Creating A Website the Easy Way

For many of us, the basics of website creation and [url=http://www.webhostingsearch.com/]hosting[/url] are second nature by now. Nowadays, sites like Posterous and Tumblr allow anyone to setup a basic blog. You can even edit and customize the theme and layout if need be. Those are all great platforms, but to get any sort of real customization and functionality, you need to host your own site. Thankfully, that's now far easier than even a decade ago. Let's start with the basics and work our way up.

Building The Foundation: Choose The Right Host

Nothing turns your burgeoning web creation into a nightmare faster than sub-par web hosting. Avoid the $5 or $10 a month guys, and spring for a Virtual Private Server. You don't need an entire server unit for you site, unless you're [url=http://digg.com/news]Digg[/url] or one of those mega-sites. A viable option would be to use a Linux host for reliability, with the ability to scale up your bandwidth and storage incrementally without costing an arm and a leg. Linode and Slicehost are two such hosts with solid reputations that should do the trick.

Think Modular: The Content Management System

Some of you are possibly old-timers that were hand-coding websites all the way back in the old days of the early 90's. On the World Wide Web of today, the key isn't to reinvent the wheel. Sure, you could do everything from scratch. A better idea is to use of the major CMS platforms like [url=http://www.joomla.org/]Joomla![/url], [url=http://www.drupal.org/]Drupal[/url] or [url=http://www.wordpress.org/]Wordpress[/url]. While Joomla and Drupal have their advantages, the best all around Content Management System is Wordpress. In terms of available plug-ins as well as themes that you can modify for a unique, it's impossible to beat.

Start Publishing

Let's assume you've never actually gotten a website up and running before. Don't worry, it's easy. Assuming you've made your host aware of your domain name, and mapped said name to your static IP address, you're almost there. You've got your FTP password. All you have to do to have a basic Wordpress site online in a few minutes is to download the Wordpress package from their site, unzip it, and upload the whole thing to the root folder of your web host. A lot of [url=http://www.webhostingsearch.com/]good web hosting[/url] use cPanel or Plesk as an administration panel for ease of use. Wordpress is literally a “one click” installation which walks you through the process.

Adding Functionality

Turning a basic Wordpress or Drupal install into a full-fledged E-commerce site, or any other type of website for that matter, is easier than you'd imagine. For a simple online storefront, Magento and Zen Cart offer modules which are easy to install and tweak. Like most every other aspect of CMS website assembly, all the popular tools are more or less idiot-proof and well-documented. For nearly every need, there's also a plug-in available on all the major Content Management Systems. For more information, check the website of whichever CMS you're using to get a better idea of what's possible.