Building a site might sound intimidating, but the truth is, it's easy. In a nutshell, here are simple steps you would need to do and some guidelines in creating your site.
Establish Your Domain Name
Securing your business name in the internet is one of the first step in establishing your presence in the internet world. Thousands of domain names are being registered everyday so you need to register yours as soon as you can.
Here are some guidelines that you may use in choosing a name:
- one that you like and will be proud to use and promote
- flexible so you can still use it when want to add or change your product line
- short, easy to say, easy to spell and of course easy to remember
Search the net and you'll find lots of domain name registrars. Or you can ask your friends and colleagues for their recommendations. Domain name registration prices vary from $7.85 a year to $35 a year.
Check out their terms of service and it they have customer support available. An important side note, make sure you're prompt in renewing your domain name every year. If your domain name expired access to your site will be lost and that will have a big impact on your online business. So don't want to get caught unaware, so you might want to use a domain registrar that provides an auto renew feature. You will find it handy and very useful when your renewal date comes.
Choose and Purchase Your Web Host
At this time, you can already start searching for a web hosting company that will host your website. You may still not be able to do the final purchase because some considerations can still be changed depending on how you would want your website designed and created and what features you would need.
Here are some criteria you would need in choosing your hosting service.
- Service Reliability
- Set-up and account activation
- Site access
- Backups and Monitoring
- Technical Support
You have several options for web hosting. I suggest getting a paid host rather than free hosting. Paid hosting will make your site look professional because your site will be free of banner ads or pop-ups. If you're working on a tight budget you can have your site hosted for free.
You will find out as you search the internet, that there are free webhosting services available for you. The only catch in using these free webhosting sites is that your website will have advertising pop-ups or banners. Some of the most popular free webhosting sites are
- geocities.com (owned by Yahoo.com), has a sitebuilder that you can use and you won't need a knowledge of HTML.
- 123freehost, gives you a free webpage (with a contact page), a place for your logo, and photo.
For paid hosting, here are some ideas on options that you can choose from. You can find hosting plans for as low as $4.95/month with free set-up. If you're just starting, this option might work for you. This price will already include lots of disk space, email/webmail, spam filter, email forward and site statistics.
Some web hosts will allow you to earn income while they are hosting your website. As a customer you'll also get the opportunity to get commission for every party you refer to them that orders their hosting service. As long as your referrals' accounts are open, your hosting company will pay you commission. If you're into affiliate marketing, then this might be an option for you.
Design and Create Your Website Your website is the window to your home business, so you would need a plan on how you want to showcase your business. You can get consultants to work on your site or you can build it on your own. While designing your site, you would need some guidelines with regards to planning and creation of your site.
Here are some pointers. I suggest you put every effort on planning your site as this will save you the time later:
- decide on your site's mission. your site should be able to answer why your website exist.
- decide what your target audience will be. what demographic group are you targeting and how will you provide value to that demographic
- you've probably heard this a lot of time- "content is king". it still is. with the above 2 questions answered, you will know what content you will provide in your site. you should have valuable and fresh information so your target audience will visit your site again and again.
Now that you have your site's mission, you're now ready to build your site.
You have several options:
- get customized professional services
- build the site yourself, or
- buy package website creation services.
You can find professional web design companies on the web that can provide you with web creation and design services. You can again, ask recommendations from your friends and associates on what service companies they use. You would usually get a reliable one.
You can also get quotations from freelance programmers and you can find them at service auction sites such as www.elance.com. Just make sure you do your due diligence to find out if they have the experience and good track record in providing the service that you need.
If you decide to build your website on your own, you would need to get familiar with HTML. You don't need to be an expert but you need to have the basic understanding of HTML tags. This will come in handy even if you use html generators such as MS Frontpage or Adobe GoLive. Search the web to find sites that offer free tutorials on HTML, you'll find lots of them.
One that has been around is www.webmonkey.com. They have good tutorials which are easy to follow. Your third option is to purchase website creation packages. This approach will help you to easily create your website and launch it immediately. These website creation packages usually come as an "all-in-one" web hosting package of tools that anyone, from beginner to expert, can use to develop, host and grow an income-generating website fast.
There are several website creation packages out there and you just need to choose one which has the best options available that will address your website building needs.
Launch Your Site
You have completed your website and you're satisfied with how your website showcases your home business.
Congratulations!! You're now ready to launch your website!
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Domain Name Registration
