Workspace Setup Project

To make my portfolio website, I need to complete some specific steps. I'm using this webpage to document those steps.

Register a domain

To get started, I needed to register a domain. A domain is a unique address for a website, similar to a phone number where people can reach me. I chose the domain of designsbymg.com for my website.

Secure Hosting Space

I also need space to host my site, similar to needing the land to build a house. Or similar to choosing a cell phone carrier to provide your telophone number.

I chose Bluehost because they offered one free domain for the first year and was recommended by WordPress. Right now, if you visit my site, you will onky see a placeholder page but can still tell by the favicon of a bluegrid of nine squares.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Now I just need to get my files from my computer to my hosting space. I can do this by setting up an FTP account on my hosting space.

I used the cpanel of my hosting space to set up an FTP account, and then I used that login information to access my hosting space using Filezilla.

Set up a Local Developement Environment

I'm using php to eliminate redundant code in my site, and I'm getting tired of having to transfer my files to my host every time I make a change and want to see that it's working.

Name files and folders for SEO

If i want to rank for searches related to working with a designer, I need to use the keywords that people use on search engines as much as possible, but in an organic way (no spam). There are a couple of chances for me to do this specifically for search engine crawlers without impacting the human user experience: file and folder names. If I name my file and folder names keywords seperated by hyphens, I can talk directly to the search engine crawlers to tell them what I know and what my site is about.

Make a template to use for new pages and use PHP to eliminate redundant code.

Most pages will need to have the same code for everything outside of the main content area. I made a template with all of that code to use to make the rest of my pages. The only problem is once i save the template over and over again, If I need to make a change to that code, I'd have to change it on every page.To avoid that, I used PHP to place all of the redundant code into a single place that I can reference on every page. That way I can change the shared code once and have it updated on all pages. My template is built using PHP now, with variables to customize the descriptive content for each page.

My site doesn't load on the hoasting space

My site is new and doesn't have a lot of content, which is a red flag for the security with my hosting company as well as the wifi at CPCC which is blocking me from opening the site. I need to create an index page for my site. The index pages needs to provide links to the things I want to share.

I also reviewed my site's classification. It was categorized as low risk, however it was catagorized as an alcohol and tobacco site, therefore I requested a change.

Setup Associated Domain Email

I have created an email account using my domain. This way when I communicate with clients or other business professionals, my email adress also is professional and doesn't look like a scam. To make it more convient to check my domain email, I have setup up my domain email adress to be able to send and recieve emails through my personal gmail account.