Basics of Setting up Your Own Website

If you have your own home business, then there are plenty of good reasons to set up a website. In our technology-oriented world, a business website can be a great way to communicate information to customers, clients or potential customers. If you want to make your business more visible to a wider audience, a website can do that, or if you sell specific goods or services, a well-planned business website can increase your sales exponentially. Even if you simply want to be able to answer questions about your produce, or perhaps blog on a passion or hobby of yours, a website is a great way to reach lots of people all across the globe from your little corner of the world.

Design

Once you've made the decision to set up your website, you can either do it yourself, or hire a professional web designer. There are plenty of great services on the web for the do-it-yourselfer, such as www.GoDaddy.com which will teach you how to create your own website.

Before you do anything else, you will need to choose a domain name, then sign up with a company to host your website. The domain name should be as simple, obvious and short as possible, and you should definitely spend the extra money to get a .com address rather than a .biz or .info, as people tend to think they are of lesser quality.

Unless you have no choice, don't use numbers or dashes, and do your best to have a site name which matches the domain name. Typically, a domain name will cost you between $10 and $20 per year, but some web hosting companies will offer your domain name free when you sign up for web hosting with them.

Web Hosting

Web hosting is where your website or blog is actually located, on a computer in a real building somewhere, although it doesn't make any difference at all where you are located or where your web host is located. There are plenty of web hosting sites on the Internet, but make sure you do your research before you jump into one. FatCow is a good, inexpensive and simple web hosting site to navigate, especially for those new to the building a website, but there are others equally good. Websites can be created using a program such as WordPress or a web page editor, depending on your web hosting company.

Once you have your domain name, your web hosting company and a basic concept, it's time for the fun part of designing your website. There are lots of pre-designed templates out there that make building your website really simple, then all you will need to do is fill it with high-quality content. If you don't like writing, then hire a professional writer.

You can go on programs such as Elance.com and find a web content writer for a really reasonable cost, and it could save you lots of headaches in the long run. Import some photographs, start your own blog, the sky is really the limit, and your own creativity dictates how elaborate your website will be.