Learn How To Start A Website

Do you know how to start a website? I'm sure you think you do. But there's a lot more to it than you may think. Don't worry. You can do it. And I can help.

I like to divide the task of building a website into phases. To me, there are two phases to starting a website:

1. Phase 1 - Researching
2. Phase 2 - Planning
3. Phase 3 - Registering
4. Phase 4 - Submitting

As with most things in life, the foundation of your website is the most important factor. You must do your research before starting your site. I can't stress this enough. You will meet great failure if you do not research your topic adequately.

If you're building a website based upon a business you already have, then this may not be that important. Some research is necessary, but not that much.

However, if you're building an information website, where you're depending on large amounts of traffic, then research is key.

Blink says: Most websites fail because of little or no planning. Don't be one of them.

With proper research you will learn:

• How well you really know your topic
• If other people are really interested in your topic
• If there's too much competition for your topic
• Potential problems (or opportunities) that may be associated with this topic
• If it's possible to make money from this topic

You can take this to the bank: there's nothing more important about learning how to start a website than doing proper research.

Once you're settled on your topic, and you know you can make it work, it's time to plan your website. Not only must you learn how to start a website, you must also learn how to plan a website.

To me, planning a website is very exciting. I love sitting down, pen and pad in hand, and thinking of how I want my website to look, feel, behave, and interact.

If only I could do the same with my kids.

Anyway, planning your website will help you avoid all sorts of problems. Such as:

• Poor hosting services
• Poor site design
• Inability to expand as needed
• Confusing navigation
• Bad color scheme
• Losing your direction

Proper planning will help you avoid all of these problems. And if you still run into some of them, good planning will give you the flexibility to adjust.

This is perhaps the easiest part of learning how to start a website. It's just two simple steps:

1. Choose a domain host (I recommend Hostgator or Sitesell)
2. Register your domain

That's it. You're done. Now wasn't registering a website pretty easy?

Do you wanna know why this part was so easy? Because you did all the proper research and planning in phases One and Two.

• You know which hosting service fits your needs.
• You read their customer reviews.
• You checked to see what services and freebies they offer.

What's that? You haven't done that yet? Don't worry. You can get a lot of information on several web-hosting companies right here on this website. I review both free and paid webhosts.

Ah. The final phase. You know almost all you need to know about how to start a website.

This is what you've done so far:

• You've done your research.
• You've planned your website.
• You've registered your domain with a good hosting company.

It's now time to submit your domain to the major search engines. This is after all, the best way to get found.

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of search engines out there. A lot of companies will offer to submit your site to all of them for a fee.

Don't waste your time or money. Just submit your site to the major search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask. It only takes a few minutes and you can do it yourself for free.

These guys account for 99% of all traffic anyway. Your site will filter to the smaller search engines in time.

It's time to get to the real fun part: designing and building your site.

Well, it's fun if you're a web designer like me. I love building and designing websites. But maybe it's not your thing.

As you can see, there's quite a bit of work involved with just starting the website. There's so much more involved with actually creating it.

I love teaching people how to build websites because I love building them also. If you're not interested in building your website, then contact me. I'll do it for you, and I'll do it at a reasonable price.

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