Make your own website for fun or profit or just experience

OK - you're nearly ready to make your own website now. So far you have

Learned to research what visitors want

Learned to use some website software

Used your research to choose a good domain name, and register it

Found a good host and set up your new domain on your new host

Learned the basics of HTML coding, and got a great sense of success from it

Learned how to modify a template to suit you and your visitors

So I suppose you expect me to tell you how well organized I was when I made my first website, using all that information. Well...er...it wasn't quite like that fifteen years ago. I've become more organized since then...I hope.

How I Got Started

My ISP asked " Why don't you build a website?" I replied "What's that? How?" That was back in the days when ISPs charged by the byte. I had run up a bill of over a thousand dollars the first month, because I didn't realize how much I was using the internet.

I suppose you could describe me as an expert at creating websites because I've been at it from the start, but it doesn't seem that way to me. It was all so easy. I admit there is a lot to learn, but none of it is difficult.

However, my new ISP had changed to a new system that made web pages financially viable. I liked playing with computers, so asked "Tell me more!" That is how I came to create a website for the first time.

Click the buttons for more information about how to make your own web site.

Site design

At that time broadband hadn't been heard of. I had a frightfully expensive modem that could handle 1.2K - that's right - the slowest broadband is more than a hundred times as fast. So the first rule of designing a site was "Use as few bytes as possible"

The second rule hasn't really changed, but the meaning has. "Visitors hit the back button in less than ten seconds. Let them see your page before then."

At that time it meant that I could have a couple of small black and white cartoon pictures on a web page before it took too long to load. Now it still means that you should try to keep your picture files below 50KBytes.

My first site was about barbershop music in Australia. Over the years it grew in popularity, and we got a new member for our local club who just happened to spot the website. It described what was happening at all the clubs in Australia.

Personal Non-profit or Profitable?

That is what I would now describe as a personal site, or perhaps a non-profit organization site. It never occurred to me to try and make any money from it.

If you want to make a website nowadays you should work out firstly why you want to build a new website. It makes a difference whether you are doing it for money or not. For instance, you might just want to put up the photographs from your local boy scout group, together with short articles about any functions that are coming up.

Free Non-profit Web Sites

Because it is non-profit, your ISP will probably be happy to allow you to build a website for free on your account - just ask support for the details. If you want a slightly bigger site, you could try http://www.tripod.lycos.com/ free account but remember that they will have their own adverts added to your page, which won't be the case with your ISP.

However, if you want to make money from your small business web site, you won't want adverts from somebody else, and your ISP won't allow a commercial site.

The free Tripod site will allow you 20MB of space. My cheap web host will allow me about 50 thousand MB of space, so it's worth paying for it!

You need to pay for a profitable website

What is more, Google isn't interested in free sites, or sites without domain names, so if you want to make money you will have to spend at least a little money. You could sign up with the website builder package offered by SBI, which has everything included, and that is a great way to start learning. I was with them for quite a few years and learned an enormous amount from them for less than $300 per year.

Or you could accept that you are going to have to pay to learn to make vast sums of money on the web.

I've heard many people complaining that they had wasted three thousand dollars buying useless eBooks that didn't have anything new in them.

How much would you have to spend for a University course? How much of that would be new? How much would be useless? When I did the first year of an electronics degree I learned to make concrete and measure its quality. I learned to measure the breaking strength of rocks. I learned to do mechanical engineering drawings. Then I asked when I would learn some electronics, and was told "in the fourth year". Can you wonder that I abandoned the course?

So don't be so critical of money-making ideas. Yes, you learn a lot of rubbish, but you learn a little bit more of what you need to succeed with each package you buy.

If you are a baby-boomer with $200,000 to invest you could buy a franchise. If it worked you could expect to break even after three years. Is it really so terrible to spend three thousand dollars so that you can make your own website to bring in an ongoing income?

I personally wouldn't buy a three thousand dollar package. I get my information from packages costing less than a hundred dollars - lots of them. And yes, there isn't a lot of new information. You wouldn't expect to find much new information on how to design wheels, but if you want to design wheels, you need the mouldy old information.

The winning money-making mindset

You hear about someone creating a website and making fifty thousand dollars from it the next day. And it's all true! What they don't mention is that he has a vast organization that swings into action to make it happen. For a beginner to win, you must build your system bit by bit. You must be prepared to pay money to make money.

One approach is nicknamed "rinse and repeat". You create a website that is making a hundred dollars per week, then you copy your success, and copy it again and again with more websites. A hundred websites bringing in a hundred dollars a week would be quite profitable, and also quite expensive. You would need to buy a hundred domain names and pay for a hundred hosts for a start.

You would also need to hire people to create articles for you and other repetitive jobs, and someone to supervise your growing organization. It all costs money to make money. Of course, some websites are very successful indeed, making thousands of dollars a week, but you would have to be very lucky indeed for your first attempt to make your own website to be so successful.