How to Build a Website Once You Have a Domain Name
You've taken the first step in getting your web page off the ground by creating and registering the perfect domain name. But now what? You're just left with the domain name, a blank web page and little direction of what you can do with it. Luckily, creating your own web page for your custom domain name is not difficult if you're willing to put in the time and energy.
Instructions
Difficulty:
Step 1
Select a hosting service. You will want to find one that meets your budget but also has satisfactory reviews in customer service. You will want a service that will respond to your emails in a timely manner, has an easy-to-use interface and does not have many outages reported. Once you find a hosting service you like, sign up and purchase a plan. They are typically available in monthly installments or yearly payments.
Step 2
Link your hosting service to your domain. This process works differently depending on what service you used to register your domain. You will want to login to the website you registered your domain at and find something like “Domain Manager” or “DNS (Domain Name System”) Manager.” Look for something that says “Nameservers.” Click on it or do whatever option you have to in order to edit this. You will want to specify that your nameserver is “Custom” so that you can enter the nameserver provided to you by your hosting service. Many hosting services send this in their welcome email. Otherwise, you can probably find this easily on the back-end menu. If you can't find it, you should contact your hosting service's customer service. Once you've found it, enter the nameservice address provided to you by the hosting service into the domain service's section for this. There should be two addresses. Submit both of them. It may take a few hours to connect properly.
Step 3
Create a front page for your website using raw HTML or coding, the software Dreamweaver or a blogging service like WordPress. Dreamweaver is an option if you are not savvy with any coding languages or HTML because of its WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) feature that allows you to create a website by using features similar to that of a word processor. There are free, open source alternatives available as well. Save the front page file as “index.html.”
Step 4
Upload index.html to your hosting service. You can usually do this directly through the hosting service's website. You can also upload it using an FTP client. You will typically need the domain name and the hosting service's IP address to use an FTP client to upload a file this way. Follow the tutorial or directions for whatever FTP client you decide to use.
Step 5
Repeat steps two and three for each subsequent page you would like to add to create a more dynamic web site. Rather than save them each as “index.html” (this will just save over the other file), give these pages file names that are concise and contain keywords that will help it show up in search engine searches.
References
Resources
Article Written By Michelle Matthews
Michelle Matthews began writing professionally in 2005. She has written about Medicare and health care-related issues for the Medicare Rights Center, working on the publications "Dear Marci" and "Medicare Counselor." Her work has also been published in the University at Buffalo's "Generation Magazine" and Buffalo, N.Y.'s "Artvoice." Matthews is pursuing a Master of Social Work from New York University.