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This is the first part of a series of posts about how to set up a simple website which you’ll be able to update easily by yourself.
It’s aimed at non-techie people who realise the benefits of having a website, but don’t have the time to get into the technical side of things, or just aren’t that interested!
If this sounds like you, read on, I’ll try to make this as painless as it can be.
I’m writing this as I am developing a real site for a local charitable group, and I hope this guide will be useful to other similar groups of people who have thought about getting online but never really knew how to go about it or where to start. The site I am developing is www.conwykidsmatter.org.uk
What’s in a name ?
The first step is to decide what name you want for your site. This is called the domain name. Ideally a domain name should be short and sweet and, if possible, say something about what the site is all about.
To come up with the Conwykidsmatter name, we did a quick brainstorm session with members of the group, and simply got people to shout out keywords or phrases about the group and its reason for being. We ended up with a flipchart pad full of words like children, support, families, poverty, enable, etc.
We knew we wanted to end up with something that was only two or three words, and started stringing together different combinations from the flipchart. As soon as someone said “Conwy kids matter”, it just felt right. We’d found our name!
Register it!
I host all my sites with a company called 1&1, I’ve used them for years and they’re very reliable and always excellent if you need any support.
Domain names are unique – you can’t have two with exactly the same name. So if you have decided on your perfect domain name, the first step is to see if it is available.
You can use the form below to check if your chosen domain name is available!
Notice that you can choose the .com or .org bit yourself, and there is some reasoning behind which should be more appropriate.
.com, or .co.uk is generally for commercial sites
.org is generally used by non-profits
There is a list of these so called “top-level” domains on this wikipedia page.
Once you’ve registered your domain name, you need to have some webspace to actually host the contents of your website.
I mentioned that I use 1&1 internet, but there are many providers out there, so do your research to get the best deal for you. If you want to be able to run WordPress, the blogging platform, then your web host needs to include access to a SQL database, and have PHP 5.
For www.conwykidsmatter.org.uk , we needed to be able to host some ordinary static webpages plus have the ability to post regular updates. A blogging system like WordPress would be perfect!
WordPress is open source software. It’s continually being developed, has gazillions of useful plugins to do whatever you need, and did I mention the small fact that it’s free?
Please don’t be fooled by IT people trying to convince you that you need to buy expensive software. It simply isn’t the case these days.
Download WordPress here, and next time, we’ll go through how to install it.
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