Building your own website can be a daunting task for those who are new to the wonderful world of website design. While it is a potentially huge subject, it can be reduced to a fairly simple process, with certain key steps you need to consider.

It is important to do your research properly before you jump in, as the right advice can save you a great deal of time and money. I am writing this with the assumption that you are not in a position to pay a website designer to do everything for you, and that you would like to learn how to create and manage your own website.

The essential things you need to get your own site online are:

- A website building tool
- A domain name
- A web host

You are spoiled for choice in all these areas, which is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to narrowing down the field and making some decisions. You can create a sophisticated website with just a simple text editor, but to do so you need a full understanding of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). If you are looking for information on how to make a website, I assume you are not an HTML expert, so we need to consider the other options.

Finding a domain name is a relatively easy process. You must first find a free domain name and register it with a domain name registrar. There are hundreds of these companies out there and this is a quick and straightforward process. When choosing a domain name ending, try to find a .com, but if that is not available, good alternatives are .org or a geographical one such as .co.uk.

There are also some packages available which will include website design, hosting, domain name and search engine optimization tools all in one, which can be very attractive for anyone setting up their first website.

Such an approach saves having to deal with many different companies and source lots of different tools and software, which can be more cost effective in the long run.

That's it? Where's the rest?

Just kidding. A couple of things:

If you are using PC/OS then you have access to a website design tool called Kompozer. This helps you build the site itself, what goes where, adding graphics and text and links, etc. It will also help you "publish" the site - put YOUR files onto the Web Host's server. A kind of poor man's Dreamweaver.

Also, t35.com will host your site for free. I looked over several free hosts, tried a couple and t35 seems pretty good. Your site name will be something like: yourwebsitename.t35.com. There are little ads on there and you won't get all the bells and whistles, but it's free, so...

-RedBeard