Building a website for online home business

Having your own website is an extremely important milestone in establishing your online home business. It is somewhat like owning a virtual supermarket.

Though it is not impossible to do Online Business without getting your own website, it is highly desirable that you get one.

There are many advantages in having your own site. You can exchange reciprocal links, earn advertising revenue and submit your site to search engines. Other people will take you seriously if you have your own website.

Why not go for a free website?

If you search Google using the key words FREE WEB HOSTING you will get a long list of sites offering free web hosting. You may wonder "why spend money when I can get a free website?" Some even give you web design tools so that you can create your web site without knowing HTML.

Many sites allow you to host a site for free but they will be adding their ads often very prominently on your site.

Hence it does not look professional. They may cancel your account anytime without giving any reason as they do not have any obligation.

Do not expect to get any business using a free web host and do not spend a lot of your precious time using the free services. If you are tempted to use free web hosting for a long time please read the following article.

Finding a host for your website

Having your own web site involves three steps.

• Purchasing a domain name for your site.

• Creating web pages on your computer.

• Uploading your pages to a remote server-transferring your files from your computer to a server.

Some web hosting companies provide an online website builder which allows you to build web pages directly on the server without the need for uploading the pages.

Purchasing a domain name for your site: A domain name is a unique name given to your site. It gives a separate identity and a professional touch for your site on the web. You need to apply through a registrar for getting your domain. If you host your site with SBI, you need not separately apply for a domain name as it is included in the package. There are many sites which offer this service. Godaddy is a well known one.

You can register a domain for one or more years. Once you register your domain no one can use it for the duration it is registered. As many domains are already registered you need to use your imagination and select a suitable one. Some people use their own names. For example if your name is John you can have john.com if it is not already taken.

However some people prefer to use one or two key words pertaining to their web sites. For example if your site deals with home business you can have something like homebusiness.com or homebusneiss.net. One advantage of choosing such a domain is that it gives some idea about the content of your site.

Want help in choosing your domain name? Click here to watch a video.

Creating web pages: This is a step which every beginner dreads. But today web designing is not as difficult as it used to be when you had to learn HTML thoroughly. A little knowledge of HTML, however is desirable. You can visit the following sites for learning HTML.

htmlgoodies

World Wide Web Consortium

An easier way to design webpages is to use HTML editors. If you use a HTML editor you can add tables, text and graphics without knowing HTML. Some of the well known editors are Microsoft FrontPage, First page and Nvu (free down load at http://nvu.com/). If you have Microsoft office installed on your computer FrontPage will be available. Other wise it is not free. I have tried all the three. My favorite is Nvu. FrontPage inserts a lot of unnecessary code which is confusing.

Another tool for creating web pages is DREAMWEAVER. This is a sophisticated software which enables you to make very fine changes to your pages. But it is costly.

If you wish you can download templates and use them to create your pages. Some templates are free but the more professional ones have to be purchased. SBI offers you a wide range of free templates to choose from.

Hosting your website: The next step is to find a web host for your site. This is where all the pages of your site are stored and would be available for others to see. There are many web hosting companies offering different packages. You will get confused in the beginning if you go through all the services offered. If you are serious about succeeding in online business I strongly recommend SBI.

This offers more than just hosting for your site. It teaches you how to find key words, helps you to find a niche, register a domain, provides templates for your site, helps you to create content without knowing anything about HTML, submits your site to search engines, analyzes page ranking, helps to improve page ranking, gives information on keyword searches of important directories like yahoo, helps to bid optimally on keywords at PPCs, helps you to send e-zines, researches and recommends products in demand integrating a web store-to sum up, with SBI you do not just build a website but build a business.

The package appears costly because you have to pay for one whole year in advance, but if you compare it with other packages which provide the same tools you will realize that it is actually quite cheap. It also has an affiliate program which helps you to earn extra income.

Click here for all the features of SBI and compare it to others

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