Build a website-Elastic Compute Service(ECS)-阿里云帮助中心

You may use your company's website and an internal Office Automation (OA) system at work. In your spare time, you may also browse forums, read blogs, or shop online. This topic describes how to build your own website service.

Website building methods

You can build a website yourself on an ECS instance or use a website building service from Alibaba Cloud. Select a method based on your business needs.

Building a website	Advantages	Target users and scenarios
Website Builder	You control the entire process, from purchasing a server to building and maintaining the website. This method provides high flexibility, control, and scalability.	Individual or enterprise users who have extensive website building experience and want to design their own site.
Template-based	Ready to use out of the box. Provides thousands of website templates and a visual management console for a fast and easy setup.	Individual or small business users with some software experience. This method supports web and mobile sites, interactive forms, and member payment scenarios.
Custom-built	Professional designers handle the website design and construction.	Enterprise users who require a high-quality or custom website and want to save time and labor costs.

Procedure

Prepare a server.

Different types of websites require different ECS configurations. Determine the scale of your website and the expected number of visitors. For small websites, a basic configuration is usually sufficient. For more information, see Create an instance using the wizard.
- To learn about instance families and how to select an instance type, see Instance families and Instance type selection guide.
- You can upgrade or downgrade the instance as your business needs change. For more information, see Limits and checks for instance type changes.
Add security group rules.

Ports 22 and 3389, which are required for remote connections, are enabled by default when you create a security group. To allow access to your website, you must also enable ports 80 and 443. Confirm that these ports are open for inbound traffic in your security group. If they are not open, add rules to open them. For more information, see Add a security group rule.
Deploy the website.

This node contains documents with deployment solutions for many popular websites. You can use these solutions to design, develop, and deploy various types of websites to meet your requirements.
Purchase a domain name.
1. You can register a domain name.
  
  Enter the domain name that you want to register. If the domain name is available, you can proceed with the registration. For more information, see Basic process of domain name registration.
  
  Common domain name suffixes include .com and .cn. For more information, see Domain name differences.
2. Complete identity verification. For more information, see Overview of domain name identity verification.
Apply for an ICP filing for the domain name.

Important
You must apply for an ICP filing if the server that hosts your website is in a region in the Chinese mainland. Otherwise, skip this step.
1. Prepare for the ICP filing.
  
  ICP filing requirements vary by province. Prepare the required documents in accordance with the ICP filing rules of communications administrations in different regions. For more information, see Preparations for an ICP filing.
2. Apply for the ICP filing.
  - If you have not previously obtained an ICP filing from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), apply for an ICP filing for the first time. For more information, see ICP filing process.
  - For other ICP filing scenarios, see ICP filing process.
Resolve the domain name. After you set up domain name resolution, external users can access your website using the domain name.

To point the domain name to an IP address, add an A record. For more information, see Add a DNS record.
(Optional) Enable HTTPS encrypted access.

Certificate Management Service helps you switch your service from HTTP to HTTPS at a minimal cost. This change enables identity verification and data encryption for your website or mobile application. For more information, see What is Certificate Management Service? If you have already purchased and downloaded an SSL certificate, the deployment method varies depending on the server environment. For more information, see Deploy an SSL certificate.

The website setup is complete. To test the service, visit your domain name in a browser.

References

For information about how to select Alibaba Cloud products and configurations based on your business needs, see Architecture Design & Cloud Migration Consulting Service.
To migrate workloads from environments such as on-premises and colocation data centers to Alibaba Cloud and obtain professional cloud migration implementation services, see Cloud Migration Solution Implementation Service and .
For professional assistance with the basic setup of your systems, databases, and sites on ECS, see Cloud Resource Management Basic Setup Service.