Building your website

You have a web hosting provider and a domain name all set up and ready for use.
How do you start building your web pages?

Think about the content of your site. The content should be reflected in the way your site is designed. What is the main subject your site is dealing with?
Are you planning on implementing a lot of graphics in the site?
Will it be based mostly on text?
We recommend start outlining your site on a piece of paper.

Take a look at your competition:
What would you like to adopt, and what would you like to make better?
 

Designing with a graphical program vs. designing your site real-time

We recommend trying to use a graphical program to create the basis for your site.
You can copy any web page you like (using the printscreen key) and paste it into your favorite painting software. Work freely on the canvas and when you're done crop the graphical elements you need and use them in your site's design.
Be careful not to use too much graphics so your pages will not become "heavy".

If you prefer, you can design your site on the fly - inserting text and graphical elements into your pages and adjusting the layout as you go.
 

Using templates

Most people find it much easier to build a site based on a template than starting from scratch. Templates are ready made designs which you can buy, or even get for free, from your hosting provider. Change the logo, text and menu items and you have a ready, professional looking site.

Uploading your files to the server

In order to transfer your files to the web server, you will need to use a FTP program.
FTP programs are similar to the Windows explorer application (which can also function as a FTP client) - they show you on one side your local hard drive files, and on the other, the remote server hard drive files.
You connect to your FTP account by using your domain name, replacing the "www" prefix with "ftp" (ftp.domain.com) and with your username and password given to you by your hosting provider.
Now you can just drag files from your side of the screen to the server's to upload files, and vice versa (downloading).
Try to access the files you uploaded using your web browser. If you encounter any problems make sure with your hosting provider that you are uploading to the correct directory.
Every server has a default set of files it is trying to fetch if no filename was specified (for example www.domain.com), usually the file names are index.htm, default.htm, index.php or index.asp.

CMS and site builders

CMS (content management systems) and site builders are software applications meant to ease the entire website creation process.  If you lack the experience and knowledge of building a website you might find it much easier using such a tool.
There are many free CMS tools around the web, and many complex high level tools for sale. The downside of using a content management system without having any coding experience is that you are limited to what your software offers, and sometimes you will have to dive into the code in order to achieve what you are after.

Hiring a freelance webmaster

There are many websites offering a platform for finding freelance services.
A lot of people have the knowledge required to build a website.
Paying a freelance for a few hours of work might be enough to get your website started.