You can have any kind of information in any kind of media format on your website. This includes text, pictures, audio and video. Each file will have its own web page, and the more files that you have, the larger your website will be.
Hosting Your Site
In order for you to upload any files to your website, you need to purchase a web hosting plan with a hosting provider. A hosting plan is basically an amount of space for your website on their network of computers, known as servers. There are different kinds of plans that you can get, and each plan will allow you a certain number of files that you can upload, as well as a certain amount of bandwidth.
Hosting providers will also sell you a domain name, so that you can keep track of all your information in one place. You can get a basic hosting plan and domain name for less than $100 a year, but if you have a large amount of files and need more bandwidth, then you may want to go with an unlimited plan, for a slightly higher price.
Creating Your Files
All your files that you are going to be uploading to your website will need to be created with a Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) code. This code basically tells the browsers how to display your text, images or video on the computer screen. The code allows you to choose your colors and the layout of your webpage.
You can create these files from scratch using a basic HTML editor, or you can buy software that will allow you to drag and drop your pictures or text anywhere you want on the page. You can learn the HTML at w3schools.com for free. It really is not that hard, you will just have to be patient and learn to play with it. If you are not up to learning computer languages, then you can purchase a software known as Dreamweaver, but keep in mind, it too can be tricky to learn.
Once you are done creating your files, you will have to name each file and save it in either html or php format so that it will show up online once you upload it. These files then appear after your domain name like this: "yourdomain.com/nameofyourfile.html". If you saved it in php format it would show as .php instead of .html.
Linking Your Pages
All of your pages are linked together with hyper links, and can all be accessed from the front page, also known as the home page or index page. But sometimes the website has too many files to link to them all from your homepage, and in that case you can use the homepage to link out to other pages known as master pages, which then link out to all your other pages.
Suppose you wanted to set up an ecommerce store and sell electronics such as computers, cameras, stereos and so on. You would then create master pages; one for the computers, one for the cameras, and another for the stereos and so on. Then each master page would link out to the specific products. This makes it extremely easy for you to keep things organized, and your customers will also be able to find your products with greater ease.
Sub-Domain
If you have a large amount of information to be stored under your domain name, you can also get a subdomain, which will show up in front of your domain name, followed by a dot. For example, suppose your domain name is "yourdomain.com" and your subdomain is "info". It would show up as "info.yourdomain.com". This helps you to keep your files neatly organized on your website.
Types of Websites
There are a number of different types of websites. Some are personal and contain personal information that others can read and benefit from. And others are owned and operated by individuals or large corporations to either sell their products online, or to keep their customers informed of new products, sales or policies.
Anyone can have their own website, as you do not need any special licensing to get a domain name and a hosting plan.
