Getting started making a web site

So ya wanna web site, ehhh? While this modest page is by no means exhaustive or complete, it gives you an overview of how to build a new web site from scratch. Plan ahead and keep track of all the little details and you'll be fine.

Register a domain name I like DomainMonger.com. They're not the cheapest registrar but in all the years I've used them, they've let me down.

Find a hosting company You need to put your web site's files on a server. If you won't be hosting your own site I suggest Speakeasy. Again, not the cheapest but by far one of the hippest places you'll ever do business with. Nerds and geeks like you and me. OK, like me. I've used Speakeasy for a decade now. Real folks across town here in Seattle answer the phone 24/7/365. They know their sh*t and their terms of service are geek friendly.

Plan out what you're going to build Think about the structure and navigation of site. What do you want it to do? How do you envision people interacting with it? I'm not talking about what it looks like (the skin) but how it's structured (the skeleton). I find it helpful to think in a classic outline model. Roman numerals, capital letters, getting more detailed and granular as you tunnel down. Or think of the site like chapters and sections in a book. No matter what mental construct you employ, the structure will manifest itself in the site's navigation.

Write some HTML I suggest sticking as close to XHTML as possible. Adhere to standards. Cast as wide a net as possible and your site will be experienced by visitors on computers, phones, and other devices using all sorts of browsers. How you write your HTML is up to you.

Put comments in your HTML One day, some day, a comment you left in a page's HTML is gonna save yer *ss. Maybe not today or next week but sooner or later one will. So start using them now.

Validate your site Good clean HTML code is well behaved across multiple browsers. Keeps one outta trouble. Validators walk through your site highlighting areas you need to fix.
W3C HTML validator • WDG HTML Validator • W3C Link Checker • Link Validation Spider

Talk the spiders Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines use programs called spiders to walk through your site and index what it finds. Don't wait for them to stumble across you, let them guess where your pages are, or allow them to miss new or updated pages. Tell them your site exists by having them verify your site.
Google Site verification • Yahoo! Site Explorer & validation • Live Search webmaster central

Use the following line in the <head> section of your main index page to tell the spiders to look for themselves at what your site's about instead of relying on Open Directory Project. You can control your site and the clues it leaves for the search engine's spiders. You have way less control over what's in ODP.
<meta name="robots" content="noodp">

Search for other sites like this one:

Create site maps Part of talking to search engine spiders is giving them a roadmap of your site, telling what's where and more importantly when it was updated. The two main styles of site maps are sitemap.xml and ror.xml Use both. You can create them on one website. Use this sitemap validator. Put links somewhere (like the bottom of your main index page) that point to the sitemaps. Additionally put this line in the <head> of your main index page:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="ROR" href="ror.xml" />
You can also put your sitemap URL in your robots.txt file on the assumption that good spiders look for and acknowledge robots.txt. Most think of this file as a way to restrict accces instead of a way to direct access. Try this in your robots.txt file (you do have one, don't you??):
User-agent: *
Sitemap: http://www.yourSite.com/sitemap.xml

Google Analytics Free web site traffic analysis. Without it, you're not even guessing. A sliver of code at the bottom of your pages will result in a treasure trove of data about and your visitors.

Building a new web site