Last Updated 6/26/2006

Do you have a product to sell or information that you'd like the world to know about? Do you want to create a website but don't know where to start? If so, this article is for you.

You can create your own website with little technical expertise. The steps below outline my tried and tested approach.

Unfortunately, it's really tough to create a website without using any HTML (the web's primary programming language). Here's an HTML tutorial. Use it as a reference, not a novel.

1. Use a free content management tool. These tools make it a lot easier and quicker to update your site and allow you work on your website anywhere you have internet access. A nice user interface replaces the need for most HTML coding. Wordpress is a very popular content management tool.
Link: WordPress.org

2. Select a hosting provider that works with the content management tool that you select in step 1. In my case, I use iPower.com. They have WordPress installed on their servers. You need to do some configuration to get it to work on your end (in the iPower control panel, go to Applications --> Bulletin Boards --> Wordpress). You can begin with their Starter Plan. If you sign up for 1 or 2 years, it will cost $3.95/month. At iPower.com, they will refund the balance to you if you cancel within the 2 years. Therefore, I recommend going for the longer commitment.
Link: iPower.com - WordPress hosting

3. Pick out a design template. Their are millions of designs out there with different layouts and color schemes. Don't worry about how many times it was downloaded by others nor the unique price. There are things that you can do to make the website look like your own and the chance that someone will come across two sites with the same design are slim. If you decide to use WordPress, you must grab a WordPress template. The cost of a template is approximately $50.
Link: TemplateMonster.com

4. Download a free FTP program. This is needed for a few files that cannot be changed through a content management tool (like WordPress). You will need to work on some files on your local computer and then upload them to your hosting account via the FTP program.
Link: CoreFTP

5. Replace photos in the design template with your own. If you have your own digital photos, you can use those. If not, you can find photos at a stock photography website. I recommend iStockphoto.com. It costs $1/photo and they have decent options! Keep in mind that you will need to make the photos the same size as those that you are replacing. This can be done by cropping and resizing the photos in the photo editing program of your choice. You shoud also optimize the photos so that the file size is as small as possible (to increase download speed) without reducing quality. Quick pointer: images with lots of colors should be saved as .jpg and images with few colors should be saved as .gif.
Link: iStockPhoto.com
Link: Oriens Enhancer-
Inexpensive Photo Editing Tool - 30 day free trial, after that $14.99

6. Write content for your site. Use the below keyword selector tool to find out popular keywords searched for your subject matter. Use those keywords in your content so that the search engines (ie. Google) can find you.
Link: Overture keyword selector tool

7. When your website is no longer under construction, submit it to the major search engines. Use SelfPromotion.com to automate submissions to most search engines.

8. It takes a while to rank high in the search engines. In the meantime, consider running a google ad to promote your site. Create a keyword targeted sponsored search for popular keywords for your subject matter (utilizing the keyword selector tool above).
Link: Google adwords

Additional Resources:
Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML at Amazon.com
WordPress 2 : Visual QuickStart Guide at Amazon.com
Giving WordPress Its Own Directory