When I first decided to discover the way to create your own website I had no clue on how to go about it. After floundering about for several years I lastly came up with these 8 steps that I use each and every time I design a site, whether for myself or even a client.

1. Brainstorm Concepts

I discovered that just a plain piece of paper, a pen (or pencil should you choose), and searching the internet by way of locations such as Google Hot Trends, Digg or StumbleUpon may be the very best method to gather concepts. When I initial tried this method I was fairly amazed at just how numerous concepts I came up with after a half hour of browsing.

Now should you currently know your website's purpose, then just move on for the next step.

two. Which Pages?

As soon as you know your website's objective, the next step would be to choose if it is objective warrants pages or not. In case your website is going to become for your company then you will certainly want a specific amount of pages to begin with. In case your site is actually a personal a single you might need to consider setting up a weblog as opposed to a web site.

All website's must consist of a house page, an about web page, as well as a sitemap.

Weblogs are various as they are more of a time line into your life and/or your thoughts. If you go the route of a weblog you might only want to include an about web page to inform folks a lot more about you.

3. Brainstorm & Produce Layout

A layout constitutes of how your content of your website going to become presented to your visitors. A great place to get concepts for layouts (also referred to as templates) is Open Source Design, or do a search in your favorite World wide web search engine for free templates or open source templates. There are litterly thousands of great websites that offer layouts for you to use. Just be sure to read the fine print before you use any template, as some template creators will allow you to use their template if you keep their copyright information intact.

4. Write Content for Pages

As soon as you realize which pages your web site will consist of, the following step would be to write the content for those pages. I find that doing 1 of two things works greatest for me; writing an outline and then writing the content, or just writing the content as it flows by way of me. Choose what works greatest for you.

Always remember to proofread your content, bad grammar and/or spelling can turn some visitors into "never to return visitors". This isn't so important if it is a personal site, though if it's a company web site this is extremely important. I would go far as to say it is mandatory to proofread your business website content.

5. Add Content to Website

Now that your website content is written it really is time to add it to your template. In the event you have never created a site or edited source code before, your very best bet would be to open the template you chose in Step three within a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. This will allow you to see where all your page elements (menu, graphics, etc) are located, and where you require to place your content.

When I first started out, I found the most effective WYSIWYG editor for learning to be Microsoft FrontPage as it came installed on my computer already. You might wish to check in your Programs folder/directory to see should you have this also.

6. Find Platform to Use

Now that you've got your personal website created you require a place to host it so all the world can visit. If you're using a weblog for the private website I would recommend you check into WordPress.com to host it. WordPress.com makes it verily easy to step up and maintain a weblog, you can litterly have your weblog up and running within 5 minutes with their service.

A company website will want much more than just a weblog platform host, you will need to find a web site hosting service that meets your needs. I highly recommend looking into LotsMoreHosting.com. I have used their services since 2003 and have always discovered their prices to be very reasonable, and their support exceptional.

7. Getting Those Pages on Your Hosting Account

Moving your website files/pages to your hosting account for the visitors to view your site isn't a huge chore as some people make it out to become. You have two options to uploading (moving) your files, either through the cPanel of your hosting account or by way of an FTP (file transfer protocol) program. Both of which offer tutorials to help you use them, and most FTP programs these days have wizards built in to walk you by way of the actions.

I recommend using FileZilla, not only will not not cost to use it, it is pretty straightforward to use and does offer a wizard and great tutorials to help you through understanding how you can use the program.

8. Validate Your Site!

This is one step that most non-professional web site creators don't do, though it is vitally important step. Validating your site will mean that your site will be able to be viewable by anyone using any web browser. Not all browsers are created equal, and until such time that the browser creators choose to join forces to come up with standards that all browsers will conform to, we're stuck with having to make sure that our websites conform to their personal browser standards.

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