Getting your own website up and running is simpler than you think, and is necessary in today’s online marketing environment in order to build a name for yourself. In the olden days, building a website required hiring a professional, with a degree in website design. But times are changing, and the market of website creation is shifting in favor of the typical online user, who is a user and not a maker of computer software. I will now explain the basic steps involved in building a website. Sketch a Roadmap Building your own website for the first time can feel a little like jumping off the deep end in a pool with no water. But with a little planning and organization, you will be able to stay in control, and design a fantastic website that gains a lot of attention. Decide early on what information you want to provide to usersMake a sketch of how you would like your website to appear, including your homepage and all sub-pages. Are you startinga personal blog, an online portfolio or a promotional website for your organization? the more time spent considering your website’s design, the more exciting and enjoyable the site production will be. Picking Your Domain Name A domain name is the siteaddress used in an online browser, to locate your website. Domain name are also called URLs, and are the words that come after http://. Picking your domain name will significantly impact the impression you make on your visitors, so choose wisely. You want your domain name to be simple and direct. Keep it short, and catchy. It is also recommended that you insert keywords in your domain name, or words that describe yourself or your niche. Deciding to change your website’s URL will confuse potential customers or visitors to your website, so it’s wise to invest time up front selecting a good name that will get your website the attention it deserves. Find a Hosting Provider Hosting services keep your website up and running on the internet, so that users can access them. A lot of corporations will have their own private servers to host company websites, but many also subscribe to hosting companies. There are literally tons of different web hosting providers on the web. Some provide different features than others to persuade customers to select them, but what matters most is the host’s reliability. It’s important to use a host that is protected by a firewall, and has servers that will not crashWhat’s most important is that the servers won’t crash, leaving your visitors with blank screens when attempting to locate a page on your site. Hosting uptime refers to the amount of time a host is accessible, and most hosting providers shoot for a 99.9% uptimeThere’s nothing more discouraging to a new website visitor than a web page that cannot be seen due to server issues. Most webhosting plans include at least one free domain name registration, and 30 day money back guarantees. Coding: What it Meant Then and Now Since the 1980’s, HTML has been the traditional language used for website formatting. However, over the past decade, more and more websites are turning to Flash. With Flash, webmasters can create more dynamic websites with high-performance visual effects and a greater variety of interesting design applications . However, learning Flash is more challenging than HTML, and modifications can be time consuming. A solution has recently been created to solve this problem, and new companies are releasing products that eliminate the need to code, in order to produce brilliant Flash websites. Wix.com actually produced a free website tool that allows users to build Flash websites that are search-engine friendlyWix produced a fantastically simple platform that lets users with no computer knowledge at all, to create a website using Flash. The company’s own web design was built with the software. The program lets users choose from a wide selection of free templates and build their own Flash websiteswithout entering in any coding at all. Wix’s hosting is free for unpaid user accounts, which are saved on the company’s own servers. Benchmarking Knowing your competition allows you to figure out exactly what you can offer that others are not, and it clues you in to what customers are interested in. Benchmarking is a very important element of creating a website, and is not only limited to your website’s early stages. Remain aware of what others are doing by continuing to benchmark as your website grows. Go to search engines such as Google or Yahoo!, and type in keywords that would be used to locate your website. Perform a few searches, with different combinations of keywords and phrases. You can also search for your competitor’s websites by name, and observe what sort of standards are being set for your niche. Study your competition, and think of ways to offer something better. Keyword Selection and Website Promotion Websites that show up toward the top of search engine results are usually the ones that receive the most visits. Using appropriately placed keywords in your site can increase the amount of visitors your website receives. Keywords are actually more often phrases than words, and they are what people search for on Google and other search enginesKeywords are words or groups of words that a user types into a search engine, to bring up relevant web pages. So how do you figure outselect good keywords for your website? Think of what words and phrases are related to your website, that people are likely to use in a search. There are a ton of services you can hire that will helpwith your keyword selection, but Google offers an excellent one for free with Google AdWords. Build Your Website for Your Target Market To create a website that will attract visitors, you must know who these visitors are. Think of your ideal business clientele, or visitor to your website, and imagine what they might expect to find when they visit you. Will your visitors expect conversational, formal or technical language? Also consider what actions you’d like your visitors to perform, once they’ve viewed your website. Do you want them to purchase products, leave contact information, or sign up for a service? Once you’ve figured out exactly who your target market is, your web design can be tweaked to match the expectations of that particular audience. Final Remarks about Web Design You are now a bit closer to becoming a website builder than you were before. Using these basic tips should help clear up the confusion about how to create a website. Remain focused, plan out your design before getting started, and build a website for your visitors that will launch the success of you and your business