Splat | WiseTome.com

It was when I was telling the story of my journey down the cyber lane, that my friend suggested I write few blog posts that would help newbies create websites of their own. Hence, all you veterans, stop saying anyone can do that, and do suggest something more that would help those who do not know.

From the moment I started contemplating about giving a short post on setting up a website, I came to comprehend that the simple question, ‘how do I setup a website’, does not have a simple answer. It involves various parameters, and thus let me help you sort those out.

There are many parameters that decide on the approach of setting up a website, but there are two basic question that would help you arrive at the approach.

What is the purpose of the website?

Answer this, and pretty much most of the options gets answered. The two basic purposes are personal websites and business websites. Of course, there are many gray areas, but it should be easy to choose between the two.

Personal websites are where you put pages for no specific audience. It need not have definite business models behind it. It need not have any specific goals other than simple – tell people about you or your interests. You can use it to write a diary (which would be public and not personal – as it is accessible to anyone with Internet connection). You can use it to display your resume. You can use it to hold information about your hobbies or areas of interests. It may contain details on how people can contact you.

Business websites would require much more thought, time and effort to be spent. It may require more than those to be spent. Business websites would need to have a business model in order to sustain itself. Business websites may have a goal to serve as a Cyber portal for your real business or it may be your business itself. These websites would basically sell products or services. Some of the serious business sites out there may seem like they are not selling anything, but on a closer observation on their business model, there is always something it sells to someone.

What is the budget?

What is the budget you are ready to commit on your website? Budget in terms of actual money and also in terms of time and effort. This becomes a deciding factor along with the purpose in choosing the approach on setting a website.

It is possible to setup a personal website without spending a penny – but it would require you to spend effort and time. Also, it is not likely that you would be able to setup a business website without spending some money no matter how much effort and time you put into it.

Approaches

I have not yet told you how to setup a website yet. I have not even mentioned the different options available. That would be the topic of the next post in this series.