First of all let me tell you how much my Blog cost me. Its hosted for free on Blogger (a Blog Platform by google).
My blog URL initially was http://indianreviewer.blogspot.com/ and i wanted give it a domain name of my own , so i spent Rs 199/- (4$) for getting the website name : http://www.indianreviewer.in/. This fees is for ownership of the domain name for 1 year.
Now lets drill down in to the topic of website building in detail.
Some of you may be having the following questions.
How to create a free website?
How much does it cost to create a website?
Do I need a server to host my website? And do I need programming knowledge to create my website?
You should consider the below things first while creating the website:
Domain Name
A domain Name like mywebsite.com to identify your website on World Wide Web . You should ideally choose a domain name that's catchy and which can be easily identified with the theme of your website.
You need to register your website Domain name with a Domain registrars. Generally this will cost you around 400 to 600 Rs based on the domain extensions like .com/.net/.org/.in. The pricing varies from company to company. ICANN is the organisation that certifies these registrars.
You can find information about the certified Domain registrars at : ICANN Accredited Domain registrars.
Hosting the Website
If you website content is confidential or is sensitive it is better you host your website on you personnel web server. You can use services of a web hosting companies like HOSTGATOR.com. Godaddy is my prefered website registrar. After i tried a few and finally settled on godaddy for their plans and service.
you create a lot of subdomains like blog.yourdomain.com. They also offer free 1 GB email hosting. This enables you to create your mail ID like admin@mywebsite.com
Often the Domain Name registrars will also provide hosting services. It is always better to register and host a domain with the same Service provider. The main thing you need to check hear is if the hosting company you have chosen is known for providing support services as there will always be minor issue with hosting a website continually. It is always good to do a little bit of research (just Google for user reviews on the respective web hosting companies) before you proceed with entering a hosting agreement. The hosting providers I listed seem to be safe options from the little research I have done.
There are two types of hosting plans which every hosting company provides.
Shared hosting and Dedicated hosting.
A minimal Shared hosting package will cost you around 2500/rs (55$) per year. You can also try out a package for 3 months.
You can use both windows and Linux platforms but Linux will cost you less and you don't need any Linux knowledge to host your website on a Linux platform. You just need to know how to upload and download files to ftp server.
I created a html website and all i did was buy a Linux hosting and upload all my html pages to the ftp server and get my website going. You can also user Joomla,drupal , wordpress and other content management soft wares for developing your website but they generate database pages and they are not static pages like html pages. Html pages always rank higher in the search engine rankings.
My personnel preference is GoDaddy.com
.
Initially i have taken a 3 month hosting with godaddy and i got a free google adwords and facebook advertising coupon for advertisng my website. This will help you gain some internet presense for your website for free. Also the 3 month plan just costs around 230 rs. You will also get a good discount on yearly subscription. Also you can install a lot of content management tools like wordpress,jomla,drupal etc which help creating websites easily. The linux hosting plans have a good user interface and you dont need any linux knowledge.
Later i liked the service and have taken a 1 year hosting plan for hosting my website : http://www.howwherewhat.in/
Theme, Look and content of the website
This is the most important part of creating a website. Your website should feel good for the average visitor. It should not be overly crowed with tabs, pop ups preferably it’s better not to have bright backgrounds. If your website is hosted with a web hosting provider, they will provide a variety of themes. You can choose from them based on your requirement.
You should make sure that the content on your website is unique and should. You need to spend quality time creating your website. You can make use of Content management softwares like Joomla, Drupal, wordpress,Modx, DotnetNuke, ZENCArT etc.
HOW TO ACCEPT ONLINE PAYMENTS:
You can use zencart software for creating an online store and you also need a current account and use services of icici bank/ccavenue or others to integrate credit/debit card processing.
MOst of the webhosting companies provide zencart installation freely when you buy a hosting plan.
Looking to create a free website??
You can try Google's free web sites. Google hosts your websites for free. Your website will be created at
https://sites.google.com/site/<YOUR WEBSITE NAME>.
If you already have a domain name you would need to create a CNAME and direct it to your website.
Devhub also provides similar services and it’s worth a try. You can either create a free website on DEVHUB which will look like yourwebsite.devhub.com or use DEVHUB hosting service for hosting your existing Domain name.
Freely hosted Blogs:
You can also try the wordpress blog or the blogger platform by google. Wordpress does not allow advertising on the free blogs but it is one of the mostly used blogging platforms due to its customizability.
On Blogger blogs you can advertise with google adsense. Blogger also provides your incoming traffic stats. You can also use the google webmasters tool to review how your blog/website is indexed.
A free blogger blog would be like http://www.blogname.blogspot.com/
A free wordpress blog would look like <blogname>.wordpress.com
You can also try the livejournal.
You also have an option of pointing your blogger or wordpress blog to your own domain name to give your blog a more professional feel.
If you are going the blog way, my suggestion would be start with a free blog and then if you thing you want to really do it, then go for a personnel domain name and host your blog on it.
If you want your blog/website to be displayed on google search, add your URL at :
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
If you scratching your head on what to write in your blog, check out My Blogging inspirations :
Check out Blogging Tips for more info on how to popularise your blog.
Add revenue from website
If you are planing to create website and generate some revenue from ads its not going so easy because your site viewers need to click on the advertisements and how often do you click on an add displayed on a website? You can also try impression adds but the payout is not the greatest.
Unless you create interesting and unique content you wont probably pull your average viewer back to your website.
This is where the difference between a Blog and a website is evident. You can use the full page size for advertising if you are creating a website with HTML.
If its a blog there are a lot of limitations.
If you are using Blogger platform and you get your Google adsense account approved you can put google adsense adds on your blog. But if you want to put adds from Adbrite , clicksor or others then you need to spend some time in getting them to work correctly. But its a lot easier to simply add the code to html pages that to a blog. But Blogs give you another advantage that you can immediately post your new ideas on your blog without having to spend lot of time formatting your content using the html tags and other syntax.
Best Blog Awards:
Yes blogging organisation awards best blogs in various categories.
There is also an Indian organisation indibloggies which gives awards for best Indian blogs.
My blog URL initially was http://indianreviewer.blogspot.com/ and i wanted give it a domain name of my own , so i spent Rs 199/- (4$) for getting the website name : http://www.indianreviewer.in/. This fees is for ownership of the domain name for 1 year.
Now lets drill down in to the topic of website building in detail.
Some of you may be having the following questions.
How to create a free website?
How much does it cost to create a website?
Do I need a server to host my website? And do I need programming knowledge to create my website?
You should consider the below things first while creating the website:
Domain Name
A domain Name like mywebsite.com to identify your website on World Wide Web . You should ideally choose a domain name that's catchy and which can be easily identified with the theme of your website.
You need to register your website Domain name with a Domain registrars. Generally this will cost you around 400 to 600 Rs based on the domain extensions like .com/.net/.org/.in. The pricing varies from company to company. ICANN is the organisation that certifies these registrars.
You can find information about the certified Domain registrars at : ICANN Accredited Domain registrars.
Hosting the Website
If you website content is confidential or is sensitive it is better you host your website on you personnel web server. You can use services of a web hosting companies like HOSTGATOR.com. Godaddy is my prefered website registrar. After i tried a few and finally settled on godaddy for their plans and service.
you create a lot of subdomains like blog.yourdomain.com. They also offer free 1 GB email hosting. This enables you to create your mail ID like admin@mywebsite.com
Often the Domain Name registrars will also provide hosting services. It is always better to register and host a domain with the same Service provider. The main thing you need to check hear is if the hosting company you have chosen is known for providing support services as there will always be minor issue with hosting a website continually. It is always good to do a little bit of research (just Google for user reviews on the respective web hosting companies) before you proceed with entering a hosting agreement. The hosting providers I listed seem to be safe options from the little research I have done.
There are two types of hosting plans which every hosting company provides.
Shared hosting and Dedicated hosting.
A minimal Shared hosting package will cost you around 2500/rs (55$) per year. You can also try out a package for 3 months.
You can use both windows and Linux platforms but Linux will cost you less and you don't need any Linux knowledge to host your website on a Linux platform. You just need to know how to upload and download files to ftp server.
I created a html website and all i did was buy a Linux hosting and upload all my html pages to the ftp server and get my website going. You can also user Joomla,drupal , wordpress and other content management soft wares for developing your website but they generate database pages and they are not static pages like html pages. Html pages always rank higher in the search engine rankings.
My personnel preference is GoDaddy.com
. Initially i have taken a 3 month hosting with godaddy and i got a free google adwords and facebook advertising coupon for advertisng my website. This will help you gain some internet presense for your website for free. Also the 3 month plan just costs around 230 rs. You will also get a good discount on yearly subscription. Also you can install a lot of content management tools like wordpress,jomla,drupal etc which help creating websites easily. The linux hosting plans have a good user interface and you dont need any linux knowledge.
Later i liked the service and have taken a 1 year hosting plan for hosting my website : http://www.howwherewhat.in/
Theme, Look and content of the website
This is the most important part of creating a website. Your website should feel good for the average visitor. It should not be overly crowed with tabs, pop ups preferably it’s better not to have bright backgrounds. If your website is hosted with a web hosting provider, they will provide a variety of themes. You can choose from them based on your requirement.
You should make sure that the content on your website is unique and should. You need to spend quality time creating your website. You can make use of Content management softwares like Joomla, Drupal, wordpress,Modx, DotnetNuke, ZENCArT etc.
HOW TO ACCEPT ONLINE PAYMENTS:
You can use zencart software for creating an online store and you also need a current account and use services of icici bank/ccavenue or others to integrate credit/debit card processing.
MOst of the webhosting companies provide zencart installation freely when you buy a hosting plan.
Looking to create a free website??
You can try Google's free web sites. Google hosts your websites for free. Your website will be created at
https://sites.google.com/site/<YOUR WEBSITE NAME>.
If you already have a domain name you would need to create a CNAME and direct it to your website.
Devhub also provides similar services and it’s worth a try. You can either create a free website on DEVHUB which will look like yourwebsite.devhub.com or use DEVHUB hosting service for hosting your existing Domain name.
Freely hosted Blogs:
You can also try the wordpress blog or the blogger platform by google. Wordpress does not allow advertising on the free blogs but it is one of the mostly used blogging platforms due to its customizability.
On Blogger blogs you can advertise with google adsense. Blogger also provides your incoming traffic stats. You can also use the google webmasters tool to review how your blog/website is indexed.
A free blogger blog would be like http://www.blogname.blogspot.com/
A free wordpress blog would look like <blogname>.wordpress.com
You can also try the livejournal.
You also have an option of pointing your blogger or wordpress blog to your own domain name to give your blog a more professional feel.
If you are going the blog way, my suggestion would be start with a free blog and then if you thing you want to really do it, then go for a personnel domain name and host your blog on it.
If you want your blog/website to be displayed on google search, add your URL at :
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
If you scratching your head on what to write in your blog, check out My Blogging inspirations :
Check out Blogging Tips for more info on how to popularise your blog.
Add revenue from website
If you are planing to create website and generate some revenue from ads its not going so easy because your site viewers need to click on the advertisements and how often do you click on an add displayed on a website? You can also try impression adds but the payout is not the greatest.
Unless you create interesting and unique content you wont probably pull your average viewer back to your website.
This is where the difference between a Blog and a website is evident. You can use the full page size for advertising if you are creating a website with HTML.
If its a blog there are a lot of limitations.
If you are using Blogger platform and you get your Google adsense account approved you can put google adsense adds on your blog. But if you want to put adds from Adbrite , clicksor or others then you need to spend some time in getting them to work correctly. But its a lot easier to simply add the code to html pages that to a blog. But Blogs give you another advantage that you can immediately post your new ideas on your blog without having to spend lot of time formatting your content using the html tags and other syntax.
Best Blog Awards:
Yes blogging organisation awards best blogs in various categories.
There is also an Indian organisation indibloggies which gives awards for best Indian blogs.
Also check out
How to check if some one has coppied the content on your website/blog
Tips on how to get Adsense approved for Indian bloggers and website owners
Top 50 Ad Networks worth trying for your blog/website
Blogging Tips
My Blogging inspirations :
Reasearch before you start publising a post
Tips and Formalities for creating a website in India
How to chek if a website is safe and genuine
how to shorten long url links
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