Making my own website!!

[perrywinkle]

Hello everyone,

It's so cold here today in Adelaide so I'm going to sit in front of the computer all day I think.

I have my own business and need to get a website up and running ASAP!! I have found out yesterday that another company has just started in the same field as me but they don't deliver here yet!!!!

How do I go about designing a website?
Is there a program I can use?
And once I have designed it how do I go about everyone seeing it?

Thanks in advance just trying to save some dollars by doing it myself.

Cheers

[creativewarrior]

hi kylie
im a sahm/wahm who runs my own web business - would be happy to help ya out with some information.

drop me an email: design@creativewarrior.com.au

and i'll help answer a few questions for ya :)
Amanda

[survivamum]

I used "Rapidweaver" for mine, and did it all myself having no prior knowledge.
They have some cool themes/templates that you can choose from and build on. And for publishing I used Fetch, which had a great trial that just keeps on going. Good luck!
If you want to preview my self created website, PEM.
:)

[creativewarrior]

you can also just use windows explorer to upload your site to servers - saves going thru all the trial ftp software.

[Ineedsleep]

Tips that may help: (although I'm sure Amanda will tell you all)

No. 1 important point: make your website fast to load - much more important than a fancy site.

Don't use frames and put the right keywords in the code (to help search engine optimisation)

If you register a .com.au site it will be dearer but if in Google people select pages from australia - your site will show (learnt that the hard way!) (register the same with .com also, so cheap)

Learn about Google Adwords - inexpensive way to advertise your site.

Also Google Adsense perhaps - depends on your site.

Learn about Search Engine Optimisation

Find a good forum.

I have a free html editor and free ftp client - both easy to use

Godaddy is cheap for domains and hosting.

Sometimes saving $'s doing it yourself will cost you in the long run. There's more to a site than having it look nice - people have to find it. Maybe you could do it yourself and get a professional (someone will know someone) to check out your code and make sure it is search engine friendly.

Have fun and good luck.