Creating your own website seems like a complicated process when you are just beginning.
I have created this blog to help you though the entire process from start to finish.
Before I explain where to start a little background on what a website is:
A website consist of two important parts :
1) The website domain name EG. google.com or facebook.com
2) The hosting or webhost EG. The server your website is stored on.
When you start to make your own website, you will need both 1 and 2 (A domain name and hosting).
You can get a free domain name at some great websites like this : http://co.cc
The server that will host or store your website is called the webhosting server or webhost.
You can get free hosting or pay for hosting, because you are learning, we recommend getting free hosting for your new website.
You can get a great free hosting account here: http://byethost.com
Byethost provides a free Sub Domain with the hosting, a sub domain is a normal domain divided by a full stop, for example.
This is a main domain or Top Level Domain : google.com
This is a sub domain : site.google.com
Byethost will give you a domain like this yourname.byethost12.com or similar. This will be the URL for your website. It will work with www before the domain or without.
So go ahead, visit byethost.com and signup for free hosting and get a free sub domain. Once you have done this you are onto the next step!
I have my hosting and sub domain or my own domain, what now?
You host provider such as Byethost will provide you with a login for the hosting control panel, this is where you control the hosting server and how it manages your website. You can do things in your hosting control panel like : Upload files using a file manager, create databases, change passwords etc.
If you log into your hosting cPanel and access the File Manager, you can begin to upload data to the hosting server.
A website is written in a programming language called HTML, this is a very simply language that lots of programs save to.
You need to make your website in HTML. If you do not know how to do that since this is your 1st website, I recommend downloading a website design program that allows you to draw or design your website in a graphical user interface like Micorosoft Word or a desktop publisher, but allows you to save your design as HTML which is compatible with the hosting server.
How do you create a HTML page?
HTML can be created easily using a web design program, I recommend this great free program that works with Linux, Apple and Micorsoft Windows:
NVU is great, it has extensive help videos so rather than me explaining how to use it read here if you get stuck:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nvu&search_type=&aq=f
I have made a HTML page how do I get it show on my domain name?
Now you have created your perfect design in NVU or any webdesign program, you need to save it to your computer, you can save it anywhere on your hard disk you just need to remember where you save it and what you call it.
For the hosting server to recognise your HTML website, you need to save it with an extension of .html, so for example, you should save your page as:
testwebsite.html
Without .html at the end of the file name it will not work so make sure you add .html!
You now need to upload your .html file to the server, upload means send or transfer.
The easiest way to upload a .html file to the server is to use the File Manager in your hosting control panel.
So, login to the cPanel, click on File Manager, then browse to the folder where the files need to be uploaded, this location is called the document root. For byethost hosting the document root folder is called htdocs. So, upload your testwebsite.html file into the HTDOCS folder, then browse to your domain using Internet Explorer or whatever browser you use to see it online!
NOTE if you wanted to make your .html page display instantly when you view the domain name (like a home page) you should name the .html file index.html this name means it loads automatically when viewing your domain.
More advanced users of hosting can use PHP and MySQL to create the website, these are server side tools that help build complex websites that need dynamic functionality such as a forum of blog.
I hope you found my tutorial useful!