How do I get a web site?
Setting up your own website is a fairly simple process but with all of the jargon out there, it can make it seem more complex than it really is. One of the best things about the Internet is that anyone can set up a site and publish their own content to the entire world. The following are just a few steps that can guide you in setting up your own website.

Get a domain name
A domain name is your unique name on the internet for your website. For instance, yahoo.com is a pretty popular website. When you open up your web browser and type in the address bar, www.yahoo.com, you are taken directly to Yahoo’s website. Yahoo.com is Yahoo’s unique name on the Internet. It’s what tells the servers what website to serve to your browser when you click a link or navigate in your browser.

Build your site using HTML
Here’s some more of that jargon. HTML (short for Hyper Text Markup Language) is a simple programming language that tells a browser how to show your website’s content. For instance, in HTML, you can place text, images, and video. You write some simple commands using HTML to define this content and then when a browser loads your website, it turns that simple code into the exciting web pages you view in your browser every day. HTML is actually not hard to learn. There are some great free tutorials out there that can teach you the basics. One in particular that I like is from W3Schools (http://www.w3schools.com/html/).

Choose a web hosting provider
Your website will need to be available all the time day and night, 7 days a week. So you shouldn’t try and put it on your own computer at home. Instead, you need to use a web hosting provider. These companies maintain servers that are constantly monitored and maintained and always on. These servers are powerful computers that you can place your website onto and when someone types in your domain name into their browser address bar, the server will “serve” your website up to that browser automatically no matter what time of day or week it is. That way your site is always available and your visitors can find it anytime they want.

Get visitors to come to your site
Once you have your website up and running, you need to get visitors to it. If you are into social networks like Facebook or Twitter, a great way to start is to post a Tweet or Status Update to let all of your friends know about your new site. Email other websites that would be complimentary to yours and ask them if they would link to your site and you could also place links to their site in exchange. Go to search engines like Google and register your site so that you show up in search results when people search for content on your site. Finally, make sure your content is updated often and fresh so these new visitors have a reason to return.

Creating your own website can be a lot of fun and with the power of the Internet, it really is true when they say that “anyone can do it”. Even the simplest sites can be very popular across the entire world with just a little effort and a good idea.