.  In that case, it will make sense to understand what they are providing, and probably more importantly, what they are NOT providing!

Page Design

The actual design of the webpage is the most time consuming part.  There are many software tools you can buy to help you design web pages, such as Dreamweaver, OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, Nvu, and Wordpress.  Regardless of which software you choose, don’t expect to start churning out web pages immediately!  Every software package has to be learnt, and the more time you spend with it, the more versatile you will become.  An excellent way to start learning what you can do with software packages is to start with their wizards, which will generate a base site for you to start from.

Web page building packages allow you lots of scope.  You can design pages as perfectly as you want, or as badly as you want!  Be sure to take time on the aesthetic aspects of the site, and don’t be too proud to ask for other people’s opinions on your design before you publish it!

Or, if you need a framework to help maintain good design, consider using a Content Management System (CMS) instead of web page building software.  In this case, you don’t need to buy software to develop the website.  The web server includes all the software you need.  All you need is an Internet connection and a computer to use, and all the work is done on the web server itself.  This saves a lot of time and can allow very rapid website development.  Some popular CMS systems include Joomla, Drupal or dotnetnuke.

Business Websites

It is now commonplace for businesses to have websites built and published to make their presence on the Internet.  A good website brings many benefits to a business; such as advertising, consumer awareness and even for customer interaction and trading.  It is strongly recommended to have professional web designers build commercial sites – you don’t want to risk your business on a poorly/cheaply presented website!  Consequently, the ideas presented in this article is meant for personal website development only.  There are so many more factors and issues to consider for commercial projects.

Veritech Corporation has been developing and hosting websites for local businesses for many years.  If you have a business and realise how a fresh website can benefit your business, please contact us at 02 6964 5377.

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