Website building involves creating web pages, and publishing them to the web by putting the pages onto your web host. It's not that hard to do, with the help of tools. But if you don't want to create your own website yourself, you can outsource it.
The cheapest way to outsource is to get freelancers, such as those you find at online service marketplaces such as GoFreelance.com, Elance.com, GetaCoder.com, GetaFreelancer.com, and so on.
Look at other projects in these sites for an idea of the budget needed; it can cost from around $200 for one page to about $1000 for a 10 page website. However the quality of work delivered varies widely.
So it's important to be very exact and comprehensive when specifying what you want, and clearly list the deliverables. Monitor it, and check that it works as it should when you get it. Do pick a service provider with good ratings and reviews.
Alternatively, some web hosts provide website building services. These range from a cheap $199 starter package offered by
Dotster
, to
Yahoo
DIY merchant solutions. However they do not do traffic generation for you.
If you have a business to run and are looking to get more customers for it through the internet, but don't have time to create your own website or drive traffic to it, Sitesell Services is probably the best solution. They not only make a website for you, but also do the keyword research, search engine optimization, search engine submissions, and everything else that's necessary to get traffic to your site.
But if you do have time, why not learn how to make a website yourself? Just be prepared to put in some work. The initial learning curve may be a bit tough, but it's a skill you can use again and again.
What you need to make a website:
Computer
Internet access / connection
Web page building tool like a HTML or WYSIWYG editor software:
You need at least one web site software to build your web pages. A WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) one is good for beginners, as it allows you to create a web page visually, using point-and-click. It's similar to using MS Word, and the HTML code (HyperText Markup Language, used for web pages) is automatically generated for you.
Some web hosts provide a built-in web editor software free, but most of these are painful to use. If you are more advanced, you might prefer a HTML editor which allows you to write the HTML code yourself, as it gives you greater control.
As to exactly how to build each web page, and to publish it to your web host, you will need to follow the instructions provided by your web host and the web site software.
If your host-provided web editor is too primitive or hard to use, or you need a powerful tool to build a more professional-looking site, there are specialist web site software available. These allow you to create pages using point-and-click as well as see and amend the resulting HTML code.
The most popular of these web editors are: (Right-click any of the links to open in a new window.)
Adobe's Dreamweaver: has favorable feedback and is one of the most widely used by webmasters. You can try it out first by downloading a free trial.
Microsoft's Frontpage: Actually Microsoft has recently discontinued Frontpage, and released Expression Web to replace it. However it only runs on the latest versions of Windows.
XSitePro
: the cheapest of the three. Has the most features, but said to be the easiest to master and use. Gives 1-year money-back guarantee.
There's also NVU which is free, but it's not as powerful. If you want to try it out, go to NVU.
All these web editors come with detailed guides specific to each, on how to use them to build your web pages.
If yours is a 2-3 page minisite, you could probably build and launch that quite quickly. But if you're building a website with lots of pages, that is usually a progressive thing – you'd build a few pages first, launch that to the internet, and then add pages continually.
Once you've published your website out to the internet, the next step is very important -- to promote your website, so that people know it exists, and come to visit!
