Make My Own Website-Some Down-to-Earth Advice for Building a Web Presence

The first time I decided to make my own website, I had no idea where to start. The Web is a hectic place for a newbie. Everyone and their sister is trying to sell you something, search engines are full of junk that never really tells you what you want to know, and every time you think you're figuring out how to do something, it's another dead-end street.

So how do you find your way in this kind of Internet? We're definitely in an Information Age, but how do you filter such a wild storm of information?

The first piece of advice I can give you is to use video as your main learning tool. Deciding which learning medium to use was a huge leap forward in learning to make my own website, and I find this to be the easiest way to learn a new skill online.

That said, you want to think about the technique used in the videos you watch. What you want to do is make an online presence; you don't want to spend weeks hearing someone rattle on about the theory of website usability. These subjects are important, but the first you need is a basic framework up and running and then we start seeing the bigger picture and can look at theory.

The answer is screencast-type videos. Someone with this kind of software (and it's free in some cases) can basically bring you into a website admin and break down every single thing that you have to do to get the site running. You need someone to basically take you behind the scenes and show you exactly what to do.

Also, much like Google, YouTube and other video sharing sites are full of people who just put up little teaser video designed to get you buying from them. Many stop short of giving you valuable information or solving the problem.

So once you find someone who can really guide you, stick with one teacher. You don't need the ultimate website guru or anything like that—you just need somebody who knows what they're doing and can show you exactly what to do from start to finish.

Jumping around from a bunch of different sources and doing things in all kinds of different ways will just confuse you. And then, for every single task that you need to learn, you're going to be searching around Google or YouTube—yet again.

This is highly unproductive, and if all these "coaches" are using different frameworks (for instance, one going with SiteBuilder and one with Wordpress), then you're jumping around all the time. And each task is going to seem completely different because it's a different platform or set of beliefs about web design/ online marketing.

Find one or two solid coaches, teachers, or programs, and stick with those. Just one is highly recommended.

Finally, about your website framework. Definitely host your website on your own server. Honestly, the belief that sites like Blogger hinder search engine optimization is a myth. I've seen plenty of websites run by top IM'ers in the most competitive niches on the Internet ranking number 1, but...

But what does matter when you're a business is your reader's perception. If you want people to take you seriously as a business owner or even as an expert in your hobby, host on your own your own server. It's usually less than $10 a month, and it just looks more professional.

Finally, always go with WordPress. Not only is WordPress free but it is the most search engine friendly framework you will find. And it is the easiest platform for a newbie to use as well. Not to mention that it is opensource software that is always being worked on by an army of private web masterminds, and as a result it just keeps getting more flexible.

It's hard to find anything it's not capable of at this point.

So those are some things that helped me out when I learned to make my own website, and I still use the same software, still use the same style of putting it all together, and I still stick with one or two solid coaches when I want to learn a new skill online. I recommend you do the same. Have fun!