Like Shafi Mian once said: ?Ask first not How you can do a job. Ask first What you want to do and Why." And that's the theme of this article.



Now I present to you my logical and simple step-by-step approach for developing a website.

1.Basic Web Terminology ? At a minimum, learn and get familiarized with some basic web terminology. For example: website, IP address, web server, PHP, JavaScript, HTML. If no more, then learn at least their definition and the concept behind each.

2.Choosing Subject ? There are basically two reasons for selecting a subject. Firstly, you want to satisfy the wants and needs of the market and secondly, your personal interests and know how. Whatever it is, do research and lots of it. Write notes, prioritize the topics.

3.Choosing Name ? Once you establish what you want to do, either, you want to share the information you have with the world or you want to sell some thing, the name for your website would more often come naturally. The name would basically represent your information or business.

4.Design & Content - Even if you have not selected name for your website yet, start working on sketching it out. Start writing your contents. Of course, all this can be done offline. Promoting a poorly built site is much like trying to dig half a hole. You must succeed in creating a good, clean web page design and interesting and original content. I will present details in another article.

5.Make Your Website SE Friendly ? There are Do's and Don'ts regarding this. See what you can do from the very beginning to start putting in keywords on all pages to make it search engine friendly. I will present details in another article.

6.Avoid Obvious Mistakes - Certain obvious mistakes can be avoided. Make your website as simple as you possibly can.

7.Manage Website - After you feel comfortable with your website and you have done all the above steps - subject, name, design & content, steps for SE friendly and avoided some obvious mistakes - now is the time to go ahead and select a web host and register your website.

8.Validate your HTML code ? There are free utilities available online that you can use. It ensures that your site works on all browsers and platforms.

9.Free Website Speed Test ? It would improve your website performance. It will help you find out if slow pages are hurting your business. It will test page size, composition, download speed and point out some of the things that need to be done to increase your on-line competitiveness.

10.Website Done ? When you think the website is ready, get someone to critique it - family, friends, and colleagues - especially a person who does not know much about your topic. See if they can understand it easily.

11.Discussion Forums ? Join free discussion forums as many as you can. Present your website for a review. You would be surprised how helpful your visitors are.

12.Word of Caution - Please! please! do not sign up for a web host right away. You must do your home work first - and decide what you want from a website and why. The Hows should not be that hard to follow. For the Hows, there are so many website builders and web hosts, go ahead and just choose one. These days, it's a no brainer. I would stay away from the free web hosting though.