Getting Started with Your Website

Getting started with anything is always a daunting task. Starting you own website is no exception. First and foremost you need to decide what type of website you want to make and why! So

• Are you interested in making money from your website?
• Is it for a club?
• Is it just a hobby?
• Is it a personal, professional or business website?

Before you go and rush out to buy the latest release of Microsoft FrontPage, order the best hosting package money can buy - First .... sit down with a pencil and paper and decide what it is all about! 

This is a very important stage and please don't rush it. There is nothing worse than starting, and then giving up a few weeks later because it's not what you wanted.

An Example

As an example perhaps you are a member of a running club and you think it would be a good idea to have a website for the club. What do you want the website to do?

• Is it just to provide name, address, contact?
• Will you have people enrol from it?
• Will you want people to enrol for club events from it?
• Will you sell club merchandise from it?

There are a 1001 other things I could list but I think you get the idea. The reason that this is so important is because if you make wrong choices at the beginning then they can make for a lot more work in the end.

Even though the website will only contain name and contact details initially the fact that you intend it to grow into a site to sell club merchandise will affect how you go about building and hosting the site.

A Website Sketch-The first pages

Rome wasn't built in a day

What you need to do now is to write a few pages. You can write them using any text editor or even on paper. What you are trying to do is to get a feel for the content and to decide whether or not you want to create the website after all.

What you need to produce is approximately 5 pages of rough text each at least 200 words long (approx 12-15 lines). It doesn't need to be perfect you will refine it later.

If you are building a website to make money then you also need to read website themes.

Now you have written these pages do you still feel comfortable about it? If yes then proceed to make your website. If not then you may want try another topic.