How to Create a Professional, Yet Affordable, Website

Interested in creating a website, but don't know how? Learn about the steps required to get your website up and running.

Things You'll Need

• Credit Card
• Internet Connection

Instructions

1. Determine what your website is going to be about. Are you looking to sell products online or just provide information about your computer? Will you have a lot of information on your website or just the minimum? Is it a fun or business website?

2. Determine whether or not you want to register your own domain or not. There are many services that offer free websites like Yahoo!, but offers like this sometimes don't allow you to have your own domain.

   What is a domain you ask? A domain is your own ".com" or ".net" or whatever. For example, a domain could be "abccompany.com". If you want to register a domain, I would recommend GoDaddy to register your domain. They're quite affordable at about $9/year. [See link below]

3. Determine what type of hosting you will require. Again, there are many free services that offer free websites like Yahoo!, but offers like this post advertisements all over your website. While using a free service costs you nothing, users can be bombarded with advertisements, amongst other things, and may lose interest in your website.

   The alternate is to purchase hosting from a hosting company. Hosting is basically storage on the Internet for all of your website files to be stored, or hosted. There are many affordable options out there. I would recommend a company like bridgeCOMP Solutions for cheap hosting. [See link below]

4. Now that you have come to a decision on registering a domain and getting hosting, you now need to build your website. If you use free services, like Yahoo!, you can look for something called a "PageBuilder", "Website Builder" or something to that effect on the website. You can launch their builder and begin building your website.

   If you purchased hosting, everything is in your hands. You can purchase relatively cheap templates from companies like Template Monster [See link below] or you can invest into software such as Adobe Web Suite CS3 and begin building your website by hand. I would recommend that novice users use Template Monster. You can purchase the enter template and just make minor modifications to suit your company.

Tips & Warnings

• When registering a domain, you can save money by registering your domain for a longer length of time. (ex: 5 years compared to 1 year)

• When registering a domain at GoDaddy, you can Google Search "GoDaddy Coupon Codes" and find published coupon codes that you can use at checkout to save more money.

• When purchasing hosting, you can save money by registering for a longer length of time as well.

• Be aware of SEO [Search Engine Optimization] companies. If anyone guarantees 1st page placement, DO NOT purchase services from them. It is impossible to be guaranteed on the 1st page of search engines unless you purchase advertising packages from the search engine companies.

• When registering a domain at GoDaddy, you may see the option to register other available domains in conjunction to the one you're registering. This is not necessary but if you don't pay attention, you can register multiple domains and pay more money than you have to.

Resources

• GoDaddy Domain Registration
• bridgeCOMP Solutions Website Hosting
• Template Monster