Strategic Internet Marketing

How to Create a Website

January 22nd, 2008 | by Brian Queenan |

Before you can learn how to create a website you need to decide what platform your website will use. There are many options. I will give you just a few here.

Of course there is HTML format but unless you know how to write HTML code and you don’t mind spending the extra time required, you could use this format. I know HTML code but I don’t have any HTML based websites because it’s not as powerful as some of the other formats that I can use. Besides, I don’t want to mess around writing HTML code and css code. There are easier ways.

There are software’s that will build you a website in just a few minutes. There are just two that I will introduce you to here. They are weblogs and CMS based websites. They are very easy to setup and are free of charge. These types of websites have benefits built right into them that HTML based websites simply don’t have.

CMS stands for “Content Management System”. As implied by the name CMS is a system that not only helps you manage your content it also allows you to manage every aspect of your website. A CMS based website is very easy to use and allows you to add content without having to worry about playing with HTML code. You simply write whatever content that you want click submit and a web page is created dynamically for you along with the content that was added.

Many lone websites do use CMS as a website however CMS was created with larger companies in mind to share content. Many webmasters do use CMS because it is a real time saver and is a very organized platform. CMS can be a good choice because it eliminates the technical side of a website allowing you to concentrate on your web business without having to worry about the technical side of it.

There are many CMS software out there. Below are links to two of the more popular CMS systems if you decide to go that way.

Joomla is a CMS system that many hosting packages offer and can be installed directly from the admin panel. All hosts don’t offer Joomla. Check your hosting admin panel to see if your host doesn’t already offer Joomla. You can also download Joomla here. Drupal is also a very popular CMS system. You can check out drupal here.

Weblog better known as a blog is another easy to use platform and is probably a better choice for an individual webmaster. Blogs were originally created as an online journal or diary where a person could write down their personal thoughts and publish them to the web for others to read.

Because of the powerful tools that a blog is equipped with these personal weblog websites were easy to find through the search engines and has since morphed into a more commercial type of web platform. Don’t get me wrong, blogs are still being used for what they were created for but there are now hundreds of thousands if not millions of commercial blogs out there.

A blog is a lot like a CMS system except it is less detailed and is geared more toward smaller online businesses. There are lots of plugins that you can add to a blog that will allow your blog to perform different tasks for you. I won’t get into that at this point. I’ll save that for another post.

Like the CMS system a blog allows you to write your content submit it and a web page is dynamically created along with the written content.

There are several different weblogs that you can use. The only one that I will list here is Wordpress simply because it is the best out there. You can download wordpress here. You can also get more info about wordpress and blogs in general at the above link.

The nice thing about using either of the two web platforms mentioned here is that you don’t have to know how to create a website or use HTML code because the software’s do it for you. If you are new to the online marketing world you are better off with a blog website because it is easier to use. No matter which way you choose to go with the two platforms mentioned here you don’t have to know how to create a website to create one.