Building a web site: How to
Building a web site can be easy or very complex. You might ask, how can one thing be both? Well, there are many different platforms, needs and coding languages involved when building a web site. What you need, or use depends on the end goal for you site. If you just want “Hello World” on a web page then all you need is html, or you could use php (more complicated). If you want “Hello World” to be red, then you will need css to color the html tag. If you want “Hello World” to fade-in or out, you might want to use css or JavaScript. As you can see, just having 2 words on a web page can be simple or complicated depending on the goals for your website. You can imagine what it would take to build a web site for a storefront or any business. You may consider a Content Management System (CMS) which there are many.
At 63 Bravo Wed Design, building web sites is all we do. We can help you on part of your web site if you are trying to build it yourself and get stuck or we can handle the whole job, or we can revamp an existing one. Maybe you finished your site and there is something not working right, we can help debug your web site to find problems. Building a web site has become more complicated if you want to stand out, sometimes you need a professional.
Where do you start when you think you need a web site?
If you just think you need one, then that is the first step.
Determine the purpose of the web site you want, what do you want the web site to do. Just saying “I want more revenue” is not a purpose, it is a consequence a purpose. Figuring out what you want a web site to do is not always easy, it requires a lot of thought. Give it time, write it down and do your research on you competitors. Every business and idea is different, so there is no one purpose for all.
Once you have your purpose, this will help you to choose between a static or dynamic web site.
This is a basic technical run down of the differences between static and dynamic web sites.
A static web site is primarily html and css. Each page is its own page that is put on your hosting company’s server (on the web) but it can also be viewed from an html file on your computer (only you can see) with a browser. The header and footer should be the same but to edit them you will need to edit every page. There is no database or server-side script required.
A dynamic web site primarily uses PHP which is a server-side script that populates a single page. Basically, the web site is a single page that is repopulated with new content from the server when a link is clicked. You can edit footer.php or header.php and the changes would be reflected on every link. You CANNOT view the site from a file on your computer in your browser unless you have a local sever or local host like Xampp installed and the files are in htdocs.
Choosing between static and dynamic is a major decision. For example, most blogs use Content Magnet Systems or CMS like WordPress because users can find content easily through archives, categories and tags. The down side is if you are not updating your web site with new content on a regular basis you will lose search ranking. So, if you are an active blogger consider a CMS, if not try a static site; you can always change at a later time.
This is going to be a series of blog post about building a website since it will be a lot of content. As new content is available I will put a link at the bottom of the page so please come back if you do not see a link.
