I Need a Website: Where Should I Start?

We are living in the times of the world wide web and internet has changed the way businesses are conducted. With new modes of communication the need of making exist infrastructure which is critical for good business operations is crucial. Though there is much action which is happening in the online space, there are many young emerging start-ups and other traditional businesses which are now either establishing themselves online OR trying to explore the online world for business growth and other objectives.

Get started: lets book a domain for you!
The next few steps will enable you to book a domain. But first, what exactly is a domain? A domain is essentially a URL (the name of your website). Eg: if your company name is IndiaMART, you may go ahead and book a domain as www.indiamart.com or as you wish.

But before you book a domain, you need to see if it is even available or not?! Yes, it is not necessary that the domain you have chosen for your business/ yourself will always be available.

To do the same, follow the following steps as listed in order:

• Go to a web hosting provider: eg: Godaddy.com (US), Hostcats.com (India)

As shown in the screen capture above, search for the link which says 'domain name registration'. The same will redirect you to the following screen (as shown in the screen capture below):

Type in the domain that you need to book, in the text box and the host will let you know whether the domain is available or not. Also what needs to be considered is, if you don't find a domain with an extension .com, you might find the same with the extension .org OR .in. While booking the same, you must first consider and consult legally as clashing with an existing brand name might not be a good idea for the future of the company, once it grows to a considerable size.

Great, I have the domain, now how to set up my website?

Hold those horses! Great you have the domain booked. Now to host a website, what you need is a space. Its the same as, if you want to build a home, you need a plot of land to construct a house. Similarly you need a plot of land (space on the world wide web) to construct your website (which is like your home online).

For the same you can go to the 'Hosting' option on the site and look at various offers and plans. Though there are different types of hosting and you might get confused. To make things simple, you may go in for a linux based hosting which provides you good bandwidth, space to host your Email, is compatible with new blogging platforms like wordpress etc.

Once done, now you have a domain with hosting, hence you have everything required legally to construct your house online.

How do I build my website now?

There are free tools which help you build a basic HTML website with basic functionality, though if you have the right budges and if your business requires you to be superbly presented on the internet you might as well want to hire a good web designer, who could understand your business and design you a good web solution.

Otherwise you can also leverage free online options like Wordpress, which can help you host a good looking website which is scalable in nature and quick to develop and host.

As emerging businesses there are many free and interesting online solutions which can help your business scale up to the next level, while creating new business opportunities for you. To know more on how you can leverage the internet for your business, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will get in touch!