How Do I Create My Own Website?

Creating your own website can
be useful for a number of
purposes. Whether it's to share
your expertise on a particular
topic, start an online business,
foster a community, or just
maintain an online journal of
your activities, having a website
will allow you to make your
content accessible from any
connected computer. It can also
theoretically allow you to have a
larger audience for your ideas
than you would ever have
otherwise. If you have useful
ideas or observations to share,
you may be able to share them
with as many as a few dozen
people throughout the day, if
you are lucky. With a website,
you can share them with
hundreds or even thousands.
Possibly the easiest way to
create your own website is to
use an online site creation tool.
These services often provide
intuitive interfaces for adding
text, images, links, and other
bits of content to a webpage.
Many of these tools have a
WYSIWYG web design platform,
which means "What You See is
What You Get" — what you
create in the design interface is
what your visitors will see.

If you want more options and
functionality on your website,
as well as your own dedicated
web address, you'll need to
create pages in HTML, register a
web domain, and get a hosting
server to upload your pages to.
Web domains can be registered
at any number of registrars —
Godaddy.com is a popular one.
Search for "hosting" or "cheap
hosting" to find many
thousands of available hosting
companies. As a general rule of
thumb, if you're paying more
than about $10 US dollars (USD)
per month for hosting for a
low-traffic website, you're
paying way too much. Many
companies offer space for even
less.

To create HTML, you can write it
from scratch in notepad, or use
a WYSIWYG software program.
HTML is not a programming
language per se, and as such is
much easier to use than true
programming languages. You
can learn basic HTML in less
than an hour and start using it
to create your very own web
pages.

After you create your pages,
they must be uploaded to your
server. You will receive a
username and password from
your host once you register
with them. You can use these in
an application called an FTP
program to connect your
computer with the server, then
send your completed pages
from computer to server. Once
uploaded, your website will be
visible on the World Wide Web
for all to enjoy. Within a few
days, pages with inbound links
will be indexed by major search
engines and begin to appear in
search results.