Once you have built your website or even just your first web page, you need to know how to get it online. After all, there is no point in having it, if no one else can access it. This article will help guide you through the process of self-publishing your creation.
In order to publish your page, you need to find a “host”, that is a place where you can put your web site / page so people can find it. There are both free and paid-for versions of hosting. With free hosting, you may have to have someone’s adverts showing on your page. And if the host does not “like” your article, perhaps because it is not “family friendly”, it may be deleted with no warning. With paid-for hosting, you have a lot more freedom in what you can publish.
1. Decide if you’re ready to host; look at your website or webpage and see if it’s complete and not “broken”. It doesn’t have to be perfect but try to look at it as if you were a visitor to that page. Would YOU want to stay on it? Have you included interesting text, some kind of graphic?
2. Optimize your website with proper links and other additions. Links are the ways in which you send your visitor to another page on your site, maybe for further information or to buy something, eg from Amazon or another online retailer, or to another site where they can find more information. Your page should also include key words. Keywords are words and phrases that people type into search engines (such as Google and Bing) when they want to find something online. If you include some of these keyword phrases as part of the normal flow of words on your page, then your website MAY be found from a search. For instance, the article that you are currently reading is about publishing your website and includes information on hosting your website. One keyword phrase that people use when looking into hosting is “who hosts this site”? People type this phrase into a search engine and the search engine suggests pages that may answer the question. There are 1300 searches monthly for this keyword. If your article is about hosting, then incorporating this phrase might bring some traffic to your site. If you are writing about “fishing”, then it is helpful to include keyword phrases about fishing. Keyword use is beyond the scope of this article but it is important to know that some keywords are very difficult to “rank for”, that is, a beginner is unlikely to get traffic by using them because older and bigger websites will be further up the search results than you. But it is possible to find keywords (often called long tail keywords) that even a new site can rank for with a little work. If your website is on “fishing”, then the keyword “fishing gear” would be very difficult to rank for because all the big sites will be promoting fishing gear. On the other hand, a long tail keyword like “catfishing gear” would be a lot easier to rank for. There are programs available to help you find the best keywords to use in your articles. One I use is called Keyword Titan and it has been around for about 2 years for members of a particular group but has recently been made available to the public on a monthly payment basis. You will see that this has been made into a link to an earlier page on this site. The video below is pretty long but shows how keyword searches are made in Keyword Titan and how to use them.
3. Find a free host or select a good hosting server that is both reliable and inexpensive; sometimes paying more isn’t necessary and provides you with equivalent or inferior service. Just type your search term into a search engine, eg free blog sites or cheap reliable hosting and choose one that suits what you want.
4. Develop and register a URL for your website to be reached at. This is vital if you are using paid-for hosting but not always if you are using one of the free hosting options. A URL is the name of your website, its address, like MSN.com or Google.com.
5. Upload your website and check it for imperfections or errors.
Building your first website can be difficult, but the rewards for making a well-crafted webpage can be great as well. Whether you’re simply posting a single page about your personal pets, or launching a commercial start-up, learning the proper procedure is important.
Building a website? Check out other pages on this site for some great suggestions.