There are many reasons you may want to build your own web site. In any discussion concerning how to build a web site, however, I would be remiss if I did not mention a couple of items that may seem obvious to some, but are indeed important first steps. Before you actually jump in and begin to build your own site, you should carefully think about and plan what you want your site to do for you. In other words, what type of website do you want and what is your goal. For most of you, probably the basic goal of your site is to make money online. However, you really should go a little deeper than that. Many of the decisions you are going to make when creating your site will be based upon those considerations.

So, before you purchase a domain; before you obtain a hosting account, before you even begin to learn how to build a web site, take time to consider:

What niche do you want your website to focus on? That is, what is your site going to be about - what industry segment, what subject? Is it going to center around general merchandise sales, how to prevent stress or one of literally millions of other topics? It is outside the scope of this article to discuss this in depth, however, if you need help with this, there is a myriad of advice available on the internet, some free, some not. Generally, however, you want to emphasize filling a need. Also, don't overlook the obvious - consider what you enjoy doing, what you are passionate about and what you are good at.

Closely related to the above thought process is determining the type of web presence you think you would like. As you might imagine, there are numerous possibilities here too (and new ones are developed almost daily it seems). Some major categories include websites that:

Promote an offline business;

Sell your own products;

Sell information (e-books, software, reports, etc.);

Provide information - either free or for a fee (blogs, news sites, membership sites);

Sell other people's products (affiliate marketing programs).

Let me include just a bit of additional information about the last category for those of you not familiar with the term affiliate marketing. Frequently, companies will offer programs that allow you to earn a commission on sales of their products that are generated from your website. Because commissions can run as high as 75 percent of the sales price, and because (generally) you do not have to develop, store, or ship the product, affiliate marketing is a very popular means of doing business on the internet.