How to Make Your Own Website

Website creation isn’t necessarily easy, but it doesn’t have to be daunting, either. If you follow a few relatively simple steps, you can learn How To Make Your Own Website in no time.

You have two options when you make a website… free and hosted. You can make a free website (or web pages) using programs like the Wordpress platform, or by using free sites like squidoo and hubpages.

If you are looking to make your own free website using the Wordpress platform, feel free to check out our complimentary How To Make Your Own Website video series.

This article will cover the steps required to initially get your self-hosted website up and running.

First Up – Choosing A Domain Name

The first step in creating a website, in fact, the first thing to do before even thinking about making a website – is to choose a domain name and purchase it… What is available today, may not be available tomorrow!

Basically, a domain name refers to the name you want to give your website. Give some good consideration to the domain name you choose, as your domain is a great opportunity to include your target keyword or brand, which is going to be extremely beneficial for search engine optimisation and branding purposes.

In other words, it will be your web address, or what someone would type in to their web browser in order to get to your site. This isn’t as complicated as it seems. Where would you go to get to the homepage for McDonald’s? Likely, you’d head over to Mcdonalds.com. That’s their domain name.

To get a domain name, you’ll have to pay an annual fee to whoever owns the rights to the name – usually a registrar. Think of it as registering your business name when you open a “real world” business. Buying the name doesn’t get you the building, and buying the name doesn’t get you a website. It just ensures no one else can use your domain name.

Finding A Home For Your Website – Choosing A Web Host

Once you have your domain name registered, you’ll need a place to host your site. To keep up the comparison with a bricks-and-mortar business, choosing a web host is equivalent to finding an office space to rent.

Essentially, a web host is a company that has a collection of computers, all connected to the Internet. When your website is placed on their computer, it is available for viewing by everyone in the online world. Much like most other things in life, this usually doesn’t come for free, however. To have a web host include your site, you’ll need to sign up for an account with them. Website hosting can cost as little as $5-$10 per month.

The Fun Stuff – Designing Your Web Pages

Now that you’ve got your website’s domain name and place for it to call home, you need to actually start to build your website. You can hire a web designer for this or, if you want to save a few bucks until your business starts to take off, you can do it yourself.

Unless you already have specific website design knowledge and experience, you’ll probably be creating a basic site to start, but don’t worry. The main concern is to get something out there that lets web users know you exist. You can always tweak your website design later.

If you decide to go it alone, there a couple of ways to go about it:

• A WYSIWYG web editor (What You See Is What You Get) – These editors allow you to see how your finished site will look as you design it. You won’t need any knowledge with HTML codes to use a WYSIWYG. If you can use a word processor, you can use one of these. This is a great way to go for a beginner. A popular choice is Dreamweaver, although there are many others.

• An HTML web editor – For this, you’ll need to know some HTML codes and this option is therefore a better choice for a slightly more advance (or ambitious!) web designer.

Test Your Website On Different Browsers

As you go through your web design process, you’ll want to ensure that your website is working the way it should. This will need to be done several times throughout the process to ensure any changes you are making do not adversely affect the functionality of your site.

Ensure your site can be viewed and that it will function as it should, no matter how your visitors decide to view it. It is a good idea to test your new website in all of the major web browsers. Test your site using the most recent versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome, as well as a couple of older versions as well.

Although lesser used by the typical web user, you may also want to test your site with Safari and Opera as well. These browsers can be installed on your computer free of charge and with little effort, and the peace of mind of knowing you took this extra step will make the effort worthwhile.

Set Up A Payment Facility

Finally, if the purpose of setting up your website is to sell a product or a service, you’ll need to ensure your site includes a way to collect payment, usually by credit card. There are plenty of places that offer payment processing facilities, such as 2checkout. Be sure you do some research and check the prices and services offered by any of these facilities before you sign up.

If the steps above look too complicated or time consuming, and you are looking for the simplest way to make a website with all the bells and whistles, here is a product that we can highly recommend… the SiteBuildIt website builder.

So there you have it, in just a few steps, you have learned the basics of How To Make Your Own Website. If you are a complete beginner, take it slowly and go one step at a time, do a bit of research before you apply each step and you will be well on your way to creating a profitable presence on the web.

Get our complimentary video series and learn How To Make Your Own Website for free now.