How to build a website

If you are new to website building and web design, there are different tools that we can offer you to help you build a professional looking website.

There are many different kinds of websites that you can create, and there are different tools that can help you with that task. With our web hosting plans, we offer a number of free scripts that are designed to make website building easier for you.

Here are some ideas for websites that you can easily build using the tools that we offer:

• Personal website - you can have a personal website that includes some information about yourself, your CV, pictures or anything that you think might be useful to present yourself
• Portfolio - if you are a desgner or an artist, you can create an online portfolio and get noticed by potential customers
• Blog - you can share your thoughts on any subject you like, get comments and exchange opinions with your readers
• Forum - you can have a forum with discussions on different topics and this way have a better connection with your visitors
• Community/Subscription site - you can grant users that sign up with your site different privileges that will allow them to read certain pages, have access to certain services that you offer, etc.
• Business/Company website - you can describe your business and provide more information about your company, so that you can popularize it and gain the trust of your customers
• Informational website - if you would like to provide some information about your own researches, trips and discoveries, about your hobby or anything else that you'd like to share, you can put this information online and add more to it at any time
• Online shop - if you have any products that you wish to sell online, you can have an online shop and directly receive payments from your customers through your site
• Gallery - you can upload and share your pictures with your family and friends, or with anyone you want, by arranging them in a gallery
• Family website - you can post information about your family, including events, pictures and news, so that all famiy members can stay in touch with each other even though they might live in different parts of the world
• Classifieds - if you would like to have a website with different advertisements, you can create a classifieds website, which will allow your users to post their adds in different categories
• E-learning website - if you wish to make an online course, or you are a teacher and wish to create online tools to help your students and enhance their learning class experience, you can build an e-learning website with different tools and materials for your students

Here are the most popular and useful tools that we offer for building these and many other kinds of websites:

1. SiteStudio - perfect for building personal, family and business websites. It is integrated in your Control Panel. For more information on SiteStudio and on how you can use it, you can check our article here: What is SiteStudio and how do I use it?
2. Joomla - perfect for personal, portfolio, family, business, news, subscription or informational websites. It is one of the so-called Content Management Systems, and it provides quite a lot useful features. There are lots of templates for Joomla online that you can choose from and use as a basis for your website. Joomla is open source-based and is being developed constantly. There are many addons for Joomla that you can install and use to enhance its features even more. You can see more information on Joomla and on how you can use it here: https://www.joomla.org/about-joomla.html
3. WordPress - it is a script especially made to help you build blog websites. It is extremely easy to use and there are many free templates for it that you can download over the net. It is an open source script, so it is free and there are many different addons for it that you can install for additional features. You can see more information on the features that WordPress is offering and on how it works here: https://WordPress.org/about/features/
4. phpBB and SMF - these are two forum scripts that you can use to build a forum online. They are both easy to use - phpBB is more simple and offers upgrade options, while SMF has more integrated features initially, but less mods and options to upgrade later. However, both work well, are user friendly and free to install. You can check more information on phpBB here: https://www.phpbb.com/about/ , and more information on SMF and its features here: https://www.simplemachines.org/about/features.php .
5. Gallery and Coppermine - these are two gallery scripts that you can use to build an online gallery. Gallery is usually used in combination with other software, like Joomla, and can easily be integrated into a website, while Coppermine is more often used as a stand-alone application. However, both can be used on their own and are very easy to install and work with. Here is more information about the features Coppermine is offering: https://coppermine-gallery.net/ , and here is more information about Gallery: https://gallery.menalto.com/features .
6. osCommerce - it is a shopping cart solution and with it you can easily build an online shop with descriptions, pictures and prices of your products. It provides many great features for selling your products and receiving payments online. There are different options for promotions, shipping and much more. You can find many different contributions for it, which can be installed to enhance its capabilities even more. You can check a list of the features osCommerce is offering here: https://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/oscommerce
7. Noah's Classifieds - with it you can easily have a classified adds website, where you can arrange different adds by category, location and much more. You can find more information about the features that Noah's Classifieds is offering here: https://noahsclassifieds.org/documentation/features
8. Moodle - it is the most popular e-learning script, which can help you build online courses and create unique learning materials. You can see more information about the features that Moodle is offering here: https://docs.moodle.org/en/Features

Each of the scripts described above can be installed for free in your hosting account with us. The only exception is SiteStudio, which is integrated in your Web Hosting Control Panel and is available by default (in case your hosting plan does not support it, you can request an upgrade). To have any of these scripts installed, you can go to the Web Tools > Elefante Free Scripts section of your Control Panel and then choose the script that you wish to install. Follow the steps from there and you will be able to install it with just a few clicks.