There are various reasons why you may want your own website…
If you are thinking of starting a photography business one of the first things you will need to do is get yourself a website to showcase your work.
If you have an existing photography business you may want to have your own piece of the internet for your customers to visit ‘out of hours’.
Maybe you just want your own personal website to give your friends and family access to your images.
Whatever the reasons for wanting a website, it can be a daunting prospect if you have never tackled anything like this before
You may think you need to hire a company of programmers or web designers to get your website up and running. You could do this, but the cost of doing so can be a little more than you are prepared to spend.
Besides if you go down this route and you do hire one of these companies then what happens when you want to change something on your web page? Even if its just one sentence, changing the colour scheme or changing a picture, it could take time and cost you money.
Wouldn’t it be easier, not to have to worry about these issues and simply change things yourself?
You may be thinking that you don’t know how to write code…
Or you don’t have the necessary IT skills to do that sort of thing…
Or it’s just too much of a complicated thing for you to tackle…
You may even be thinking that you wouldn’t know where to start…
Well you are not alone, a lot of people have these reservations when faced with the same prospect.
The good news is nowadays building your own website is not that difficult.
In fact you could have your own website up and running from scratch in just one single afternoon.
You don’t need to know coding…
You don’t need any IT skills…
and it really isn’t as difficult as you may think.
As for where to start…
That’s what I’m about to tell you!
You may be thinking the simple way is to head off to wix or Weebly and put together a free drag and drop website and while this is true if you just want your website as a bit of fun or for non business purposes, If you want to be taken seriously as a business then you will need your own website with your own web address.
You see your website is often the first experience a potential customer has of your business and if you are offering products or services on a website from a free provider what kind of image do you think this gives to your browsing prospect?
So a small investment now will pay dividends in the future and save you from the inevitable and sometimes very complicated task of changing to a paid for website somewhere further down the line.
Besides you can create your own website, with your own domain name for less than $10 a month, not bad eh?
I know the idea of building your own website from scratch can be a daunting one but it really is not as bad as you may think.
Choose and Purchase a name
The First thing you will need to do before you start anything is to decide on a name for your website.
I like to sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and write out various different ideas for my website name, I generally want to come up with at least three that I like because chances are someone has already taken one of the names you come up with.
Now obviously only you will have an idea what you want your website to be called but usually it will be something relating to the particular area or niche that you are currently operating in.
For example If you sell videos teaching how to play golf you might want something such as: www.beginnersgolfvideos.com
If you are having trouble coming up with a name for your website there are resources out there that can help you decide on a name.
Once you have your ideas for you website name then we can go and look at a domain name provider to purchase your chosen name.
For instance the domain name of my website is: www.darrenrussellphotography.com
A domain name is not expensive and will usually cost you between $6 to $12 a Year.
Towards the end of the your domain name expiry, your provider will send you an email asking if you would like to renew your name and then its up to you whether you decide to keep it or just let it expire.
There are numerous domain name providers out there but they all offer you a fairly similar service and price, it’s always worth it to just have a look around and see what offers you can get.
Once your domain name is chosen, you will be asked to set up an account so that you can register your details and pay for your new domain name.
And there you have it, you are now the proud owner of your very own domain name.
Buy Your Web Hosting
The next thing you need to do is find a web host for your website, this can be purchased from a hosting company.
As with domain name providers there are hundreds of web hosting companies out there, but unlike domain name providers it is more important to ensure you get a good hosting service who can provide you with a reliable service, after all any issues here and you website could become inaccessible which is not good for business.
You could always buy your web hosting from the same company who provided your domain name and although this is a more convenient option it usually works out more expensive.
It’s worth doing a little research and looking at review sites to see which companies offer a good service and even speak to friends and colleagues who have their own websites to see which companies they recommend.
Once you decide on which company you are going to use, setting up your account is pretty straight forward, just choose the package you want from their website, set up an account, pay for your hosting (usually between $10 – $15 a Month) then wait for the email confirming everything.
So you now have your domain name and your web hosting sorted.
Set Your Name Servers
The final thing you need to do before you can start building your own website is to set your domain name servers.
All we need to do is point your domain name provider to the place on the internet where your website is being hosted.
This is called ‘Setting your domain name servers’
Despite what you think this process is really very easy and just involves supplying your domain name provider with the location of your websites hosting address.
It is just a simple act of copying the information sent to you in your important email and pasting it to the relevant section on your domain name providers website.
If you did happen to purchase your domain name AND your Hosting from the same company then you don’t even need to do this.
Install WordPress and Off You Go
Finally you can install WordPress on to your page and then you can build your website using this platform.
It is reported that 27.9% of all websites on the internet were built using WordPress.
WordPress is probably the easiest platform available today for a complete beginner to build your own website from scratch, and it is totally FREE!
But don’t let the fact that it’s free fool you into thinking it’s not very good…
Because you would be very wrong, WordPress is used by everyone from webmasters, bloggers, developers and one man marketers to large businesses.
It is great for building anything from small one page sites to large eye-catching business sites.
And because it has been around for a while now it has built up a very large community of people who have designed all manor of plugins, themes and templates (many of them free) that you can use to make your site stand out from the crowd.
The good news is that most web hosting companies understand how big WordPress is and offer a simple one click installation so that you can have it up and running in no time.
If you would like to know how to build your own website from scratch, you can download my free eBook Build Your own Website Today this fully illustrated guide will take you step by step through the whole process from start to a fully functioning multi-page website in straight forward Jargon Free steps. Don’t worry if you have never done anything like this before, in this Free eBook, I will take you hand in hand through the whole process.
