Today’s links are all about what it takes to setup your own website. Although this is a pretty high-level overview, these links should be helpful to point you in the right direction when you set out to create that award-winning website. (Admittedly, most of the links point to Mac applications - if there is a demand I can compile a list of Windows applications that perform similar functions.)
- First, you need an idea for a site design. Use Smashing Magazine to get great ideas on what other people and companies have done, and what is possible these days. It’s worth checking the Design Showcase section, as well as the Best of the Month list.
- With a design in mind, you need some content. What’s your site’s primary focus? Who is the intended audience? Questions like these will help you write content that suits your site. At the most basic level, a personal website should have a primary page with an introduction (index page), a page that describes you to the world (about me page), and some kind of contact page providing email links and/or address information. Company sites are similar, except they describe the company! Provide a good mix of text and graphic content to keep the site interesting to the visitor. You can add pages as you see fit - for example, showcase some of your photos using a viewer like Airtight Interactive’s SimpleViewer.
- Content in hand (er..on disk), you need to be able to create it. You can go old-skool and use a plain-text editor like TextMate, SubEthaEdit or BBEdit, or you can try a more user-friendly (ie: don’t have to write any HTML code if you don’t want to) tool such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Coda or RapidWeaver.
- By now, you should have yourself a well-designed website, complete with useful content. But you need somewhere to put it so that people other than yourself can see it! That is where hosting comes into play. A web host will “host” your web pages (for a fee) and serve them up to people who visit your website. Most hosting companies offer a basic plan that includes a domain name, but if you already have one you can usually do some simple configuration to associate your domain name with your host’s servers. Hosting companies like Dreamhost, Webserve.ca and Servage.net all offer introductory hosting plans for those starting out.
- Now that your website is live, wouldn’t it be nice to know who is visiting? You can add detailed statistics about your visitors by using Google Analytics. It’s a free service that offers very detailed information about your visitors, including who visited, from what part of the world, what pages they viewed and how long they stayed on your site!
Do you have any good tips on website creation? Share them in the comments!
