The Beginnings
The first thing you may want to do is decide on a topic of your website. The best topic for anyone to choose would be one that interested him or her the most. For instance, if you enjoy traveling and do so frequently, a good topic of a website would be travel information. If you like cars, then the best choice would be to make a site about cars. The key is to decide on a topic that will not become a heavy burden for you to continue working on. Sites that are unique and not like every other site out there are excellent to have as they will make your site stand out among the rest. If you own a business, or are planning to start one, then go ahead and make your business a website. Making this website will be one of the most wisest decisions you have ever made, as a website will bring visitors not only to your sites, but to your business, and this will in turn lead to more profit! Just about all of the very profitable businesses have websites.

Once you decide on a topic, you should proceed to plan out your site. How will you design it? Will you get a custom design or use a template? How will you advertise, or get visitors to your site? These and more are some of the major questions you should find an answer to before you purchase hosting; after all, you wouldn't want to purchase hosting and then lose the precious time of it that you paid for! For all practical purposes, a template would be the best choice that getting a custom design, until the website proves profitable, after which a custom design is a nice touch to have. Good templates can be found by clicking the Template Monster link in the Sponsors bar on the right of this page. Custom designs can be provided at ParaNorth.com.

Having this figured out, you should now find a good domain for your site. This is probably a good thing to do a bit before you buy hosting, so you know in advance what it will be. A domain is the name of your site (www.YOUR-CHOSEN-DOMAIN-NAME.com) that users will type into their browser to reach your site. Something short, memerable, and without dashes are the best choices. You must also see if the domain is taken or available; if taken, find another domain. When you find a domain that is available, you should buy hosting very soon afterwards so your domain will not be taken. Usually when you are buying hosting you will get a free domain with it. If you would like to purchase more afterwards, visit a registrar such as GoDaddy . Buying the right host can be a crucial part in your site's future, and this website has made a list of the best twenty-five hosts, for your convenience.

Now You Own a Website
Once you have a website ready and made, you should get visitors to it. This can be done in several ways. One way is to tell your firends about the site, and they will tell others. This is a very effective way of driving traffic to your site. Another effective way is to sign up with Yahoo! Search Marketing or Google AdWords (linkk can be found in the sponsors bar). These two services offer an advertising program that is based on PPC (Pay-Per-Click) method. This means that the only time you will pay any money is when someone clicks on an advertisement you set up and is then sent to your site. This is the most effective method, because you pay for real traffic.

Your Site as a Source of Income
Now that your website is getting traffic, or even before it is getting any traffic, you can start making money off of your site. Several ways of doing this will now be explained. The first way is to sell direct advertising on your site. The way this works is that an owner of another site purchases from you, for your set price, advertising space which can be in the form of a text link or a banner, it will be your choice. Another way of of getting money from your website is by displaying advertisements from Google AdSense (a link can be found in the sponsors tab on the right of this page). Google AdSense will pay you a certain amount of money each time a visitor clicks on one of your ads. These clicks can generate anywhere from several cents to several dollars, on each click. Those clicks add up very fast, and so does your income!

And...You're just about done!
Congratulations! You now have a website that gets traffic and earns money! You can either continue to develop it further, or you can sell your website on forums with real people. Such forums are SitePoint and DigitalPoint, just to mention a few.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Startup Guide. If you found it helpful, please vote "Yes!" on the right on the page and tell your friends to take a look as well!