Website Publishing Process

Web Site Publishing Process

The first step to publish a brand-new web site is to find the best host for your needs. There are many different options for Web hosting. The best one is going to depend on the type of site that is being created. Almost all sites will fall under one of the next three categories: personal or hobby site, small business site, or Ecommerce or high-traffic site. It is going to be the size, complexity, and expected traffic load of the site that are going to need to be considered when shopping for a host.

Personal and Hobby sites are typically used for sites that will be used to communicate with friends and family and/or share information about hobbies with other people. These sites will typically be small and have low-traffic. Personal and Hobby sites are easier to publish and less expensive. There are two free options in this category. The first is your internet service provider as most of them give customer's access to a personal Web page as a part of their regular service. This option does have strict limits on the amount of bandwidth the website is able to use though; too many pictures can push the website over the limit. The second option is free web hosts. This allows someone to get a free site and the host gets to advertise on it, although storage and download amounts are an issue here too. With this option the host is able to shut down the website if it exceeds the bandwidth allotment until the next month when the bandwidth counter restarts.

Small business sites are sites that will contain basic company information. These sites are typically called "brochure sites". This is because the information in the website can probably be found on a printed advertisement brochure. These are pretty simple sites, but because they are still a business the creator will want a reliable host and will not be shut off unexpectedly. The creator will choose their own domain name.

Ecommerce sites are sites where individuals and/or small businesses start to sell products and services online and collecting online payments. These types of sites can get a little pricey when trying to find a host because these sites will need a working shopping cart system, an online merchant account, and a Web host that supports all of that.

Once the needs of the host have been determined and you have a valid domain name the next step will be to publish the website. There are three basic options: FrontPage extensions, HTML editor with FTP (File Transfer Protocol) capability, or a standalone FTP program. FrontPage does not work well with an FTP process as it uses FP extensions. HTML editor and the standalone FTP program both use the FTP process to upload all files for the website.

Check List:

 Find the right host

 Create a valid domain name