So, you want to make a website? Whether business or for personal, there are several general guidelines you should follow. These are made to be flexible for most types of websites, however may not work for everyone. After webmastering several sites for almost 8 years now, these have been guidelines I have followed when creating projects. Some have flopped, and some have succeeded, but these have always been a great guideline to follow.
Because this is so long, I will be breaking it into parts. This is Part 2 of this series. If you missed the other, please read So You Want to Make a Website: Part 1
2. What can you invest into your website?
Will you be able to invest time into your website? Will you be able to invest money into your website? These are important and merely optional depending on the website owner/ webmaster choice in how to bring the site into existence.
Making a website takes time, sometimes even money, especially when having it hosted with a paid web host. If you are unable to design a site, then obviously you will have to invest money into having it designed and coded. Some web designers are cheap and others are expensive, but nevertheless, it is an investment to bringing the site together. The same can be said about web hosting. I actually sell off my server web hosting for as little as $25 a year at Host Solutions, which are perfect for bloggers and my server is geared to support WordPress.
For bloggers in particular, free hosting will only do for so long. As a website owner, you need the control to monitor your site’s success and breaking out on your own is ideal.
In regards to investing time, it can be a very finicky issue. The content will obviously be the main part added once the site has a general layout to portray it. However, it is also the part that takes the most time. You as the website owner will have to take time to put this together, if not, hire a webmaster who can. This can be an issue as some cannot utilize the internet efficiently and have no idea how to add their content, while others may not have the time.
A webmaster can make the changes necessary. Some web designers may even offer Site Maintenance/ Webmaster services. Like web design, it may be expensive or cheap, but make a good choice on someone that is reliable. A hired webmaster who seems like they are hard to contact and get any site updates done in a decent time is not exactly ideal.
Also, for both time and money, how will you get your site out? Do you plan to invest money in advertising, or do you have a lot of friends who can spread the news like wildfire? Getting the word out on a website is not easy. It takes a lot of time, even a lot of money, and even though you could reel in quite a bit of visitors, you have to maintain this, seeking larger areas to reach more of your audience.
Are you still free hosting, but find that your site is quickly becoming popular? What is holding you back from investing in your website? What kind of plans do you have for your website in the near future?
If you already have invested some, is your site succeeding or are there areas that you need to focus on that are not up to your satisfaction?
Really good topic, Nile. I have created on blogspot which is free but many tells me that having free hosted blog is not so good because you are restricted with those activities that you certainly want and which are in favor of your blog. But when i decide to make it paid, a bit of confusion reveals in my mind is how to select appropriate hosting and what to look for? And this keep me far from investing in my blog.
When i read such topic that is really become useful for website, i becomes eager but the term “free hosting” leads me back.
Kindly, if you have such source that helps me in buying good hosting, please share here because i don’t want to stay back in the game.