How a website is started

Previously, I wrote an article/page about The Birth and Growth of a Website. That websites’ creation was started by a major corporation, for the purposes of income. Well how about those websites that were started by “Start-up” companies, like a team of less than 10 people. Then this would be some short of story of how it will all start.

1. Creating the website idea

A lot of people are having these ideas that they would like to create a website someday. May be it a hobby or for the purpose of income. Well, a lot of computer projects really start from hobbies, may it be some kind of experiment, for the purpose of enjoyment and for other goals. But eventually, it leads to a point that these projects would have some income attached to it. To be honest, income/resource is the very basic human need and it is always the base factor.

Any website idea will come to mind, or let’s say any software project will be created for some purpose. So I would assume the Idea / Design / Purpose is already there. This is the start of what a the website would be. For example let’s create a “Video and Social interaction” such as Tiktok ( Which is famous these days ), or it may be an Education / School website, Job Hiring, Travel, and a lot of other websites that people would really like and take their time on it.

Therefore the IDEA and CONCEPT is the first part of it.

2. Infrastructure and Platform

Like a building or a structure, it has to have foundations. Therefore, a website should have a platform it is built upon. These days there are several platforms where one can built the “Old School” desktop website, a mobile platform, and even a social media platform. OK , here are some timelines on how some websites/blogs has started.

• Back in the Netscape days, one would create a very basic front page that would look like a newspaper, with a few photos, get some host server and register a domain to launch a website. The after that, just rely on the search sites ( maybe it was Yahoo! at this time ) some advertisements ( like saying the www-dot-website-dot-com ) in media or print, or maybe some link from another site that points back your website, but on those days, there were very few websites back then.
• A lot of internet giants ( Google, Amazon and etc.. ) from these days started from the 90’s and basically the search engine website were so popular since it opens up everything the internet has to offer.
• After the invention of the search engine ( basically a website where you type something on the search bar and gives you a list of websites as search results ), the social network sites such as Friendster ( maybe back in the early 2000’s ) and other sites followed such as Multiply, and MySpace were created. Even Facebook, which is so huge now, is like a child clone of these sites. This was the start that Ordinary People can create their own content.
• Most website used to be corporation owned, but with the start of Blog platforms such as Google Blogspot, WordPress and etc.., people would start to make their own “personal website” for what ever purposes they would like it. Then it happened that a lot of these individual bloggers start to write and post photos in their website. The blog platform has already provided them the infrastructure to built on top of. All you need to do is write the pages of the book, and hence you can have multiple books  ( websites ) even.
• Recently ( around 2018 ~ 2020 ), Most people may have a home computer or a laptop and most of all, a mobile phone. Desktop websites now co-exist with smartphone apps. A standard website these days should be desktop and mobile accessible. Many of the recent bloggers have now started from video creators, ( which is more interactive ) which uses the platforms of YouTube ( A web video hosting site ) and Facebook ( A social media site with video hosting ). Videos are very accessible since a lot people use mobile phones even more, at home, while traveling, or at some location.

3. The People / Team behind it

A website can be run a single person, a team of around 5 people or it may be a huge corporation. There are always people that will keep the website running, whether it may be a business, non-profit or hobby venture. Several roles are to be made when one is running a website, such as content creator, site developers, advertisers, and all other roles needed to maintain and keep the website up to date.

Then the choice would be on how the content and transactions are managed. Should you just rely on the third-party platform, if you are a single / small proprietor / author. Or you would create your own transactions, developers and infrastructure teams in this case for huge corporations, or add some third-party / outsource companies for additional personnel.

4. Expansion

To make the website relevant, it has to have more content for people to see. The content should also be up to date, but would also keep the archive information available. For some websites, it’s those members and users that add and create content in that website. Other sites has administrators that update the website contents. Also most websites are also interlinked with each other and makes it more an ecosystem of several websites.

5. Monetization

When people start using the website, it can earn profit by itself, or may be a tool for some business to enhance profit. But most of these days, one can earn profit directly or indirectly from a website, either as an individual, group or company. Here are ways on how a website can earn money

1. Direct revenue: Users pay or purchase using the website
2. Advertisements: Collect revenue from other business that want to post in your website
3. Indirect revenue: The website is used as readable page or tool for a “Brick and Mortar”  shop or some other separate business.
4. Others: Other company strategies that let them earn from the website members ( using this websites platform ) and users ( people who publicly access the website ).