Did you know that launching a website does not require you to be tech savvy? Many people don't know that you don't actually need to have any web design skills or programming knowledge in order to launch a professional looking website. In order for you to be able to launch a professional website, I have compiled a list of a few things that you need to know in order to launch a site for yourself or even a small to medium sized business. I will go into detail and provide a step by step guide of how exactly the process of launching a site works, from purchasing a domain and hosting, to putting your site files on the server via an ftp software program. If you follow this guide step by step, you could potentially have a site live and on the web within a few hours. I am going to list each step individually going into detail and providing screenshots. I must warn you that it is a bit of a long tutorial, but that is because I am going to be very thorough and teach you exactly how to set up a website from scratch. So lets get started...

Step #1 - Setting Up Hosting and Acquiring a Domain Name

Many people that don't have the knowledge of how websites work might not exactly understand what hosting is. Basically, in order for you to be able to have your site seen by the world via the world wide web, your files have to be placed on a web server. However, chances are you are not going to want to purchase your very own server for thousands of dollars, luckily you can essentially purchase space on a hosting company's server. Usually this costs about $80/year, which is very affordable.

In my opinion the absolute best hosting company is Host Monster. There are a few reasons why I prefer them over all of the other hosting companies that I have tried. They are very reliable, and I can't remember a time when my site has been down because of any issues. They have great support, and they offer some great solutions that you will want to take advantage of in order to get your site online fast without having to configure anything, I will go in to some more detail on these solutions in a bit. Another reason why Host Monster is great is because they offer you a free domain if you purchase hosting through them, and you can host UNLIMITED domains on a single hosting account. This is an amazing feature that I have not found with any other hosting companies as of yet. Hosting unlimited domains on a single hosting account means that you can setup as many websites that you want for the cost of $80/year in hosting fees. All you have to do is purchase a $10 domain and add it on to your hosting plan and then you have another site. This works great for people who are looking to get into internet marketing because usually internet marketers try a lot of things with many different sites and domain names.

Also, check out my Hostmonster Review.

Okay, so now that I have explained hosting and domain names, I will go into a bit of detail on where you should go within Host Monster's website to get setup with what you will need.

CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR HOSTMONSTER.COM

Then you will click on the red "Sign Up Now" button.

After you have clicked that button, you will be taken to a page where you will take care of the domain registration part of a website. In the "I Need a Domain" box, you will want to type in the domain name that you would like and see if it is available. You will want to prepare yourself for the disappointment of not getting the domain name that you want, because you would be surprised how many obscure and off the wall domain names are already taken. If your desired domain name is taken, you will probably need to add another word or two until you find a domain name that works for you. Once you click the red "Next" button you will be taken to a page that either A) tells you that your domain name has been taken, and you need to keep searching, or B) tells you that your domain name is available. If your domain name is available you are taken to a page with a form you need to fill out with personal and billing info.

After filling out that form and submitting it, you will receive a message confirming that you have purchased your hosting and your free domain name.

Now that we have taken care of setting up hosting and acquiring a domain name, let us move on to the next step.

Step #2 - Setting Up Wordpress

What is Wordpress you ask? Well, it is a great solution for anyone who wants to have a website, or blog, but don't have the ability to edit HTML, PHP, etc. Wordpress has a ton of functionality built into it, and you can really build almost any type of site you would like, however, we are not going to go into details on the advanced functionality of Wordpress. We are just going to use it to create a simple informational site, that can be easily updated by anyone.

In order to set it up, you are going to want to login to your Host Monster account and login in the upper right hand corner using the username and password that you set up when you signed up for hosting.

From there you will be taken to Host Monster's cPanel page, which contains a ton of great resources that you can use for your website.

Inside of this page if you scroll all the way down to the "Software/Services" section you will see that there is an icon titled "Wordpress", you are going to want to click that icon.

After you click that icon, you will see a page that has some Wordpress text, and then if you scroll all the way down you will see a button that says "Install Now", click that.

You are then taken to a Configuration page. Under "General Configuration" you will want to choose the latest (Stable) version of Wordpress, at the time that I am writing this version 2.7.1 is the latest stable version.

Then under "Where would you like Wordpress installed?" you will want to have your domain name in that box, and then you will want to leave the next box that is to the right blank.

Now, if you scroll down to "Additional Options", you will want to give your site a name.

You will also want to make sure that the checkbox that says "Generate a random Administrator username and password for me" is NOT checked. When you uncheck this box, you will see some options to set your username and password, so go ahead and fill out those fields with your desired username and password.

Also, make sure that you leave "Automatically create a new database" checked.

Finally, make sure that you check the boxes under the "Legal Information" section and click the "Complete" button.

Wordpress is now installed on your website, this is going to make it extremely easy for you to update your website. Now if you go to your domain name, you should see a site that looks similar to this...

Okay, thats all well and good, but you probably want to change the look of your website to something a bit more unique and professional as well as maybe, oh I don't know, add some content to your site. Which brings us to step #3.

Step #3 - Changing the Look of Your Site

So now you officially have a website and it is live. However, when Wordpress gets installed, every installation comes with the exact same generic theme. Luckily for you, there are countless web designers and developers who are creating unbelievable themes for Wordpress which can be installed incredibly easy. There are quite a few free themes available, but if you are looking for something more unique and professional that is not stuffed with spammy links in the footer, I would suggest purchasing a professional theme from Studio Press. Their themes are top notch and for the very affordable price of about $50-$60, you can have a professionally designed Wordpress theme, with advanced functionality.

You will definitely want to check out there site and see if any of the beautiful themes that they offer will suit your needs.

Click here to visit StudioPress website!

Okay, so whenever you have decided on a Wordpress theme that you want to use and you have downloaded it to your computer. You are going to have to go and download a free FTP software program. FTP software basically allows you to take files from your computer and place them on a server for the world wide web to see. I would suggest going to this link http://download.cnet.com/Core-FTP-LE/3000-2160_4-10195752.html?tag=mncol;txt and downloading Core FTP Lite, it is a free program. From there you will want to unzip/install all of the files, and then open Core FTP Lite on your computer.

Once you open the FTP software, you will want to open a new connection by adding your site url or domain name, and then inserting your FTP username and passwords. The username and password are the same ones that you set up when you signed up for Host Monster...hopefully you remembered those. Once you have input this info hit the "Connect" button and then you are logged into your site via FTP. From here you will now see two windows that look like this...

So, how does this work you ask? Basically the window on the left shows all of the files on your computer, and the window on the right shows the files on the server for your website when you are connected.

Focusing on the right side with the files on your own computer, you are going to want to navigate to the new theme you downloaded and click one time on that folder. Then on the left side you will want to double click on "public html", then double click "wp-content", and finally double click on "themes". Once you are in the "themes" folder you are going to want to transfer your new theme folder that is highlighted on the left side (your computer files), then there is an arrow that points to the right window (your server files), click that to upload your new theme.

Now that you have uploaded your new theme, you can close the FTP program.

The next thing we have to do is activate that theme, to do that you are going to want to login to the "admin" section of your website by going to www.yoursitename.com/wp-admin obviously substituting yoursitename with your domain name. Now you will come to a page that looks like this...

Login using the username and password that you setup when you installed Wordpress.

In order to activate your new Wordpress theme, you are going to want to click on the link off to the left titled "Appearance", but don't click the word appearance, just click on the arrow to the right that is pointing down. Once you click on that arrow, some more options will show up below, you will want to click on "Themes".

After you click "Themes" you should be taken to a new page that will have all of the themes that are currently available to you. You should see a link and a screenshot to the new theme that you just upload, click on that and then click "Activate Theme".

Now you should have successfully upgraded the look of your website to a theme that you feel fits the feel that you are going for in a website. Now all that is left is for you to start adding content to your newly launched website.

Step #4 - Adding Content to Your Website

In order to add content, I should explain a few things regarding Wordpress and its functionality. There are two ways to add content to your site, the first is to add content to "Page". A page in Wordpress is exactly what you probably would expect a page to be like. However, there is another section within Wordpress called "Posts". These are basically news related items, or blog posts. These "Posts" get updated on the homepage of your website. You will definitely want to do some experimenting in order to fully discover what Wordpress and your particular theme are capable of, so go ahead and try some things out. I will quickly go over how to easily add "Pages" and content. With the interest of saving you from a lot of extra reading, just know that adding content to a "Page" is almost identical to adding content to a "Post", so I will stick to only describing how to update content within "Pages".

So, the first thing that you will probably want to do is add a page. In order to do this you will have to click the arrow to the right of the section titled "Pages". You will see a few options below after you click on the arrow, and you are going to want to click on "Add New".

From there, you will be taken to a page where you can title your page as well as add content. When you look at the page, it should be pretty self explanatory on what to do. When you are ready to make your new page visible to the world, click on the button on the right titled "Publish".

Now that you know how to add a new page, I think that it is probably time to set you loose on your website to discover all of the options that you have. This article was meant to be a quick start guide for absolute beginners to make their own website. If you want to push the limits of your site and get more advanced in your abilities, I would suggest researching a bit more on Wordpress.

The thing that is important to realize when you read this article, is that it really is not that hard to get a website. Now if you want something more advanced, or 100% unique, you will probably need to hire out a programmer and/or a web designer. However, if your main goal is to just get some information out there then this is probably your best solution to getting a high quality and fully functional site without any coding or design knowledge and without hiring anyone to help.