What Are the Steps To Build A Website?
A lot of literature is there now describing how you can build your own website and a lot of sites allow you to build your website with free hosting. What is the difference between following some guided steps and just plunging-in and having your site in 3 minutes?
There is a big difference, really!
The big difference lies in the objectives of your efforts, if you aim at arriving at an income generating site, then some thought has to be put into every step of your building process.You definitely need to find your profitable niche, search for a good domain name and hosting company and use the best website builder to have your site in place.
Fortunately enough you can go through all of this by your own, thanks to the development of website builders. Having said this let’s go to our first step in website building, finding your profitable niche.
But What Does Niche Mean?
From dictionary.com we read “a niche is distinct segment of a market or a position particularly suitable for the person occupying it”, and from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, we read, “a niche is a situation or activity specially suited to a person’s interests, abilities, or nature.”
We get two big ideas from these definitions, first, a niche is a distinct segment of a market. You may decide to have a website on “health and wellness products” but the term as it stands is too broad and you may not write content on all health and wellness products so you may wish to be more specific and choose for example, ” how loose your weight ” as your niche. Also instead of having the broad “clothing” as your niche you could choose “baby clothing” instead. We are looking for a segment, a small part of the whole.
The second idea we get is, a niche is a position or activity particularly suited to the person’s interests, abilities or nature. In choosing a niche you should look for something you are capable of doing and have passion in. The more skilled you are and the more you love what you are doing the more other people will appreciate and respect your work. People admire what is natural to you and amazing to them. And you get energized by the tasks involved and all activity seems to be an extension of you.
And what is a niche market?
The Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English, Preview Edition, defines niche market as “a specialized and profitable part of a commercial market; a narrowly targeted market.”
You must choose your audience when you are setting up your website, your targeted market. These are the people you are writing for, your specific group of potential customers. Working with a group of people who you have a natural understanding of their character and basic needs allows you to have a full expression of your knowledge, skills and talents.
Having found your niche, your second step is to choose your domain name and hosting company. As highlighted above, there is big difference between just putting a name as your domain name and following some rules in the process. I have a page on this to help you. A good domain name is your identity on the web and one which facilitates easier revisits to your website by your customers. There are also criteria for a good hosting company, a subject of my another page.
Your third and never ending step in website building is to build your website page by page. The first websites were created manually using Html and CSS by professional web designers and programmers where the process involved manual code editing. Of course then only a few with specialized training could build websites all others had to hire them to have their websites built. Thanks to the development of website builders that you can now build your own desired website today.
Feel free to leave your comments below. I’ll be more than happy to reply.
Laurian.