A website – often called a website through abuse of language – is technically made up of a set of HTML files linked by hypertext links and stored on a server, that is, a computer permanently connected to the Internet. It is this set that makes it possible to generate the Web pages that we consult with a browser such as Chrome, Edge or Firefox. There are several more or less simple solutions to create a website.
How to create a website?
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There are several ways to create HTML files that make up the web pages that make up a site:
by using a CMS (Content Management System), a turnkey platform that makes it very easy to create an online site;
by hosting the site , that is to say by renting a server from a specialized service provider and by depositing the files allowing the site to be created as desired;
by using a turnkey solution as Wix , a specialized platform to easily create websites of professional quality.
It is not necessary to have great technical knowledge to use a CMS. And the first pages of a site can usually be uploaded in a few tens of minutes, with a default visual, like you find on many blogs.
Specialized platforms like Wix offer many easy-to-learn tools with ready-to-use templates. It is thus possible to choose your own visuals, to use a large number of fonts and even to integrate videos and photo galleries, and to add animations to create truly personalized sites.
Conversely, if you opt for site hosting, it is necessary to manage the files that compose it with specialized tools and therefore to “get your hands dirty”, which requires more technical knowledge (language , HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.).
CMS: the easy way
The CMS (literally: content management system) are key platforms in hand to lay out articles and publish content on the Internet.
For most people, this is the easiest way to start building a site because you don’t need to know how to code or have any special knowledge to post.
The main CMS are WordPress, Drupal and Joomla: here is their popularity on Google in recent years:
WordPress is the most used CMS in the world. It has the merit of being relatively easy to use at the base, but to accept many extensions (plug-in) proposed by the community to extend its functions.
If you want to create an e-commerce site, there are dedicated tools for managing a product catalog, a shopping cart, an online payment system or even order tracking. The main e-commerce engines are Wix eCommerce , Prestashop , Shopify, and WooCommerce .
Finally, if you want to create an online community around a forum, the main forum engines are phpBB , vBulletin , XenForo or even [ MyBulletinBoard (MyBB).
How to host a website?
There are two main categories of website hosts:
free hosts . These hosts lend disk space on a server to create your web pages. This type of service is generally completely free. Most of the time, your service provider offers free hosting space provided with your Internet package. See free hosts
professional hosts . This type of hosting guarantees a quality service (bandwidth) and security (data security and assurance of a reduced number of failures). It turns out to be quite essential in the case of a site with high traffic (more than 1000 visitors per day) and allows the purchase of a domain name (a name such as [www.commentcamarche.net]). See paying hosts
If you choose to host your website, it will be necessary to create the files necessary for its operation. For that, it will first be necessary to learn the HTML language at least but fortunately, there are many tutorials on the net.
By using a web application framework, that is to say an environment in a programming language allowing the creation of dynamic websites, provided you know how to code.