Every business needs a website. Even a few years ago, an argument could be made for some businesses that don’t need one. However, now, you cannot move your business forwards without an online presence.
So, you need a website. What should you do to get one? There are several methods and we’ll look at a few of them now.
Don’t forget, that as always, you can check customer reviews on reviewsbird.co.uk before you commit to purchasing any product that you think may help you build your website.
Building Your Own Website
Building your own website is not as difficult as you may think. If you have never done anything like this before, then there are a lot of tutorials online. Really, there are so many that you will not fail to find something that suits you.
Getting started means doing a couple of things.
First you’ll need a domain name. This is the URL of your site, such as reviewsbird.co.uk or google.com.
You choose the text before the full stop. The last part, .co.uk or .com is the top level domain identifier. You can choose which you buy, but .com is most popular, especially for online businesses.
Once you’ve done this, you will need to find what’s called hosting.
Hosting is where your website is stored. It’s a large central server that can be accessed by the users of your website.
You’ll need to read some customer feedback to find the best host for your needs.
Choosing Your CMS
A CMS is a content management system. This is the software that manages all of the content, such as text, pictures, files and data that make up your website.
There are several well known CMS systems used, with WordPress being the most popular by far.
There are others such as Drupal and Joomla which do the same job.
If you are just starting out though, you could do a lot worse than WordPress, simply for the fact that it has so many users.
You install your CMS on your hosting site, and point your domain to the site’s server. This way, your content can be accessed by web users simply putting your address into their browser.
Learning Curve
In most cases, writing content is very much like writing a document in a word processor. You will need to learn some new things such as how to place images and other content, but all this information is available online.
Plugins are available for a variety of different tasks, anything from security to specific content management tasks and ecommerce. All CMS software is very extensible.
Alternatives
Of course, choosing one of these CMS systems is not the only way you can go.
There are other routes, designed to make your life simpler. These combine the task of the CMS and domain name provider, as well as giving you a set of coherent themes and payment processing.
These systems cost a little bit more but may be worth it in the long run depending on your situation.