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Main Steps to Create a Web Site

As a rule, the process of creating a web site includes three main stages: planning, implementation, and web site updating or maintenance.

Planning: The first and most essential stage in any project is planning. Before starting with SiteBuilder, think about the purpose of your web site and its target audience. After this, decide where your web site will be stored, or, in Internet terminology, hosted. This stage is beyond the scope of this document. We assume that if you have access to SiteBuilder, you have all resources required for site hosting. Then, you should develop a detailed structure of your future web site and prepare its contents, including text information and graphics. The planning stage is extremely important because it eventually determines the usefulness of your web site.

Implementation: The next stage is the implementation of your web site. The five-step SiteBuilder wizard takes you through the entire procedure of creating your web site, from initial design to publishing and maintenance. The following are the main steps required to create a web site using SiteBuilder:

  1. To create a web site for the first time, open the SiteBuilder wizard. You can start working with the wizard without user authorization (no login/password needed).
  2. Complete the first four wizard steps (select the design, create the site structure, add web site contents, and provide extra information for search engines).
  3. Open the Publish tab. At this step you will see detailed instructions on how to access your new web site so that you can edit it. Your web site created using the SiteBuilder wizard is saved as a trial site in a temporary storage directory on the SiteBuilder server. On the Publish tab, you will see an automatically generated site identifier. Using this link to the trial site, which might look like http://site_identifier.sitebuilder.hosting_provider.com, you can later return to your web site, edit and publish it (about editing your web site, see the How to Edit Your Web Site chapter). We recommend that you change the site identifier to some name you can easily remember (click Change My Site Identity).
  4. After you purchase hosting services from your provider, you will be provided with a domain name. Tell the SiteBuilder administrator the domain name where your web site will be hosted. The SiteBuilder administrator will enter your domain name in the publish properties for your web site in the SiteBuilder administrator panel. After publication, your web site will be available on the Internet.
  5. Enter the link to your trial site in the address bar of the browser window. Your web site will open in the browser window. Click Edit at the top of the web site to launch the SiteBuilder wizard. Now you can either edit the content of your web site. After editing, click Publish web site. The updated content of your web site will be transferred to the server where your web site is hosted. After publication, your web site will be available on the Internet.

Maintenance: When you complete the above steps, you web site becomes available for visitors. It is critical to keep your web site content fresh because this is a good way to show your attitude to customers and services. Therefore, always be sure that your site is updated on a regular basis.

In SiteBuilder it is easy to keep your web site content up-to-date. All you need to do is to log into the SiteBuilder using the site identifier and your password, edit the content, and click Publish. SiteBuilder will automatically transfer the updated content to your hosting location.

In the chapters below you will find detailed instructions on what you should do at every stage of creating your web site.

See Also

About SiteBuilder

Understanding SiteBuilder's Concept