What is a website?

Websites are without a doubt the most important element of the internet. Busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als alike use them to establish their presence on the web. Find out how websites are struc­tured and what options there are for creating your own website.

Do you need your own website?

With your own website, you can display different kinds of content (such as texts, images and videos) on the internet. Websites are ben­e­fi­cial for business owners in a number of ways. A website allows them to represent their company on the web, dis­trib­ute goods online and inform potential customers about products and services. It also provides a way for people to contact different de­part­ments within the business.

For private users, a website gives people the chance to actively take part in public affairs. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in­di­vid­u­als can create personal sites that contain in­for­ma­tive material or are used for en­ter­tain­ment purposes.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, if you have a link to a personal website next to your social network profile, you increase the chances of catching the attention of potential employers, people who share similar interests or people who may be in­ter­est­ed in finding out more about you. The large reach that websites have is certainly one of the reasons for the growing number of internet sites in recent years:

How are websites struc­tured?

Many companies include a link to their website on their business cards or in their email signature. When this address is typed into a browser’s search bar (known as the uniform resource locator, URL), the website’s home page appears.

Depending on the size of the website, site visitors have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to access the website’s subpages. Hy­per­links, or simply “links”, are used to connect single HTML documents of a website. Links to important subpages (e.g., de­part­ments, product cat­e­gories, or important in­for­ma­tion pages) are usually in­te­grat­ed into the nav­i­ga­tion and can be found in the header of the website. These are displayed on every subpage of the website, providing an overview of the website’s structure and helping users as they move around on the website.

Links to more subpages can also be placed in the text and images of the website (commonly referred to as the website’s content). The footer at the bottom of a page often has links to further pages that contain in­for­ma­tion about the site owner and the terms of service for using the website.

Should I create a dynamic website or a static website?

If the aim for your site is to take on the role of a digital business card, then a static website should suffice. With a static website, HTML documents con­tain­ing the in­for­ma­tion you want displayed are created and stored under their own URL on a web server. When a user enters the web address, they are presented with a static HTML document that looks exactly like those stored on the server.

But what if you want to add new content to your website on a regular basis? If you have a static website, you’ll need to manually carry out the changes in the HTML code of each in­di­vid­ual subpage of your website. With dynamic websites, this step is avoided since the web server freshly generates the website every time it is accessed. Instead of con­tin­u­ous­ly issuing the static HTML pages un­mod­i­fied, the server adjusts the page content au­to­mat­i­cal­ly in ac­cor­dance with the latest update.

Dynamic websites are based on a strict division of content and layout. Both aspects are assembled when the site address is entered into the browser. As a result, dynamic websites require more powerful servers than their static coun­ter­parts. They also depend on a database system (for example, like MySQL) so that website elements can be managed on a server. Generally, dynamic websites use pre-defined layouts and design templates, which are then filled with content. Due to the flex­i­bil­i­ty they offer, dynamic websites have become the more popular choice.

What are the pros and cons of static and dynamic websites?

Ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of static websites

Ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of dynamic websites

What options are there for creating a website?

Depending on the type of website you want to create and how extensive it should be, there are three pos­si­bil­i­ties you can choose from to create a personal website. In the past, it used to be common practice to write the source code for a website yourself using an HTML editor, but now there are many website builders and content man­age­ment systems that provide more com­fort­able solutions. If you don’t have the relevant pro­gram­ming ex­pe­ri­ence, you can choose from a variety of highly-spe­cial­ized providers, which create and manage your website for a rea­son­able fee.

Website builders (Great for beginners)

You don’t have to be a pro­fes­sion­al pro­gram­mer to create your own website. With the help of a website builder, you can have your own website up and running in just a few clicks. With a number of ready-made templates and designs to choose from, you can sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly adjust blocks within the pre-set options in a “what you see is what you get” editor (WYSIWYG). All changes you make can be seen using the preview function on the screen. Once the layout is ready, the in­di­vid­ual web pages can be filled with content such as text, images or videos.

If the website builder is used in com­bi­na­tion with a web hosting service, the finished website can im­me­di­ate­ly be put online. Creating a website using a such a service offers numerous ad­van­tages: You can design your website without any pro­gram­ming skills and you can carry out ad­just­ments easily via the editor. A dis­ad­van­tage, however, is the limited flex­i­bil­i­ty of such a system since it’s only limited to the default design settings and can only be used for static websites.

Content man­age­ment systems (Advanced web design)

If you feel ready to delve a little deeper into creating a website, and you’re not afraid of languages like HTML or PHP, you can use a content man­age­ment system (CMS). This option provides con­sid­er­ably more flex­i­bil­i­ty. When installed on a web server, a CMS manages website content in a database, which is separate from the design template. This results in a dynamic website that is generated every time a user accesses the site.

Content man­age­ment systems are popular in both pro­fes­sion­al and personal contexts due to the fact that there are many different CMS platforms that are both highly efficient and available as free, open-source software. Market leaders include WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Typo3. Each of these platforms comes with numerous templates and plugins that you can use to customize your website.

Content like texts, images and videos can be updated using an editor, which is similar to a website builder. This part of the CMS is referred to as the “frontend”. You can carry out editorial tasks with a CMS, even if you don’t have a lot of IT skills.

Secure website operation includes more than just in­stalling software, and therefore a CMS should always be su­per­vised by an ad­min­is­tra­tor. This task involves carrying out software updates and looking after the man­age­ment system’s per­for­mance. The ad­min­is­tra­tor works in the back end, which means it’s essential that this person has a basic knowledge of the CMS’s pro­gram­ming language.

Pro­gram­ming your website yourself (The pro­fes­sion­al solution)

If you want to com­plete­ly customize your website, you have to program the source code of the HTML document or the personal CMS templates from scratch. This option is really only available to private users if they have the necessary knowledge or are willing to acquire it. Many companies decide to outsource the pro­gram­ming of their website(s) instead of hiring spe­cial­ists.

A very simple static website can be created with basic knowledge of HTML and CSS (cascading style sheets). Beginners can rely on editors that work on the WYSIWYG principle. This way, you are able to see the effect that the source code has on the structure, layout and design elements of the website at any time during the process. Since pro­fes­sion­al websites should adhere to certain security standards as well as meet certain visual and func­tion­al standards, it’s best to get help from a pro­gram­mer, web designer or an agency when it comes to creating a business website.

What legal con­sid­er­a­tions are there with a website?

Placing content online is easier than ever, but before a website goes online you should check every in­di­vid­ual subpage for legal com­pli­ance. Otherwise, legal issues could arise, which could prove costly.

• Online copyright: Copyright laws also exist online. If you include texts, images, videos or music files on your website without first seeking per­mis­sion, you make yourself liable to pros­e­cu­tion. You can only use copyright-protected material with the consent of the person who holds the rights. Software also falls under the copyright category and using a template could cause problems if the pro­gram­mer hasn’t ex­plic­it­ly made it available for free use.