How to start a website?

[Hannah Wells]

I am looking to start an online business. How would I accomplish that?
It is a business where I make things to decorate a little girls bedroom and sell them. Cute stuff I make.

[Ylva Linné]

Hi. Try http://www.webnode.com

[Dr Timothy Sanders]

Hi Hannah!

Starting an online business isn't easy. I would recommend you to try eBay, article writing and facebook fan pages before actually opening your own website. Try your best to make some cash and SPEND all your money which you make on educational products and software for marketers. Invest in yourself first and foremost and get only reputable products (if it has a video showing some guy with his Porsche taking you through a tour of his multi million dollar villa while trying to convince you for half an hour how cool would it be if you were to become rich IT IS NOT reputable even when it's free!)

Once you are ready to get a site for the host, I use http://goo.gl/CNi3z for over 40 personal business websites, with three of these earning a huge amount of cash and upgraded to dedicated servers. As far as customer service, uptime and speed go, you can't find any better in terms of shared hosting for the typical average small business website. They offer the best features at the lowest price in the market. One great feature they have is that they give you $100 google adwords credit which is great to start up a business and test out the waters without having to do much SEO.

The only drawback is that you will have to pay your hosting fees yearly. In other words they don't offer monthly plans. If you're on a very tight budget, http://goo.gl/lwivl may be a better option for you. The price is actually higher and the quality of the service not on a par but they do offer monthly plans that may be suitable for younger entrepreneurs and beginners! Again this is an affiliate link. If you click on it, you can use the code ARIZONASANDERS to get a great discount.

Whether you choose to go with these or other services, I also would like to recommend you to have a look at some of the websites hosted by whoever it is you are considering as your host. Check the host's forums for a list. My favorite free tool for checking out website speed is this: https://www.cloudflare.com/plans They offer a free basic test service. I recommend using the pro for $20 a month once you start making money.
It's always best to check out a host yourself rather than take anyone's word because hosting companies pay fees to their customers for recommending their services. That includes me and in no way is meant to imply anything on anyone who may have already answered or will answer this question in the future.

Lastly, before you choose a host make sure to have chosen the right domain! This is a crucial step towards ensuring success for your business, way more important than choosing the host. Your website has to rank as high as possible in google for people to be able to find it easily. You need specific tools to do this. The top level application, used ethically by many internet marketers is http://goo.gl/6Q4YS . You can use the application for free without buying anything. This may be a bit advanced but is required before you start working on your site. If you don't take these steps you will not be able to make any money.

Hope this helps and let us know how you are doing!

[Tufail]

Hannah, after looking at people's answers I'm feeling ashamed that 99% of the people only trying to sell their "help". I will start simply:
1- Purchase a Domain along with Hosting (GoDaddy, Bluehost,Hostgator, etc...)
2- Start with WordPress (In this case you can utilize it as a business website along with blog)

This is very simple, these website having tons of videos/articles to help you "How to start" or you may Google anything you want. If you stuck at any point, you may ask question(s) as you already did!

Whenever you need any help, I'm here you may ask anytime.

[john]

Here is a good article on starting an online business:
http://www.free-business-plans.com/artic...iness.html

[AskJoe]

doodlekit.com is free

[Orbit]

A business plan, logo and a website is a good start

http://www.orbitsites.com

[Chhavi]

first of all you have to decide that what type of business want to start, and which type of site want to made, dynamic or static. it is depend on your business. Dynamic website is directly fetch the data and you can update your content and feed data dynamically and static is only for show the content.
you will make own website or purchase your website according to requirement.