Making your first website
I had no experience of building a website until I got involved with Newport Makerspace. My first task was to find out what tools were available to make a website – there are lots. As funds were tight, free options were of course the favourite and even then there are lots to choose from. I played around with several tools, WordPress, Wix, SquareSpace and Editor x – to name a few. All seemed to do a job, with some more flexible than others. Most use “themes” which give a basic website layout that you can try to tailor for your needs. We chose WordPress in the end as it is very widely used and has a great deal of online resource to help when you get stuck. Next job was to choose a hosting service and domain name. The hosting service runs all the behind the scenes computer servers and databases. The domain name service provider gives you your web address. Many companies do both and most offer similar services. For your average small website it probably just comes down to price. If your intention is a for a website with perceived high demand and features (e.g online shopping and