Build Your Own Website

 

Create Your Own Website? Many webmasters would prefer I didn't publish this information. They want to charge you money for what you can get for small investment! You may enjoy learning a new skill, so why not? I believe every business needs a website and for that matter most business people would be best served if they had a personal site as well. Your website is today's calling card and it defines who you are and what you do. The website may very expansive with hundreds of pages or a short resume page! Call us for more Information 503 808-0021

First Secure Your URL

urls

It is amazing, at no other time in history has a single person from any walk in life been able to reach out and touch so many people with so little effort or money. A simple website can be had for an investment of about $1 per day. Think of it, for less than a cup of coffee per day, you can broadcast your business to a gigantic world wide audienceWhat do you need to do to get started?There are a some foundation items you will need to purchase. The first is a domain name. Often this is called the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and is your global address for documents and other resources You will use on your website. The URL for this site is mfchase.com A website cannot exist without a web host. This is the company that houses your files and provides the server environment for you to create and save pages to the Internet.It is the second item you must purchase. Your investment for a domain name will vary but you can find them for as little as $1 per year or free for the first year reverting back to a standard of $30 to $60 at some period. Hosting fees will follow the same pattern but usually for about $100, you can host your site very well. Less than $160 so far and we are not even close to the $1 mentioned earlier.

Develop your Content

contentContent DevelopmentTypically you will start as a content site. A content site is a site that contains information for people to read or look at. This site is a good example as is Yahoo.com (a gigantic content site). You may need to learn some HTML so you can create and load pages to your host.On the other hand maybe you want an e-commerce site, where you display items you want to sell, take orders, process credit cards, etc. The e-commerce site is a bit more involved and you will need a merchant account and other commerce-related services. However some, like PayPal are very efficient, low cost and not that much trouble.

Necessary Software

software Web Building Software (Optional)If you're going to create a blog you don't need software. For a static, HTML site most web hosts provide website building tools so you do not need any additional software. It's important to find out about this before you sign up with any host. Dreamweaver is a popular web editing software program used to create and maintain sites but it will increase your investment. A mix of HTML and Style sheets was used to create this site but my host (1 & 1) offers a site builder which is quite good. If you don't use any software, then you will need to learn how to code HTML from scratch.

Marketing your website

marketing Marketing your Web The statement in the movie Field of Dreams "If you build it he will come." will not apply to your website. Marketing must be done. The amount of marketing and how you do it will depend on your objectives, I touch on many of the tools and how to use them (and other business stratigies) in my blog which is published monthly. Briefly, there are about 20 different marketing avenues on line that you can use. Most are very reasonable in price and others only cost you some time but market you must!

Now You Have It

block That is it! Purchase a domain name, purchase hosting, develop content and load it to your host and then market your webpage. Your investment, perhaps $200 or a little more if you buy software. Don't forget your time, it is a cost factor as well. That's website creation in a nutshell. To contact me with questions or assistance requests send a note