I know that the title of this post is long but I hope you get beyond that and read on. I had written this article on Ecademy in July 2006. It generated good feedback via comments and people contacting me directly so I thought it would be useful to reproduce the article (with minor edits) on my blog. On a sidenote, I am quite a dummy using these networking sites like Ecademy and LinkedIn but as usual I digress.

Building An Effective, Affordable & Manageable Website For Small Businesses And Individuals (A Beginner’s Guide)

A website in this day and age is essential for most businesses as well as individuals. Apart from cost, there are many other factors to consider while building a website and for the uninitiated, this can be a daunting task. This post is meant to simply the process of building a website by outlining a step-by-step guide starting from domain registration to hosting and maintenance of a website.

1. Research the domain name: The first step is to choose an appropriate domain name. An ideal domain name should be relatively short but descriptive enough as well as easy to spell and remember. The domain should ideally contain the most important keyword(s) as search engines also take into account the domain name while ranking search results. A service like NameBoy or OneLook which generates and suggests different variations of a word can be very useful while researching domain names. Lastly, always try to buy a domain with the extension .com as it is the most recognised extension.
2. Find a good domain registrar: After choosing the domain name, it is time to research a trust-worthy and affordable domain name registrar. While price is an important consideration, it is also important to find out how much control you will have over your domain in terms of transferring the domain or changing the DNS (Domain Name Server) and making other modifications. Do a search on Google for reviews of registrars as well as ask the registrars directly how much control you will have over a domain name. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (”ICANN”) maintains a list of accredited registrars.
3. Find a reliable and affordable hosting provider: Assuming that the domain name is registered, the next step is to find a reliable and affordable hosting provider. Mainly, there are 3 types of hosting providers; a) free hosting, b) shared hosting and c) dedicated hosting. The most appropriate host for small businesses and individuals would be shared hosting because free hosting providers will insert advertisements making the website look unprofessional and dedicated hosting will be an expensive proposition. I personally host with and prefer BlueHost (affiliate link) for the service and features it provides but research shared hosting providers thoroughly mainly in terms of costs and features like monthly bandwidth transfer, technology (Linux or Windows based) and disk space. There are services like The Hosting Chart as well as CNet that provide web hosting guides and comparisons.
4. Build the website: After buying a suitable shared hosting package, the next step is to build a website. The website can be built by hand-coding static HTML pages (recommended only the site doesn’t have many pages, your HTML skills are beyond basic and the website does not have to be updated frequently), using packages like DreamWeaver or Content Management Systems (CMS) applications. Personally, I am a fan of Open Source CMS applications because it is free, robust, customisable and generally user-friendly. There are many Open Source CMS applications available and sites like opensourceCMS allow you to test-drive the front-end as well as the administrator functionality of the CMS. Most shared hosting providers like BlueHost (affiliate link) also provide tools like Fantastico (see short tutorial) that allow point-and-click installation of the Open Source CMS applications. My favourite Open Source CMS is Joomla! because it has many extensions and templates available while being easy to use and maintain. Another well-known Open Source CMS is Drupal though I don’t have extensive experience with it. Additionally, try to ensure that the information is well-organised and website is user-friendly but the topic of website usability is beyond the scope of this post.
5. M&M (Market and Maintain): The website has to be continually marketed to acquire new visits and maintained well to ensure return visits. While the subject of marketing a website is beyond the scope of this post, at the very least, submit to the major search engines like Google (http://www.google.com/addurl/), Yahoo (http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request) and MSN (http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx) as well as publicise it via your email signatures and stationery like business cards, letterheads and envelopes. In other words, tell every Tom, Dick and Harry about your website. In terms of maintenance, refresh the content regularly and perform tasks like dead-link checking (NetMechanic does a good job of checking dead-links) and back-up periodically.

I wish you all the best and hope you have fun building your website, I assure you that it will be quite an experience. Needless to say, if you have feedback leave a comment.

PS: Sorry the comments were lost when the blog was being upgraded.