Think of one good keyword or keyword phrase. If you are building a website about inline skates your keyword should be something like ' inline skates'. When choosing your keyword keep your competitors in mind. If you are building a website about computers you may want to think twice before picking the keyword 'computers'. If you have plenty of money for marketing your website then you may be able to be successful with a very competitive keyword but if you are an average person you may want to think of something a little less competitive like 'computer information'. A very valuable resource you should use (I use it just about every day for one thing or another) is the Keyword Selector Tool at inventory.overture. com. Type in your keyword in the very simple tool, this will show you how many searches were on yahoo in the last month on the keyword you typed in and on other keywords similar to it. I would suggest to pick a keyword that is RELEVANT to the theme of your site that has somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 searches a month. This is because of what I said before, competition. If you are started your first website you DO NOT need to waste your time competing with Dell or Microsoft. Once you choose your Keyword or Keyword phrase either write it down or memorize it, this will be a very important part of getting your website known.



Now that you have the idea for your website and the keyword, you need a domain (the actual website address, ie. http ://www. yoursite. com) Now you need to think of a domain name. When considering your domain name, try to think of one that has each word of your keyword or keyword phrase in it, for instance, if your keyword is computer information the idea domain would be http ://www. computerinformation. com. Of course most domains are allready taken so you will have to add something in, a suggestion would be http ://www. computer-information-now. com . Do not get too stuck on picking the right domain name, allthough it is better to have your keyword in your domain, it will not badly damage your marketing. You register domains through what is called a 'Website Host' Choosing a bad host can cause problems in the future. I have always used the same host called 1and1, so I honestly couldn't tell you all about every host out there. For this instruction I will use 1and1 for the examples as this is the Host I am familiar with. To find out which domains are available go to their homepage, on the right in the middle of the page there is a spot to check domain availability, you simply type in the domain you are interested in and it will tell you if it is available or not.

Now that you have chosen your domain name you will need to register it. On the previous step I explained how to find out if a domain is available or not. Go back to the host website, type in the domain you have chosen and just follow the simple steps. You will have to choose a hosting package, since you are probably brand new to all of this you may want to choose the basic package but if you know you are going to stick with this you will eventually want to purchase the business package.

Now you have come up with the idea for your site, chosen a good keyword, chosen a domain and registered it. Now how do you actually create the website? I think this is the step that scares most people away from the idea of making your own website, but it is actually very easy. You DO NOT have to know HTML ( Hypertext Markup Language ) - The code that actually makes a website work, to build a website, you DO NOT have to know anything about Website Design, all you have to know is what I have told you already and what I am about to tell you. If you do know how HTML works it is possible to make your website straight through your host but it will take you 10 times more time and effort. There is software out there that has been created for you to use that will create the HTML for you. I use a program called Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is said to be the number one website building software on the market. When I first purchased this software I had no idea how to use it. It took a few hours to learn how to use the basics and a few weeks to learn the more advanced stuff but anyone can learn how to use it just by messing around with it and seeing what things do. Purchasing this software will be the biggest investment you will make in the whole process of making a website but in the long run it is WELL worth the investment. If you get stuck you can always call them, afterall you did pay for the software, they should provide technical support right? They do!

Thats it, Enjoy your very own unique, operational Website.

Copyright 2006 Joshua Spaulding