Build Your Own Website

I am going to tell you how to build your own website.

I have built a few websites over the past few years and have been learning as I went along.

Some of my early attempts are Fix My Broadband and Make Good Money. My latest project is Northern Ireland Travel.

As I gather more and more knowledge and experience, website building becomes easier!

I designed and built the website for Ballyduff Silver Band from scratch. It didn’t always look as good as it does today. I have been tweaking and modifying it for a few months now. The first attempt looked like this.

It’s important to make your website look nice and be easy to read. It has to look as professional as possible. I will give you a few tips on ‘how not to build a website’ as well.

One of the first books, I bought about web design is The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. It is a simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples. It helps you understand what makes "good design"; developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry. This is a good book to have if you are thinking of 'going it alone'. You don't have to though. If you read on down, you will find out about the excellent site builder that I found. The course you get as part of your hosting covers all this and more!

Another book that I would recommend is Bulletproof Web Design. A best practice CSS & XHTML book aimed at the intermediate-advanced web designer. This takes you to the next stage, if you are 'going it alone'. Again this is covered in Site Build It!

Why Build Your Own Website?

I am writing this blog, because quite a few people have asked me how they can build their own website.

Most people looking for website making help fall into one of these categories:

1. People looking to create a family or hobby website.
2. People looking to create a successful website (often commercial in nature).
3. Website designers looking to improve their skills and offerings.

This article is mainly intended for people who want to build their first website and then, if they enjoy it, make it a successful website. By this, I mean create high value content, then traffic so they can sell their product or service.
Just like Ballyduff Silver Band. This is a hobby of mine that falls into a few areas. I like playing a musical instrument in the band. I enjoy web design and also the band has a service that it wants to sell. It’s entertainment! Win-win-win!

Back to the matter in hand! You're here because you want to make a website. If you hire a web designer you would be charged anywhere between £500 and £1500 to build a small web site. But this article is about how to make a website for far less.

If you're like the vast majority of people thinking of building a website, then you don't have a big budget. That’s not a problem. I got this website up and running for around £150. The basic ingredients are:

1. Register a Domain Name
2. Find a website host
3. Submit you site to search engines

There are extras you can add to your website to make it more appealing. You can add a blog, newsletter, guestbook, forms, photo album, etc. One of the biggest issues is the time it takes to build the website.

It took me a long time to learn how to use ‘Dreamweaver’ to build my websites. It was useful at the time, but was taking me a week to build one page. I had to learn about HTML code as well,  to make my pages appear the way that I wanted them to.

It was very time consuming. Then I discovered a block-by-block site builder that could be used by anyone because it was so simple. You start with your page design layout on a piece of A4 paper. You then take it one piece at a time and build your webpage through Site Build It!

Building Your Website With Site Build It!

You start by entering a heading. Then, next, you can add a paragraph or two or even a photograph. Then some more text and before long you have your page built. Easy!

A few months ago, I came across Site Build It! and, for once, I was pleasantly surprised. I was skeptical at first, so I started investigating.

I started with the case studies page. I wanted to hear what other people had to say about this tool. After this, I wanted to know exactly how this package worked and how much it was going to cost, so I went to the Site Build It homepage. My mind was made up and I was quite excited about getting my hands on this website builder to start making my website.

The last place I went before buying Site Build It! was the questions page. I just wanted to make sure that there was definitely no risk involved.

This one paragraph on their website summarizes the basic reality of how people use the web:

'Online, people search for information, look for solutions -- they are not looking for you. Give them what they want by converting your knowledge into high-quality, in-demand CONTENT. To do this, you create a theme-based topical content that ranks high at the Search Engines, attracting free, targeted TRAFFIC... interested, open-to-you visitors'.

Here is what makes Site Build It! attractive:

• It's perfect for beginners because it takes the technobabble away and makes the site-building experience smooth, enjoyable and frustration-free. And if, at any time, you decide to become more technical, the sitebuilder can easily keep up with your newly found skills.


• Puts the fun back in creating something you can be proud of. In a few months you'll have a popular website, a thriving community or a profitable web business.


• The SBI community welcomes you among thousands of other beginners eager to learn how to make a website. Their support, advice and motivation will prove invaluable in building your success pixel by pixel.


• It gives you the tools, motivation, support and above all, the essential intelligence needed to make a website, one that shines for years to come.


• Good money-back guarantee (they refund you if at any time you change your mind, whenever and whatever the reason -- yes, I know it sounds too good to be true and yes, I did ask them myself).

Site Build It!: it's so much more than a simple website builder (which is probably all you were looking for). It's an entire 'how to make, learn, profit AND have fun' experience.

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