Its alive!

Nothing beats the feeling of accomplishing something like your own webpage. Just like any work of art, website creation is a good avenue to express your creativity and aesthetic inclinations. It is also something very useful, it can be used both for business and leisure. Not to mention that the whole process of website creation is also enjoyable!

Website creation? Sounds hard.

What about me? All I know is how to check my email?

Dont fret! Website creation isnt heavy stuff. It isnt as hard s putting together your own Frankenstein monster (although it might come out just as ugly if youre not careful). Quite the contrary, it is very flexible and can be suited to your need and skill. So whether youre tech-savvy or a net-newbie, a professional online trader or a professional online bum, a good webpage made possible by good website creation can do a world of difference for you.

Ok, well professional online bums and PC potatoes probably already know the ABCs of website creation. They may very well have their own website up and running even before we knew what Google was. But for the benefit of those who are eager to plaster themselves all over the internet and see their website creation on page 1 of search engines, here are some useful steps to follow:

Select and register a web site domain name. But choose your web site name carefully. You dont want to have a domain name like www.cheeseland.com and have your site be about pets or trees. If possible/available choose a name that would best describe the content of your page.

You can register your domain name through a reputable ICANN-accredited domain name registrar such as the popular Register.com or Dotster.com.

If you are on a tight budget, or just planning to put up a leisure website, you can just use a free web site hosting service without registering a domain name. But your website creation has to put up with having these:

Your website creation will usually include some form of advertising, which distracts visitors from your site content and slows page loading.

There hosting service will append its name to your chosen URL, limiting your ability to promote the site and later move it to another hosting service.

Search engines are less inclined to list a web site which lacks its own registered domain name.

Design, code, and test your website creation. You gotta learn the grandmomma of all web programming language, HTML. Dont be scared, it quite simple enough to use.

A simple website creation may consist of a single web page, generally named "index.htm". A bare-bones web page might consist of the following HyperText Markup Language (HTML) code:

Hello!

Several excellent software tools, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe PhotoShop, and Allaire HomeSite, offer helpful web page layout, graphic design, and HTML code generation features.

There are also hosts that provide HTML-less website creation tools for those who cant really get HTML. Sites like Yahoo have their PageBuilder and such which pretty much are no-brainers to use.

Some fun things to add to your site to spice things up are:

Message boards or forums, where web site visitors can interact with you and with each other, are popular web site enhancements.

Polls, in which web site visitors vote on topics of your choice, can be helpful sources of feedback.

Guestbooks, where web site visitors enter their names, email addresses, comments, or whatever info you request, can provide you with valuable feedback and help develop a list of persons who are interested in your site.

Counters counts the number of hits or unique visitors to your web page.

Search Engines, from whence web site visitors can search your site are valuable visitor retention tools.

Now deploy that web site to your host!

Use a file transfer program (FTP) such as Ipswitch WS_FTP to upload and download your website creation and any updated pages between your computer and web site host computer.

Well, now that your website creation is out there, it would help if people knew it existed!

The most popular way to find information on the web is via search engines and their related directories. So inform them of your web site! You can economically submit your web site listing to over 200 search engines and directories via the SubmitWizard service.

However, search engines are inundated with listing requests, and you can achieve priority treatment by registering your site with search engines like Inktomi, Looksmart and Yahoo for a nominal fee.

Now youre set. Good luck in your journey in website creation!