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How Can I Make a Website?

posted ‎‎Jul 4, 2009 11:48 AM‎‎ by Unknown user   [ updated ‎‎Oct 1, 2009 7:32 PM‎‎ by Joseph Schwenker ]
    A lot of the people in the world have websites.  The internet is becoming more packed every day!  If you want to make a website, you have to be ready to work a lot!  The first task is to decide what your website is going to be about.  Just think about that.  I decided that Geek Reviews would be dedicated to technology.  Once you know what your website will be about, you need to think of who you will target your site toward.  Will your site be for people of all ages?  Or maybe just teenagers?  It's all up to you!  Once you have the basic planning done, you will need to think up a name for your site.  Try to think of something creative, as almost all website names are taken nowadays.  Think of a service like Tonido.  Tonido's website is tonido.com.  They got the exact name of their product.  Why?  Because their product's name was creative!  Remember, your website name doesn't have to reflect what your website is about.  Take Fibblesnork, a site about old LEGO models, for example.  They chose a creative name that didn't reflect what their site was about at all.  Also, the site's address was easy to remember.  So, when choosing a name, choose a creative name that is easy to remember. 
    So, you have picked a name for your site and have everyting ready.  What's next?  You need to find a website hosting service, a service that will make your website available to the public.  There are a number of these services out there.  However, if you want a clean interface on your site without ads, you will usually have to pay a hosting company.  For beginners, however, I recommend a free service.  Whenever I tell people about this website, they instantly think that it is geekreviews.com.  Unfortunately, you cannot get an independant domain without paying.  So, when I tell people the site's URL, they never can possibly remember it.  "OK, my site's address is sites.google.com/site/geekreviewsarticles".  "Oh, that's hard to remember!" 
    If you can stand advertisements on your website, you can try a service like Freewebs (webs.com).  However, if you cannot stand advertisements at all, you are forced to go with Google Sites if you want something free.  You will need a Google Account to use Google Sites, so if you do not already have one, get one.  Google Sites can be found at sites.google.com.  
    So, once you have choosen a domain name for your site, if you decide to buy one, (do not be afraid to use .net, .org, or other non-.com domains!) you can start creating your site.  Usually, your website will come with a site editor, so don't fret!  Once you have your site built, you can start promoting it.  I like to hand out slips of paper that say something funny and say the site address on them.  If you use Google Sites, this is a must, as people will never be able to remember your site's address.  If your site's address just does happen to be very long, you can use a service called Tinyurl (tinyurl.com) to compact your website's address.  Just enter your site's address, then choose the compacted address, and Tinyurl will compact it. 
    I hope that this has answered your question, and good luck with your website!