Web development/What's needed to develop a website?

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This section means to serve as an introduction to the rest of Section 3: Resources.

The Simple Website[edit]

Four basic things are needed for a website: domain name, webhost, text editor, and an ftp program. This will get you a basic website without pictures or any complex backend, but it is functual and can be effective all the same.

Web development is fairly easy to learn and get into. This is mainly because it is so accessible, and because a simple website requires very little overhead or experience to create. To create a simple website, one will need to have the following:

  1. Domain Name - the common place the user will find your site on the World Wide Web. For example, www.yournamehere.com is a domain name. You can purchase your own domain or get a free one offered by many different online companies. Domains have come down in price drastically over recent years, and can now be found for under $10 USD.
  2. Webhost - this is a company that will "host" your domain and web pages. By "uploading" your "data"—transferring the files that makeup your website—to their server, you give the consumer access to your page on the Internet.
  3. Text Editor program and a little knowledge of HTML - HTML, or Hypert-text markup language is the most basic of the web-languages. All you really need to develop a web page is some basic knowledge of HTML and the Windows program Notepad (the Macintosh equivalent is TextEdit). A page written in this "markup language" can contain images, links, text formatting, etc., and its file extension is .html. After you type your page into one of these free programs (or many other pay programs), upload the file to your hosting. A user's browser will then be able to decipher the HTML.
  4. FTP Program - FTP stands for file transfer protocol, and is the most common method of uploading your files to your hosting. When you register a domain name and secure space online for your data, your webhost will give you an FTP user name and password. By typing these into one of the numerous free FTP programs, you can access your web space and upload your website.
HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language, the most common web language, and also the simplest and easiest to learn.

Note: HTML is not covered in this course, but several HTML tutorials can be found online.

Human Resources[edit]

As for the more advanced websites, a staff is usually required to maintain and keep up the site. Aside from knowledge of HTML and webspace, people may be required to do miscellaneous jobs such as graphic design, advanced coding, customer relations, network administration, etc.


Capital, varying with the complexity of the website's goals, is also needed. For a simple website run by one person, the expenses may be as small as paying for the domain and yearly hosting fees. As websites get more complex and intricate, the amount of capital increases proportionally.

As a common sense rule, the bigger the website you want, the more people, money, and technology you're going to need. This section should serve as a guide for planning resource gathering and management, and to give you an idea of what's needed to start up and maintain a website.