How Do I Make My Own Website? Your Guide to Online Website Creators, Domain Names, and more.

How Do I Make My Own Website?
Your Guide to Online Website Creators, Domain Names, and more.

What is the best free online website creator?

This question has a whole lot of answers due to people and their various opinions.

    

     I have used a whole lot of the free website creators out there, and believe me there is a whole bunch of them out there, but the one that I found the uttermost coolest was Wix. For those of you who are not familiar with Wix.com; Wix provides the users with an awesome way to customize their websites using flash animations and widgets. I recently started using this site and created what I think is flash perfection. You can do so much more with Wix than you can with Weebly or Webs, no offense because they are pretty freaking awesome, but with Wix you can create professional looking flash websites.



See what I created with Wix

http://www.wix.com/amazonrewards/home

     The Wix site builder is so simple to use and helps you create beautiful looking flash websites in very little time. Features like self scrolling slideshows, animated text, awesome effects to customize your text, video and pictures help the user create an awesome, and sort of unique, looking website. The only downside to this, which is kind of expected for most online website bulders, is that you have to pay a little out of pocket to get your site the way you want it. If you want your own favicon (image next to the site URL in the web browser window) you are required to pay. If you want to take the Wix.com logo off of your site you have to pay. If you want more hosting space, you have to pay. This is not much of a shock because this is the only way sites like these can make money. 

Other Free Online Website Creators:

Yola

Weebly

Moonfruit

Webs

Webstarts

Blogger 

Wordpress

Your Sites Domain Name is Important for Many Reasons
Having a Custom Domain Name is going to be the key to attracting visitors to your website.

     Custom domain names (yoursite.com, yoursite.net, yoursite.org, etc.) can be purchased through sites like GoDaddy.com where you can get a ".com" for $11.99 a year. There are also websites that give you a custom domain for free like Dot.tk where you get to choose your custom domain name (amazonrewards.tk). Creating your own custom domain name is important for your site because if you are trying to get people to remember your site's URL then you are going to want something short, but at the same time describes what your site is. Lets face it, people are not going to remember your URL sub-domain from a free website creator (yoursite.weebly.com, wix.com/yourusername/sitename, etc.). You want your site to be easily accessible for everyone, so having a site with the URL http://www.amazonrewards.tk/ is easier to gain access to than a site with the URL http://www.wix.com/amazonrewards/home.

Custom Domain Name Sites

http://www.dot.tk/ - Temporary, not recommended if you have a low amount of traffic

http://www.bit.ly/

http://www.tiny.cc/

http://www.godaddy.com/ - Premium Domains
http://co.cc
 

Having a Reason for People to Visit Your Site

Many people who create websites never get any visitor because their sites content is just not worth viewing.

     When creating your own website you are going to want to have a main purpose, or a reason you are creating the site. Without this key feature people are not going to know what your site is about, and therefore not going to visit it. On your website you are going to want to have something that other sites don't. For instance, this blog is my way of informing, and sometimes teaching, the world how to do things they don't already know hoe to do, or to inform them on something they don't already know. This is the purpose for my Blog, you are going to want to have a purpose for your site by creating original content, or content created by you personally. Writing original reviews on things that you enjoyed like a movie, or game are great ways to attract people to your site. Making exclusive videos that people enjoy is another great way. Just be yourself and provide content that you think is awesome, because there is a whole world of people out there and a lot of them probably like the same things you do.

Getting Your Site Known

It does not take much to get your website known.

     There are multiple ways to get your site known across the web. Many online website creators (I know that Weebly does) have an option in the site builder settings that allow you to set keywords for your site. This is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Lets say that Bill is trying to find a cheap carpet cleaning buisness in Philladelphia. Bill goes to a search engine like Google and searches "cheap carpet cleaner Philadelphia" and the results come up with http://www.biocleancarpetcare.com/ "a nation wide carpet cleaner with Professionals in Philadelphia. SEO is important when attracting visitors to your site. Make sure you fill out your site's SEO tags with information actually having to do with your website's content, because nothing pisses people off more than a site having nothing to do with what they searched shows up in their Google Search results.

     Getting more traffic to your site and consequently getting your site known can be accomplished through submitting your site to search engines. You can submit your website to one of the Search Engines below by clicking the link. It helps to Submit to all of them, because the more you submit to, the more potential site viewers you will get.

Google Site Submission

Bing Site Submission

Pingomatic for Web Blogs

     The simplest way of getting your website known is through the art of social networking. You can easily advertise your site to your friends and family over Facebook, or you can create video advertisements and post them on video sharing sites like Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc. Just tell your friends and co-workers at school and work about your website. Tell them what you have to offer. Make flyers and place them around you neighborhood, chances are people will see them and visit your website. Make buisness cards explaining your site, you can easily create buisness cards, or flyers using Microsoft Publisher. You can even pay a little out of pocket to get your site advertised on Google. The possibilities for advertising your site are endless.