Most people think that building multiple page websites requires professional training and expertise. May would not know where to start and expect to be able to produce only very amateur looking pages. Not only that, but the software required costs hundreds of dollars. Far better to pay out for professional web designer to have a good looking site.

Well the truth is very different. Let's start with software, what software do you need?

First you will need some sort of software to transfer files to and from your web hosting service - FTP software.

Next is a web design tool.

Oh and probably a graphics package so you can design your own images, banners, logos etc. Well if you look at the leading products in these categories you will see how expensive they are. Plus, unless you have a university degree, you will never know how to use all of the functionality that they contain,. In other words you'll be paying, a lot, for lots of software you will never use.

Get the free stuff. Open Source is a great place to look for a whole range of free, yet functional software. For FTP software I recommend FileziIla. There are also several good web design packages available. As for graphics, the chances are you have already got an effective graphics package on your PC. I am talking about your Word Processor. I use Word, and using its features I can easily combine images, effects, colours and text to produce great looking banners, for advertising, and header images for my web pages. I don't need to do much more than that. All I have to do is copy my created graphic into a free graphics viewer and save it to the format I require, most often jpg or gif.

So what about building a website, What are the things you need to consider?

Well once you know the basics of website architecture, knowing your way around your web design software and linking everything together so the site is functional, it really isn't any more difficult than using a word processor. You may want to add further functionality, such as a contact me form, or to generate revenue like affiliate links or advertisements form other sites, but once you have been shown how its done you will be surprised how easy it is. If only there was somewhere you could go to be shown how to do all this...