I have always been impressed with those who could build there own website using only html. That was all there was available until the advent to wysiwyg editors. If you ever talk to one of those guys or gals they will probably tell you that they prefer to set up a website that way. Like I said I'm impressed,but I cannot do that. Then along came the wysiwyg editors that enables us less gifted to build a web site. I can testify that the average guy or gal can build a website using say Front Page as I have built a couple sites. I have not used Xsite Pro. I understand that Xsite Pro makes creating a web page easy to do.



With all the web site designers around why would you even want to create your own site? You may have other reasons ,but, I'll share mine here.

1. I'll have the knowledge of what to fix or change if that is needed.

2. When I am creating something such as creating my own website it gives me time to consider what I want to accomplish and how I am going to do that. I felt at times that I could not tell a designer what I wanted in a web presence as I was not sure myself. When out sourcing I would need to be specific about what I wanted.

3. If you are just starting out and money is tight you can delay the cost of website creation for awhile. I say for awhile because once you get up and running you may decide to outsource that part of your business and concentrate on marketing your business. Time spent marketing is time well spent.

Blogging has been popular for a few years now. With that popularity there has been development of existing blog platforms and several new blogging platforms are now available. Word Press has been popular as a blogging platform for several years. In fact most bloggers rate Word Press an number 1.

Word Press is free. That will help make it popular. It is a very functional blogging platform with hundreds of plugins and tools. The plugins add to the functionality of the blog. I am not going to comment on the various plugins as I would need to comment on over a hundred.

Word press also has free hosting, making your web presence totally free. This free hosting should work fine for personal blogs. Affiliate marketers will want to host the blog on personal server or a commercial server. Word Press has restrictions as to what can be placed on a blog hosted by Word Press. There are literally hundreds of hosting companies around. If finding a hosting company is new to you, visit an affiliate marketing forum and ask for a recommendation. The two forums I go to for this kind of information are warrior Forum and Associated Programs although there many great forums available.

Installing Word Press on your own hosting account has been a little troublesome in the past. Fantastico was the program of choice and did a good job most of the time. Then came Fantastico Deluxe which did an even better job. Your web host has these tools.

Word Press has a history of continually improving their blog platform. That means a new version is issued often. Upgrading an existing blog to the latest version in the past has been difficult. I have not upgraded some Word Press blogs for that reason. The problem with that is the latter plugins may not work on an older version.

Installing a Word Press blog on you own web hosting server has become simpler. Find out if your web host has a program called Simple Scripts. I understand that simple scripts can also be used to upgrade your blog. I have not tried to upgrade using simple scripts yet. I had such a hassle using Fantastico to upgrade a blog I am not rushing into it.

Word Press has several themes available that are simple to install. Themes address the appearance and functionality of your blog. Themes control the color of the blog, whether you have 2 or 3 columns on a page and possibly a graphic header. Using the latest Word Press version and an embellishing theme your blog can look like a web page. I have visited some Word Press blogs on line and did not know it was a Word Press blog. You can tell mine is a blog, but, then it is still a work in progress.