A website comes down to a few simple elements in order to get started. I see too many people all over the Internet talking about making money and using "this" tool or "that" tool when all it really boils down to is a few basics. In fact, these are most overlooked a majority of the time. Not in the sense that they're not talked about but rather people say you need everything under the sun to get going.

 

You don't.

 

These are the few things that you'll need to start a website today and I'll explain why.

 

Domain

 

Your domain is like your house address. It allows visitors to easily create a website. Think of it like when you tell a friend what your house address is so they can find you. Well, that's your domain.

 

Now, some places offer a free website where you can choose "yourname.site.com" or "site.com/yourname" and that's okay, but I'd still recommend buying your own domain so you can own something of value if you decide you want to do more with your website later on.

 

This is easy because all you have to do is forward or point the name servers to your website and when people type in "yourname.com" it sends them to your website.

 

So, the domain is a pretty important element with having a website. The cost is nice at around $10 a year, so nothing expensive there.

 

And if you can find a domain that is easy to remember, creative and fits your website's purpose well, and on top of all that, is a keyword a lot of people search for, you've found the gold.

 

Register it and get started with hosting.

 

Hosting

 

Hosting is like your house. Not the address (as we discussed above) but the actual place your files are stored at. Think of it like your hard drive on your computer. You store files there. You can easily sign up with hosting at around $10 a month and upload your own files and there you go, you have your own website.

 

A good hosting company will offer things such as 24/7 customer support, 99.9% up-time guarantee and other important things you need. I won't go into all the details because honestly, most web hosting companies today offer around the same thing.

 

And, if you're just starting a website you probably aren't worried about a lot of the more technical and in-depth stuff that you can get later on when you're more established.

 

I personally use HostGator and they're pretty good. They provide what I need for right now and are very affordable.

 

So, once you have your domain registered, point it to your hosts name servers and your site will then show up so you actually see something rather than just a weird page full of adds or whatever might come up.

 

This might take a day or so for everything to get fully setup but once it is, you're good to go.

 

But now what... how to you actually start building your site? Ahh... the platform.

 

Platform

 

The platform is like the construction work that goes into your house to actually build it.

 

Your domain as I already said is the address. Hosting is where you're actually located. The platform is what you use to actually build the house, or in this case, your website.

 

I highly recommend WordPress (yep, I'm one of those). But I don't just say that because "everyone else uses it."

 

The fact is, many people don't use WordPress when starting a website. They might use Drupal, Joomla, old-fashioned HTML (um, really?). So, there's many ways to actually build your website.

 

Let's just stick with WordPress for now. It's simple to use, beautifully designed and, well, search engines love it. Add to that the customizable themes (both free and premium) and the plugins and widgets you can add to it and you have yourself a pretty outstanding platform on which to build upon.

 

Fancy indeed.

 

With WordPress you can also just find Fantastico in your hosting control panel (or cpanel, ex. yourname.com/cpanel) and literally click one button after filling in a few details and then, poof, WordPress is installed on your domain.

 

Now, you'll actually need to have your domain name already added on to your host before doing this so it shows up.

 

Success

 

This is where it's all at, and honestly, once you reach this far, you've basically made it. Some people don't even know how to do this much but it can be learned very easily, unless you just don't want to hassle with it yourself.

 

Now comes what your plans are for your site, getting traffic and converting that traffic in some way. This doesn't always mean money but can anything really.

 

So, now you know what the three basic elements are to starting a website and you know why you need them. Good luck and I wish you the best of success on your journey to a very successful website.