Creating a webpage....where to start? It's a question that comes up time and time again in all sorts of forums on all sorts of sites, including HubPages. And that's not surprising as more and more people become regular Internet users, and become aware of the possibilities that their own website provides. Knowing about creating a webpage means that you can blog if you want to - just record your thoughts and opinions about a subject near to your heart. Or you can run a club or hobby website if you know how to build a site and maintain it. And then there's always the option to make money online if you build a site that sells goods or services, or get paid affiliate commissions for providing customers to a site that does. The options for creating a webpage and building a site are numerous. So where to start?

The fundamental error that most new webmasters make is that they just want to get something "up there" as quickly as possible. To see their "name in lights" as such, and put something up on the Internet for every body to see. I know. I've done it myself more than once. I have a brilliant idea, or so it seems at the time, and I rush into website building, forgetting about the most important stage - the planning. The planning stage of how to build a site is essential because it will give you the outline of roughly how many pages the site will have, the rough content of each, and how they will link together.This in turn will help decide how to build the site. ie, what host or software will be needed, and could even decide what the domain name will be. Planning gives focus to what the site is all about and, not surprisingly, ideas for sites change during this process as the focus of the website shifts.

I find the best approach is to get a big piece of plain paper and map-out the structure of the website. I draw a box for each of the web-pages, a bit like a family tree with the home page at the top, and the other pages/boxes below it. I can give each page a provisional title and can then draw the links between the pages to show how they are going to link the together. I can also write in each box a few headings to give a quick indication of the page content.

Some people, including me at times, find this planning really, really boring. But it does so much to clarify my thoughts. It helps me to work out if the site is even viable, or at least if I'm thinking of five or fifty pages. No plan is "set in stone" of course, and it can change, but it's a great starting point.

Once the basic plan is done you'll have some idea of the overall shape of your site. And what the pages, or posts if it's a blog, are going to be about. Now you can use the words you first thought of for your page titles, or if you want your site to be found by people using the search engines, you'll need to do a little keyword research. I'm not going into any depth on keyword research for this article. Suffice to say that if you can identify the search terms, or keywords, that Internet users choose when they use a search engine, and use these on your pages, in your page titles and file names, then there's a fair chance that your site will be listed in the search results. If you search for keywords on this site (HubPages) you'll find plenty of advice on selecting keywords, although it has to be said opinions differ on selection and use of keywords.

If your new site is for your local club, or similar, and you are not looking for search engine visitors because the site will mainly be visited by members, then keyword research is virtually irrelevant. Club members and friends will know where to find the site and a listing high on the search engine pages is not really important.

The keywords are used for file names and page titles, and worked into the text in a natural way as you write the content for the site. Regardless of where the site is hosted (see below) I strongly suggest that you write the text using a word processor, or an even simpler text editor, spell check and edit as needed, and then paste across into the new website. It is the best way to retain a copy of all your text as a back up and some of the spell checkers used by website software are a little primitive.

At some stage in this planning and content creation process you will have decided if your site is going to be fairly simple in style, i.e., a few pages with static content, that is rarely updated, or is going to be a blog, with posts (new content) produced on a regular basis, or perhaps a combination of the two. To keep things simple let's assume it's one or the other.

Regardless of the style of site, I suggest that beginners steer clear of hosting packages and domain name registration in the first instance. If you are a true beginner, you will lose sight of the purpose of the exercise - how to build a site - by getting lost in control panels, ftp, complex templates and so on. I've been building small sites for years and I get confused at times with the complexity of hosting packages and their interfaces!

For your first site, if you are creating a blog, I suggest you use Blogger. It will give you a very good insight into blogging with what has to be one of the simplest dashboards, or control panels online. Others may suggest Wordpress.org, but it can be a little daunting and Blogger does give you the option of making a few pennies or more, with advertising built into the system. You won't need to register a domain name initially as your site name will be part of the Blogger system.

Some say that they outgrow Blogger and need more flexibility, but it is possible to build large and successful sites that will do everything you need for many years.

Take a look at http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/, one of the most popular money making websites, and still hosted on Blogger.

I'm not going to provide a step-by-step guide to Blogger - it really is simple and the Help is good. You will simply need to open an account, make a few choices about templates, which can all be changed later, and paste your previously prepared content across. This content will give your new blog some initial content, before you start posting on a regular basis.You can find Blogger here

For the simpler, more traditional website of mainly static pages, I suggest you take a serious look at Weebly. Like Blogger, it has a gloriously simple interface for the beginner. Creating a webpage is done by choosing a template and dragging-and-dropping elements on the page. Text can then be pasted across as needed. Also like Blogger you don't need to register a domain name initially as your site name will be apart of the Weebly system, and you can eventually earn a little through advertising if you so choose. Find Weebly here.

Both Blogger and Weebly are free. So as a beginner you find out about creating a webpage without any financial risk. There are paid options, but at the time of writing (Sep 09) you can build two sites on Weebly free of charge. I appreciate there are other site building systems around the Internet, and others have their preferences but for beginners I think Blogger and Weebly are good starting points.

I could write a book on How To Build A Site For Beginners, or at least a much longer article as website building is a huge subject, and many books have already been written - most of them way beyond beginners. But, if you're a true beginner, you really don't need much more than this outline. And if you use the free systems above you can make mistakes, learn, start again and it will cost you nothing. One of the biggest hurdles to success is impatience. I speak from the experience of trying to build sites quickly and giving up when it all takes a little longer then planned.

If you sketch out your ideas on paper, pre-write your content and copy it across to a site such as Blogger or Weebly you will avoid all the hosting decisions and more complicated back-end systems which drive the beginner to despair. Experiment with your new site, change templates and play with the layout, and soon you'll know how to build a site, and have a useful site which you'll be pleased with.