Technical Requirements to Make Your Website

After planning your website pages, written the content, identified signposts and calls to action, you’re now faced with the task of actually putting your website out there on the internet.
This article is going to explain what requirements need to be met to make that happen. These requirements are technical, but stay with me! I’m going to simplify and break it down for you.
There are 3 main requirements that you need to get your website online. To help us understand these 3 requirements, let’s use the (fictional) ABC Widgets as an example.

 1.Domain Name  : Now imagine that you need to buy some widgets from ABC Widgets. You will need to pick them up from their outlet or office, so what is the first thing that you do? You look up their address.
For your website, the domain name is your address. The domain name is the string of text that has a .com, .net, .something at the end of it. Here are some examples of domain names:

• mybusiness.com
• myblog.co.uk
• mywebsite.me

 Depending on the goal of your website, you should choose a domain name that reflects your business (e.g. mybrand.com), your website topic (e.g. eco-friendly-tips.com) or your name (e.g. johndoe.com).
All the good domains are running out, so quickly grab yours today. Even if you don’t plan to use it right away, it’s a good idea to reserve it so that no one else can get it. After all, a .com domain name cost only about $10 per year.

Side note: When you want to visit a website, you can type it’s address directly into the address bar. I’ve seen people go to Google and type in the address there. Typing the address into the address bar will save you a click.

2.Web Hosting :  So now you have an address, but where does it point to? In the case of ABC Widgets, the address will lead you to a commercial area where their outlet and office are located
Web hosting is like your website’s outlet or office–it is the physical location on the internet where the website lives. Another benefit of web hosting is that you can have your own personalized email address e.g. myname@mybusiness.com.
There are different types of web hosting. The most common are:

Shared hosting. This is where you share a web server with other websites. For ABC Widgets, it would be like occupying a single unit within the whole commercial area.

Virtual Server, or VPS. VPSes are similar to shared hosting, but you have more space and resources. If ABC Widgets had a VPS for their website, it would be like owning an entire floor within an office block.

Dedicated Server. With a dedicated server, the website takes up 100% of the web server. For ABC Widgets, it would be as if they owned the whole commercial area block.
For most of us, a shared hosting plan would be more than enough. Even this website is hosted on a shared hosting plan. A good shared hosting plan will cost you about $70 – $200 per year ($6 – $20 per month).

FYI, most people simply refer to their web hosting plan as ‘web host’ or ‘web server’

3.Web Page : In real life, customers go to the ABC Widgets outlet to buy widgets. On your website, visitors come to view web pages.
So the final requirement for your website to be online is to have web pages for your visitors to view. The 2 main alternatives to do this is:

1. Create web pages with web design software and upload it to the web server
2. Use a CMS (content management system) to create your pages

However these 2 alternatives alone throw up thousands of different options for doing the same thing. For example, there are hundreds of web design software you can use, like Dreamweaver, Frontpage, KompoZer, RapidWeaver.. and the list goes on.
Whatever you choose, there will always be a learning curve, so expect to spend some time learning. Also be sure to choose a popular web design software or CMS so that you can ask others who use it too for help.