Have you been wondering how to start a website? You are not alone! In fact latest figures (Sept 2007) indicate that if you start a website today it will be joining another 135,166,473 active sites already on the 'Net (Source: Netcraft, September '07)
Phenomenal is hardly the word for the Internet which has continued to see meteoric growth in the number of websites being publish to the Internet every month. Many reliable and informed sources of management knowledge confirm that business of ANY size that fail to build a website (or more likely -- have one built!) are guaranteed to be potentially losing business.
The initiatives of major influential Web forces, such as Google, are making the necessity to start a website for anyone who wants to spur their business to greater success a 'must do'. Indeed for those of us who have dabbling with website building and publishing for some time now, it seems almost impossible to comprehend that there may still be individuals and businesses 'out there' that have NOT thought about starting a website by now!
Yet it remains the plain fact - the 135 million websites in existence at the moment actually represent a mere fraction of the total businesses, and an even smaller proportion of individuals, worldwide with access to Internet resources (that is a PC or Apple computer or laptop!)
Now to be fair there are already an amazing number of websites in existence that have for their focus the concept of designing, building and publishing a website on the Internet. Some of these may be the province of the typical 'computer wiz' or 'geeks' (less complimentary term) who know plenty about all the facets of putting a website together in practical terms.
Yet it is becoming more and more the case that you can start a website with almost no 'technical' know how about how to create a website. The online methods for getting a website up an running are numerous and impressive, and it is now very easy to have a good-looking website up on the Web for the world to see in no time flat. Some might say it is TOO easy!
Nonetheless, what relatively few people recognize is that whilst starting a website may be quite easy (compared with what it was a few years ago) if you actually wan that site to be found by people then there is a whole host of things you need to know about.
You should NOT feel too ignorant if you do not know what it take to try and improve the chances of your first website being found on the web when people search for things related to the topic of your site. Indeed there are many 'professionals' -- that is people who may call themselves website designers or developers who have very limited knowledge about some of the finer points of website promotion.
This is where there is a minefield of potential problems for anyone who is new to building websites -- or having websites built for them. It can pay-off handsomely if you DO have some knowledge about what works and what doesn't when it comes to promoting your website. In fact, if you get these things wrong your website can remain effectively buried in that pile of 135 million sites...never to see the light of day...or at least unlikely ever to lite upon the screens of the hopeful seeker of the information your site offers!
So how can you avoid the pitfalls that await those who want to know how to start a website - well this web log aims to become the ordinary man's guide to just this query -- so please come back soon.
USEFUL RESOURCES:
(1) Check out website hosting options:
www.best-hosting-deal.info
(2) Excellent articles for budding website builders:
www.build-better-websites.com
