Choosing the Right Host
When choosing a web host it is first important to figure out your needs. How much bandwidth and storage you need, what features you need, whether you need shared, reseller account, VPS, or dedicated server are all important factors. A shared account is good for smaller websites that don’t use too many server resources. This is most likely the way to go with a new website, it is always possible to upgrade in the future. A reseller account is good if you plan to sell web hosting, or if you plan to host multiple domains, as it is usually easier to manage multiple sites through a reseller account. If your website requires a lot of resources, a VPS or dedicated server is the way to go. Once you narrow down to hosts which meet your needs, do some research to make sure the host is reliable and has quality support. A Google search can bring good results or a search on webhostingtalk.com.

Registering a Domain
Some web hosts will offer you a free domain, many do not. If your web host doesn't, it is generally not be best choice to register the domain through your host. You will often be overcharged. It is recommended to register through a company such as Godaddy which specializes in domain registration. Through their service it is very easy to manage your domain, and the prices are reasonable. Godaddy often has discount codes available for domain registrations, so do a Google search for promotional codes before registering!

Building your Website
There are many tools available to build a website. Whatever you use, it will be beneficial to have at least some knowledge of HTML. Website builders are not perfect and sometimes the code needs to be edited manually. Some people advocate coding the entire website, but this isn’t easy for a beginner, and better results can be achieved in other ways. Your web host will very likely offer you some form of website builder. However, this is not the best solution to building your website.  Adobe Dreamweaver is a very good option. Although this program is expensive, it is very effective and easy in use. You can obtain a fully functional trial version at adobe.com. Alternatively you can use a template, or hire someone to build your website, although this last option may be costly.

Promoting Your Website
There isn’t much use to a website, if no one knows about it. The first step to bring traffic to a website is to make sure it is being indexed by search engines. If not, many search engines have submission forms for websites. A popular way of advertising websites is pay per click advertising. The most popular option for this is Google Adwords. Advertisers bid on keywords, and then their ads appear on search engine results. There are other ad services such as Yahoo and Adbrite which are also popular. Another option to consider is purchasing text links and banner ads on websites. Building a strong link base will not only get you traffic through link clicks, but may aid your search engine rankings. The more quality incoming links you have, the higher your Google Pagerank will be. This rank is used by Google to partially determine your search result positioning. There are many services out there which advertise to optimize your search engine positions and these may be a good alternative for beginners. Forums such as Sitepoint, Digitalpoint, and Namepros are good resources to communicate with other webmasters selling advertising space.