You should have started writing the content for your main pages and articles by now.
In this chapter, we need to tie up a few loose ends.
These are: web editors, domain names and hosting plans.
In order to turn your great content into a website, you need to create HTML pages and link them together. We are going to discuss how to link pages together later in this course, but the most pressing issue is how to create individual web pages.
Now, there are a variety of ways to do this, some simple, some complex.
The most difficult way is to use a text editor (even Windows Notepad) to hand-code your web pages. This requires extensive knowledge of the language used for creating web pages – Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). This method is not recommended unless you already know HTML. It is very complicated, and prone to errors.
The next possible solution is to use software designed to help you create your web pages.
Some require a good working knowledge of HTML, while others don't.
There are some free web editors out there that I have used and like. These require some knowledge of HTML to use them:
Both of these are excellent editors if you have the HTML skills.
If you don't have HTML skills, there are several options.
The easiest to use are the so-called What-You.See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editors.
These include commercial heavyweights such as:
Both of these are expensive, but there is a cheaper option that I was very impressed with when I looked at it:
First Page 2006 (from the same company that makes First Page 2000, the free, non-WYSIWYG alternative).
Finally, you could go with a non-conventional editor that requires no HTML skills, and hides much of the site building process from you (so you can concentrate on the content). My own SEO Website Builder does that.
With SEO Website Builder, you also get the added bonus of an established community of advanced users on the forum who are ready and willing to help you succeed, and great product support and mentoring as you learn the ropes ;o).
Another Alternative would be Ken Evoy's Site Build It! My wife and I actually started our online business using it, and we learnt a lot from using it.
Finally, why not look at WordPress? Its the editor this site was created with, and I run a community showing you how to create Affiliate Sites with WordPress.
Go and look at the options if you don’t already own a website editor, and get a copy of your preferred software.