Do you want to show the world what you are doing? Almost everyone running a business may at some point feel like having a website. What bothers many however, is what it actually takes for one to have an active website on the internet.
In this article, I will share what you need to have your website up and running, so that you are able to showcase your business to entire world. I will share with you the basic requirements, call them the bare minimum, and then the optional addons.
Basice Requirements to Have a Website
In this section, I will share the basic and bare minimum requirements of publishing your own website:
1. Website Design and Development
This is straight forward, not so? Yes! The website must be designed and developed. You may either do this yourself, or higher a website designer/developer to do it for you. Whichever choice you make, you need to have a good website designed and developed for your business.
If you decide to hire someone to design and develope the website for you, they will charge you a one-time fee. This can range from a few shillings to hundreds or even thousands of dollars depending on the complexity and features you want to have on the website. Static websites are normally the cheapest, while e-commerce websites tend to be more expensive.
At Jubilee Hosting Services, we offer a number of easy-to-use content managment systems which you can use to develope and publish your website. These require no technical expertise and can be accessed right within your hosting control panel.
2. Website Hosting
After designing and development your website, you will need to place it on a webserver where it can be accessed 24/7 via the internet. This is called website hosting, or simply web hosting.
When you pay for web hosting, you are actually paying rent for storage space on a webserver where you can store your website and have it accessed on the internet. You can choose to pay for this monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annually, among others, depending on the billing cycles that your hosting provider offers.
Other than storage of the website, web hosting comes with many other features and tools. These include databases, emails, SEO and marketing tools, developer tools, among others. You may check out our hosting features here.
3. Domain Name
Now that you have developed your website and even placed it on the web server, the next question will be: How will people access it? Your website will need an internet address. That internet address is called a domain name. Something like jubileewebhost.com or yourbusinessname.co.ug. Therefore, you will need to register a domain name and point it to your website's hosting account. You can pay for you and register the domain name for a minimum of one (01) year, or as many at ten (10) years. The maximum registration period will depend on your domain registrar.
Read our comprehensive guide about how to choose a perfect domain name for your business here.
Once you have your domain name connected to your hosting account and propagation has taken place, your domain will now be accessible on the internet. Congratulations!
