If you are starting from scratch, the idea of creating a website can be daunting. It is not that difficult. You do not need to know coding or have great technical ability. Just reading up on things and using common sense will help you to create a great website. We would like to help you.

People classify things in different ways, but in our opinion, there are four essential steps to creating a website:

• 1. Get a domain name
  This is essentially a name for your website. Ours is gizagoo.com and we also have gizagoo.ie and gizagoo.net to name but a few. A domain name can cost from as little as €10 euro per year.


• 2. Find somewhere to host it
  Hosting is space on a computer, which is permanently connected to the internet, where the files for your website are stored. We run our own servers, but it is far cheaper and simpler for you to buy a hosting plan from someone like us. A hosting plan can cost from as little as €40 per year.


• 3. Select the type of site
  Sites can be coded in html, generated with a site builder or created and maintained with a Content Management System. You should think about who will be updating your site, what sort of skills they have and what sort of content they will be adding. You can then select the appropriate type of site.


• 4. Create your look and feel
  Gone are the days when you just typed some text and put it up on a plain page. Nowadays people expect a professional looking site. Most sites use templates to ensure that pages on the site all look similar. We love creating templates for our own sites and for our clients. Some standard templates are available for free. A professional custom template generally incurs a once off cost between €50 and €300 depending on your requirements.

Once these steps are complete you can add content. Modern Content Management Systems (CMS) allow non-technical users to add text and graphics to a website in a similar manner to typing a letter in Word or Open Office. This site uses plain html with a template. What can we say? We prefer html, we're geeks. Adding content yourself is free. We charge either an hourly rate or a yearly maintenance fee for adding content.

The essential steps above are all you need to get your site up and running. After that you need to consider whether you need email at that domain, how you know who is visiting your site and how to ensure that you can restore the site in an emergency, perhaps on a different computer. You may also want to drive more traffic to your site, echo your twitters and add other features like shopping baskets, photo galleries or flash animations. Consider these items from the beginning to help clarify what you want from your site.