Having My Own Website: a guide to setting up your own website

	Setting Up Your Own Website Yes, you can set up your own website without a web designer!	Tell a friend Enter friend's e-mail:

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Do I really need to set up my own website?

There are lots of reasons for wanting a website:

You want to communicate information or opinions to your customers, clients, organization members or friend.
You want more visibility for your business or organization.
You want to sell goods or services, or solicit donations.
You want to provide round-the-clock answers to questions about a product, a disease, a musical group, a passion, a hobby... You want to free up your service people for the hard questions.
You want to sign people up for a service or membership

There are reasons for NOT having a website

Do you really need a website to communicate with your audience?
Just because everyone seems to have a website these days, that doesn't mean you need one too. If your business is purely local, you might better spend your time joining the Rotary Club or the Chamber of Commerce. You might better spend the money advertising in your local Pennysaver.
Do you have the time and energy to plan a website, set up the website and keep it updated?
Creating a website takes time. You'll have to gather the pictures you want to use. You'll have to plan the site and you'll have to write the website page copy. Even if you were to hire a professional website designer, those are tasks you won't be able to delegate.
Are there better ways to get visibility online?

There are ways to get online without setting up a website. One of them might even fit your needs better than setting up a website of your own. For some suggestions, see Lower hassle alternatives.

If you've decided you want to set up a website

You have several good choices. You can build a website yourself using one of several good services designed for the non-technical do-it-yourselfer, for example, www.GoDaddy.com . You can learn a little about creating websites, download or buy a web creation tool and build a site "from scratch" or with a site building tool offered by your web host, or you can hire someone.

In all three of those cases, you'll need to learn the basics of getting your website recognized in the major search engines, such as Google.

Read about how to market your website here.