How to Start a Website

Congratulations on your decision to start a website. Whether it will be a personal website, or a site for a new or existing business, building your website will prove to be a rewarding experience… if you can avoid a few common mistakes.

The first thing you need to do is set a reasonable budget for developing and maintaining your website… and stick to it, no matter what. The vast majority of websites can be developed for under $100, and hosted for less than $15/month, and this article will show you how.

Step 1: Register a domain and select a web hosting service.

It may seem a little backwards to register a domain name and open a web hosting account before you’ve even started building your website but it’s the best way to get started.

You need a domain name so your site can be accessed at www.yourname.com. You may make reference to your domain in the text on your website, add links to the email addresses you can be reached at, etc. Having a domain name in advance means not having to go back and change things later.

Registering a domain name is also one of the first steps you’ll take when opening a web hosting account.

You’re going to want to open your web hosting account before you get started on your site for a variety of reasons. While teaching you how to design a website is well above the level of tech support one can reasonably expect from a web hosting service, you are certain to have questions of a technical nature and your web host can certainly point you in the right direction on a number of issues.

Also, throughout the design phase you’re going to want to upload each page of your website as you create it so you can make sure all the links work, as well as any forms or other interactive components. It is impossible to test your website properly on your own computer as the machine your site will be hosted on is running a completely different operating system, you also don’t have any of the software installed on your PC that would be required to serve web pages, handle form submissions or run any sort of interactive components.

You can register a domain name for approximately $10 to $12 per year, and most web hosting services can handle the registration for you. The average price for a web hosting account is typically $15/month or less and there is sometimes a modest setup fee. Most web hosts don’t require any long-term contracts, and monthly fees are manageble so there’s little risk in taking this first step.

Step 2: Design your website

You have the option of hiring a professional developer, and that may be warranted if your needs include any custom programming. But, if that’s the case then expect to pay several thousand dollars for the services of a decent web development professional.

If all you need is a basic design that looks half decent, a few forms for people to submit email to you, or even a basic shopping cart then you can definitely do the job yourself… Even if you’ve never published a website before.

A professional web designer would rarely use it, but Microsoft’s Front Page is an absolutely wonderful tool for someone who’s just getting started. It’s also bundled with some versions of Microsoft Office so you may already have it installed on your computer. If so, then there’s no need to spend money on something else. There also isn’t much of a learning curve with Front Page. If you know how to use Microsoft Word, then learning Front Page will be a snap.

It’s basically the same user interface as MS Word, with a few additional menus and buttons that allow you to add various website specific components to your documents and upload them to your web hosting account. All you have to do to start designing, is launch the program, drag and drop your images into your document, and type… just like Word.

There’s also plenty of wizards built into Front Page to help you get started. There’s extensive documentation included with the software and built into the help menu, and plenty more available online so it’s difficult to not find answers to any questions you might have.

The only tough part is the design itself, and if you don’t consider yourself to be a great artist you may be tempted to hire a designer. Before you do that though, try searching Google for “website templates”. There are literally thousands of beautiful pre-designed templates that are available for any type of personal or business website… even with industry specific themes.

You can expect to find some very high quality templates that will be suitable to you for under $50 without having to look too hard. Once you’ve chosen a template, just load it into Front Page and add your text… that’s all there is to it, and with minimal effort you’ll have a result that is comparable to what a designer charging upwards of $100/hour would provide to you.

By using a template, you can also be up and running within a matter of hours rather than days or even weeks, which is how long a custom design would likely take.

Step 3: Processing payment

If your website is for personal use, you can probably skip this step. If, on the other hand the website will be for business purposes then you’ll most likely want to be able to accept payment for the product or service you’re offering for sale.

There are lots of choices out there for accepting payment on your website, but if you’re just getting started there’s only one option that makes sense… and it’s free.

Paypal has no setup fees, no on-going recurring monthly fees, and their per-transaction fee is extremely reasonable… less than what you’d pay with your own Internet merchant accounts in many cases.

There’s also no waiting period for transactions to be settled. Once the funds are in your Paypal account, they’re available for you to use to make purchases from other businesses that accept Paypal payments, or to make purchases through the available Mastercard ATM/Debit card that can be used wherever Mastercard is accepted, or to withdraw by ACH transfer to your bank account.

Integrating your website with Paypal is extremely simple, you just use their “Buy Now” button creator, and it will produce a few lines of code for you to copy and paste into your web page where you want the button to appear. If you need something a bit more sophisticated than a “Buy Now” button, then just about all major shopping cart programs have built-in support for Paypal so you can also run a fairly sophisticated online store with Paypal handling the transaction processing for you.

As far as shopping carts go, many web hosting services have several for their customers to choose from (and some are free). They can usually be installed with just a few clicks from within your account control panel. Just login, look for the Fantastico button (Fantastico is a component that is built into most web hosting account control panels, and its purpose is to provide 1-click installation of a wide variety of programs… including the most popular shopping carts). You will of couse have to integrate the cart with your website, and otherwise configure it to your liking but the process is generally straightforward and well documented.

Step 4: Test, test, and test again

Once your website is up and running, go through every page, click on every link, and press every button. If something doesn’t work… fix it, and repeat this process whenever you update your website… just in case a modification introduces a problem with functionality.

If it’s a personal site, you want it to be something you can be proud of. If it’s a business site, not only do you want to be proud of it… you want your prospective customers to be comfortable in dealing with you. Even worse than a site that isn’t aesthetically pleasing, is a site that just plain doesn’t work.

Broken links will break deals. Prospective buyers are always a bit leary of doing business online, and for good reason… fraud is rampant in the new information age. A site that appears to be poorly maintained is a giant red flag. Even something as simple as a broken link will drive business away.

In a physical brick and mortar store, broken windows, burned out lights, etc. get fixed. Treat your online store the same way and it will instill confidence in your prospective customers.

Step 5: Bringing traffic to your site

This is the most difficult and challenging part of starting any new website. This may come as a bit of a shock, but the only person who has been looking forward to the launch of your website… is you.

Nobody else knows your website exists when you first launch it, not even the search engines. It’s up to you to tell the world about your site, and provide people with a reason to visit.

Don’t be discouraged when after your first week you still see 1 visit (yours) in your website traffic statistics (included with most web hosting accounts, and available within your account control panel).

It takes time and effort to get the word out, but if you publish genuinely useful and interesting content on your site and update it regularly then you’re off to a good start.

Good luck with your new website, and if you have any questions then feel free to get in touch.