Domain Hosting & Registration

When you create your own website, one thing you will have to think of is a domain name. Do you want to pay for it or use a free domain? Which host do you want to use? Which registrar? What services do you want? All of these are important questions to ask yourself before you pick out the name you want.

Consider first whether or not the domain name you want is already taken. You can find this out by searching for it on WHOIS.net, GoDaddy.com, NameCheap.com, or NameSilo.com. These sites will let you know if the domain is available and give you prices if you want to purchase that domain.

Domain names are divided into a couple of categories. One of them is Open Top Level Domains (TDLs), which anyone can register for. These are the .com, .org, .net, .info, .biz, and .name domains. The other category is Restricted TLDs, which only certain people are allowed to register for. These include .aero, .asia, .cat, .coop, .int, .jobs, .mobi, .museum, .post, .pro, .tel, .travel, .xxx, and .website. Some domains are only offered in the U.S. such as .edu, .gov, and .mil.

After you choose the name you want for your website and know that it is available, you have to choose a registrar and host. Some registrars also offer hosting while others do not. Each registrar offers different additional services as well, so pick the one that best fits what you want to do with your site. This PowerPoint presentation has information on different services that can help you decide on a registrar that works for you.

I don’t think I would want to buy my own domain name right now. I think using free domain name sites like Weebly and WordPress work well for people like me who don’t plan on owning a business one day. I can get by just using those sites to showcase my work without buying a unique domain name. The domains I’m currently using include my name, and that’s really all I need at the moment. I can’t really justify paying $1000 or more per year just because I want my website to be lindseybullard.com instead of lindseybullard.weebly.com or something along those lines.

Whatever you choose to do, just make sure you research every possibility first and look into every registrar and hosting site that you think would be good. Each feature matters and could affect the future of your website in a positive or negative way.

Organizing a killer website

When creating a website, it’s important to think about the layout of each page. Start with your home page and work from there.

The Home Page

For each page, it’s a great idea to make a rough sketch of how you want it to look. This video has some awesome tips on creating an organized and eye-catching home page.

Sketching out your layout is always a good idea. It will help you organize your site for when the time comes to build it.

One tip from the video is to divide the home page into sections so that when you scroll down, you get a different section each time. Making the home page scrollable is a great choice when designing a website.

It’s also a good idea to include engaging media on your home page. You want your visitors to feel like they can interact with the site instead of just seeing a page with one or two things that aren’t very important.

Landing Pages

When creating landing pages, or individual pages with different content, it’s a better idea to categorize them under one tab in your main menu. This video shows how to add pages to a website on Weebly.

In the video, the person explains how to create a drop down menu under one tab. This is a great idea to show different pages for different categories of work. For example, if someone wanted to show different charity work they have done in the past, they could make a separate page for each charity organization.

Here’s an example of a drop down menu. Each category links to a different page, so it isn’t all jumbled onto one. This makes navigation easier.

It’s much more clean and organized to have separate pages for different topics.

5 Tips for Organizing Your Website

1. Make your home page enticing, but don’t use Flash. Flash can be distracting to the viewer, and good websites don’t need all those bells and whistles to entice their viewers.
2. Put a footer at the bottom of the page. This is where you’ll provide links to your contact information, your about page, social media, and more.
3. Make separate pages for different content. Categorize and use drop down menus to make navigation simple.
4. Make sure to provide at least a Home, Contact, and About page. Those are the three most common pages and provide important information to viewers.
5. Your home page should appeal to your target audience. Use features that will entice that audience.

I found this article helpful. It explains ways to organize pages and create a website that will bring in more viewers.

Joining Weebly

Weebly is a great tool to use for creating your own website. Weebly has features that make it simple to edit and make changes to your site. The “drag and drop” feature lets you drag any element you could want onto a page, and you can change it any time. This is especially great for people learning web design because it’s simple and easy to understand.

Weebly’s “Drag and Drop” feature makes it easy to add elements to your website.

Weebly has features for inserting audio clips and videos as well. If you want to share your own work or host work found online, you can easily do so by dragging those elements using the drag and drop feature.

Drag and drop the audio or video elements right onto the page.

It’s also super easy to create your own slideshows and backgrounds. Weebly has its own extensive photo gallery, and many of those are free to use. You can also upload your own photos and to your site.

Add your own photos.

Create Slideshows.

Select photos from Weebly’s gallery.

You can also manage your website and Weebly account by using their mobile app. It lets you stay updated on the statistics of your site, and you can even create and manage a mobile version of your own website.

Weebly is compatible on desktops and Mobile devices, so it’s easy to create new content anywhere.

The theme selection on Weebly has a wide variety to choose from. You can pick something simple and polished or fun and artistic. You can also change your theme any time. For my website, I’m choosing the Clean Lines theme. I like the look of it, and the colors are always changeable so I can make it the scheme that I prefer. I’m not sure if I’ll want to change it in the future, but for now I think it’s perfect.

I found this article very helpful in setting up my Weebly account. I hope it’s helpful for you as well!