To begin with, I had no experience designing a website and really did not know where to begin or any of the lingo. All I knew is that I wanted to create a website. Upon Google searching I found that there are two main aspects of web development; front-end and back-end development, there is also full-stack development which is just a combination of the two.
I knew I wanted to design a website and therefore I am focusing on front-end development. The next
question was, where do I begin?
The first step is to get a domain name. There are multiple sites that you can use to get a domain name, I ended up
using Google Domains for this. When you go to the site you type the name you are interested in and the site will check
if it is available. At the point it will show you the name you picked and all possible extensions available. Depending on the name
and extension will determine the price. I only tried SomeGamerGuy and the prices were roughly $12 per month depending on the extension.
Once I had a domain, the second step was to find a hosting site. What the hosting site does is provide a server to host the website you are going to create with the domain you selected. Apparently there are a ton of hosting sites to choose from. The one thing I knew is that I wanted to learn html, css, and javascript and was not interested in Wordpress. I performed a number of Youtube searches for advice on which hosting site to pick. The hard part was finding videos with recommendations for sites that was not about Wordpress. After looking through multiple sites I ended up with Hostinger. The main things you want to look for in a hosting site is:
I am using what is called a shared server option which means my website is on a server with many other webistes and we share the resources of that server. This will typically be the cheapest option and good starting point. Most hosting sites appear to allow their users to upgrade to better options if necessary. There are also dedicated server options which are much more expensive but gives you either a private server or a virtual server which only your site would be using the resources. This may also be called VPS (Virtual Private Server). Note: if you do not have a domain already, the hosting site you plan on using may provide a domain for free for a set period of time (typically a year) as part of the package you get when signing up.
Once I signed up for Hostinger I then had to port over my domain name from Google Domains. Hostinger had a step-by-step directions and a short video detailing how to do this. After this was done it said it could take up to a couple days before I can access my website but it actually was up and available to access within a couple minutes.
Finally, I went into the file manager and uploaded my html and css files to create this website.
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