5 Tips On How To Make Your Own Website

Have you ever wondered how to make your own website? Me too. For years I struggled with the concept of designing and building even the most basic of websites, spending countless hours trawling the net in search of tips on how speed up the process. Finally I came up with a simple plan based on the knowledge and experience I gained on my journey. Hopefully, this will serve as a template for you if you want to make your own website.

1. Decide on your topic.

It might be that you want to build a website about your favourite hobby or pastime. If this is the case, you will already have enough knowledge to use as a basis for your website. Grab a pen and paper and start jotting down what you think others would like to see on your website. Don't be swayed by your own personal views on the topic, try to cater for the broader audience. The more variety you have, the more appeal your site will have.

However, if your intentions are to build a website about another topic, perhaps for financial gain, then it is vital that you take full advantage of the Internet and fully research your chosen topic. This would involve spending a couple of hours thoroughly searching for points of interest, using forums, article websites, Google and newsgroups.

2. Choose a platform.

There are literally 100's of options for you to choose from when deciding on what kind of website you would like to use. There are many free options available, Blogger, Geocities, Wordpress, Squidoo, to name just a few, but if you would like to build a website with a solid foundation you need to look at creating a stand alone website. To do this, you either need to build your own site using a program such as Frontpage, or purchase a template that allows you to simply add your own content. If your intentions are to create a website to profit from, it would be wise to build a stand-alone website. That way you will appear to be an authority in your chosen topic, compared with the unprofessional appearance of the free options.

3. Create your content.

If your intended website is on a topic you have a good understanding of, creating your content will be easy. Refer back to the notes you made in step one of my plan and start creating articles based around the points of interest for your audience. You don't have to be Shakespeare to create good content, just make it informative. To create a website to profit from, writing content presents a greater challenge. Once again, making sure you have your facts right is essential. Alternatively, you can always to advantage of article websites like Ezine Articles and use content created by others.

4. Domain names, hosting and FTP.

Choosing a suitable domain name is something you should spend some time considering. If your hobby is about table tennis, make sure you include those words in your domain. It adds to the overall professionalism of your website if you do so. If you website is about a number of money making products, a more general domain name would be better...topreviews.com, aceproducts.com, totallybrilliantproducts.com, for example.

When considering hosting, you must understand that you will usually pay a monthly fee. This can range from as little as $5 per month for a basic site, up to $40 for a large site. Do a search on Google and research your options thoroughly prior to signing up.

FTP (file transfer protocol) is the term used to describe the process up uploading your website files to your hosting account. Although many free options exist, they often require a good understanding of the process. Paid for FTP programs generally offer much more user-friendly function, and can save a lot of time and hassle. Do a search for ftp and study all the information you can find, as FTP can be very complicated.

5. Promote your website.

There's very little point in creating your pride and joy website, only to find that no one's visiting it! Until you tell the world that it exists, no one will know it is there. Simple traffic generation ideas include including a link to your site from forum signatures, writing articles and answering questions related to your topic at Yahoo answers. If your intentions are to earn from your website, generating traffic is vital, if you are to be successful.

Marcus Cox is an avid website builder who creates websites across a number topics. His favourite website building program is Site Rubix - the only program that will allow you to create a website in 10 minutes. To find out more about Site Rubix, head over and read his full Site Rubix Review and see for yourself a website that took 7 minutes to create.

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