Once you have your domain name and web host provider, you can start creating your web site. The first thing you need to do is to register your server IP addresses with whoever you registered your domain name with, so that web surfers who try to access your domain name will be connected to your server. There are two names and numbers they will need to know, called the primary and secondary DNS names and IP addresses. These will be supplied by your web host or server administrator.
While this administrative step is taking place, you should create a home page (at least a temporary one) and FTP it to your new web server. If you already have your web site ready to go, then go ahead and upload it and start testing to make sure everything looks and works the way you want it to. The only thing you will need for this step is your server's main IP address, your user name and the password for your web server account to enter into your FTP program. Here'a good primer on using FTP.
If you're having someone else design your site then they will probably take care of these steps for you. Otherwise, some HTML editing programs have the ability to upload files to your server automatically. If you're not using one of these, there are FTP clients such as CuteFTP (Windows) and Fetch (Macintosh) that you can use to upload files to your server. You may also need to use Telnet to communicate with the server.
From time to time, you will need to update the site. You should check periodically to make sure all the links on your site are still valid. There may be other information that needs updating too. You will probably want to add pages to your site as well. Most sites continue to grow and grow.
You should also test your site for browser compatibility, broken links, etc. Different browsers display your pages slightly differently and it is good to find any problems your pages might have before your viewers come and then leave after an unsatisfactory experience. Here are a few sites that will help you test your web page's compatibility:
- ANY BROWSER- Checks for browser compatibility.
- Web Page Backward Compatibility Checker - Allows you to check your web pages on lower generation browsers.