The one thing that can stop many people from starting their own online business is the lack of knowledge of building a website. Phrases such as ‘servers’, ‘hosting’ and ‘domains’ can create unnecessary confusion for the beginner and a tendency to give up the idea of building a website before they have even begun.
Although these phrases and many more associated with website building and the Internet in general can seem like a foreign language to some, you only need to know the basics to be able to create your own website easily and at low cost. For example, a ‘domain’ is your website for which it will need to have a name. Hence the phrase “domain name”, meaning the name of your website. Hosting is provided by a web-based company such as Hostgator or Godaddy and where the server resides. A ‘server’ is basically a computer onto which all of your files, images and website pages are copied. Because the server is always connected to the Internet, this means that your site can be accessed anywhere around the world at any time. Your files are copied from your computer through a file transfer protocol, or FTP client as it is more commonly known, such as Filezilla, to the server on your hosting account.
Knowledge of HTML is not needed to build your own website. Although building a website from scratch can be time consuming depending on how many pages you intend to create and how much information you will be providing in the beginning, building and uploading your own website is extremely easy. If you are able to copy and paste in Word and are able to click and drag files, then you can build your own website and upload it to the server.
Nowadays it costs a lot less to purchase a domain name and hosting for your website than it did a few years ago. Some hosting companies expect you to pay for a full years worth of hosting straight off which can work out a little expensive, whereas other hosting companies give you the choice of paying for your hosting on a month by month basis. The choice of course is entirely yours and depends on whether you have the full amount to pay in one go either from your own funds or a credit card, or whether it is easier for you to pay monthly for your hosting.
Although many hosting companies offer a free website builder with your account, some companies require a further fee to be paid. The website builders provided may only be used for so long as you have your domain hosted with the company in question. In addition, some hosting companies stipulate that you will need a separate website builder for each website that you have. If you are asked to pay for these programs, this can work out extremely expensive if you intend on having more than one website. By using these programs, you may also be restricted on the size of files you may upload. This is very bad news if you intend to sell MP3’s or videos from your website as these can be extremely large files and too large to be uploaded via the FTP of your hosting company’s website builder.
The freedom of building your own website means that the question of file size restrictions does not come into play. Obviously the larger the file, the longer it will take to upload to the server but you will still be able to upload and sell the product from your website via your own FTP client. It is also worth bearing in mind that videos are becoming more and more popular within the Internet Marketing world and not being able to upload files as large as these may hinder your online business success.
If you are serious about having an online business, you really do need to know how to build your own website and upload it to the server on your hosting account. Your online business is just that – a business. Invest your time, energy and a little money into building your own website, be patient and you will soon reap the rewards.
