This could easily require a book to answer. Fortunately there are some good ones you can get out from your library.
That said, there are a few key questions to answer.
First, what’s your goal for the site? Do you want to support a hobby that you enjoy? Make money? Something else? The site’s purpose will make a big difference in how you should create it.
Second, what specifically do you want the site to do? Just how technologically advanced do you want (or need) it to be? The more complex it is, the more you’ll need to educate yourself – unless you want to hire a web designer. Which, by the way, isn’t hard to do. Just make sure you take a good look at some sites they’ve already created. If you just want a site with basic features, pick up a book like HTML for Dummies. I did it, and taught myself HTML pretty quickly. It’s really not hard to learn, and it has been very useful over the years.
Third, how much money do you want to spend? This will obviously make a big difference in the kind of site that you can have.
I don’t want to go on for too much longer, so let me give you a few points of advice:
Tip: Never pay to have your site promoted. If you have to do that, your site isn’t WORTH promoting. Include links on your site to other good sites about the same (or related) topics, and ask the webmasters of those sites to consider reciprocating. Include your site URL in your signature, particularly when you post to forums or discussion boards on the topic that you cover in your site. Best of all, make your site a place that people will appreciate, enjoy, and tell their friends about. Do that by creating original and interesting content and updating your site frequently.
Tip: If your site is very casual, there are sites that offer free websites. Personally I don’t take those very seriously, and I don’t know of any that succeeded to any real extent. It’s worth spending $10 or less for your own domain, and $90—$180 annually for hosting, if you’re serious about your site.
My main site costs me about $120 a year, all told, but it’s more than worth it to me.
Tip: As a site publisher, one of my biggest problems is web hosts. Many of them are bad. Some that are great end up turning bad. And when a host goes bad, life can really suck. Check out any host that you’re considering on a site like webhostingtalk.com, and also look for ”(host name) sucks” on Google – that will usually give you a start on finding out if the host is decent. But the sad truth is that even a great host can turn into an awful one overnight.
My second webhost had a great rep when I signed up with them. Then the owner died, and his wife ran the company into the ground.
My third webhost had an even better rep when I switched to them. Then the owner sold the business less than three months later, and the new owner turned the company into a sick, sick joke. He even tried to hold my site and domain name hostage!
Tip: always have a current backup of your entire site (or better still, TWO backups) secure and away from your host.
Tip: never let your domain name registration lapse. I strongly suggest registering it with a different company from your site host. Because if your host goes bad, they may try to steal your domain. I also recommend registering your domain for several years; you definitely don’t want to take a chance on the registration expiring!
Tip: The more people you can get interested in helping you with your site, the better (as long as you NEVER give up the master passwords or control, of course). Find ways to involve visitors to your site. Better still, get people to contribute their own material. I did this for one of my sites by using a guestbook utility, not as a guest book but as a place for people to post their own ideas for the hobby that the site was about. It worked really well.
Tip: You can create your own images if you want. Scanners are cheap. I just picked up a good combination scanner/printer/copier for $55, and it works wonderfully – I’m putting up a ton of scanned new material on my primary website.
But it’s not an absolute necessity by any means. You can find millions of images online. Many of them are copyrighted, of course; you have to decide for yourself if that bothers you (although it is certainly a violation of copyright if you steal them, and you could theoretically get in trouble). If you can create art, or know a decent artist who is willing to do that for free or not too much money, more power to you! Otherwise, you can probably find copyright-free art on Google’s Image search.
Or you can just be a pirate, of course. One thing, however: I advise against stealing bandwidth, i.e. inserting images in your website which are actually being hosted on other websites. I’ve had that done to me, and it annoys me. I can live with people stealing my images (I guess), but making me pay to host their stolen copies is just not acceptable.
Whew! It’s late. I’m going to leave it at that. Good luck!
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