Web Page Editor: A program such as: Notepad, FrontPage, HomeSite, or DreamWeaver, fulfilling the need for an HTML Editor.

Get a FTP client: Software such as: WSFTP_Pro, CuteFTP, SmartFTP, or even the Built-in FTP client for Windows.. there is tons of software out there.

Get your own URL: Either purchase a domain name, or get a free 'custom' url if you use free web hosting. I'll go into more detail about domain names and free hosting later in this article.

Web Hosting: Where your website and web pages will actually exist. Just like how they exist on your own computer before you upload them, they will have to also exist on a web server so that your url or domain name can point to those files and they can be viewed online.

Html Editor

To have a website you must be capable of creating web pages. The most basic way to create web pages, and by far the easiest, is to learn HTML. To create HTML pages, you must have something to edit them with. Whether its Window's most basic editing and authoring tool: NotePad, or something that has free trial versions of its software such as HomeSite or DreamWeaver, or software which many people already have copies of since it comes with Microsoft Office: use Microsoft FrontPage. I'm not going to go into much more detail about Web Page Editors in this article, because learning how they work is not something you can fully learn from reading about it - this article is for understanding their purpose. You need one so you can make web pages.

FTP Software

Once you have created one or many web pages, you will need to upload them to where your website is physically located at: your web server. To upload your files, or transfer an exact copy of them from your computer to the web server, the only way to upload them is with an FTP program. The only exception to this, the only time you won't need an FTP program, is if your website is located on a "free web hosting" domain because these free web hosting places assume you are totally new to making web pages and provide you with FTP capabilities on their website (after you have logged into their system). I personally hate the tediousness and long process it takes to upload files through these free web hosting places ftp tools: so I recommend you find a FTP program even if you 'dont need one' because its a lot faster to upload/download your pages, as well as a whole lot easier, if you use FTP software.

Domain Name

To get your own domain name or url, such as "www.Random411.com" is this website's domain name, you must pay for it. The best prices I know of are at GoDaddy.

However, if you don't have any spare money to spend on a domain name, you can always get a "custom domain name" at any free web hosting provider. For example, if you created an account at Yahoo Geocities , then your url for your website would be: www.geocities.com/YourLoginName/ . Internet savvy people, such as myself, typically try to not visit websites that have geocities.com, or any other "free web hosting" type of domain name in its url, because most people that use those places are typically brand new to making web pages, and their pages lack quality content, and their design and layout is typically really annoying to have to navigate through. That being said, if you want people to visit your web pages, you want a lot of traffic, and want to make money through advertising (which is always a good thing, and profitable), then do NOT use these free web hosting providers. They never give you full control of your pages: They ALWAYS insert their own advertisements (popups and banners) onto your pages so that they make money off of you since you aren't paying them anything - they have to profit somehow or else they would never have offered these "free" services. Remember: everyone wants to make money.

Web Host Provider

When it comes to paying for web hosting, you always have to take into concideration several key factors that will affect how much you will have to pay in web hosting:

I am going to assume that you do not opt to take the "free web hosting" route, because if you do, they have all kinds of tutorials on their own websites and you are better off reading their tutorials than this article. So, here is your checklist:

- Buy a domain name. (For this 'checklist', we will assume you purchased www.Random411.com at GoDaddy )

- Pay for some web hosting. ( WH4L )

- After paying for web hosting, login to your web hosting account and find the section that tells you where to point your DNS servers. These usually are called something like DNS1.YourWebHost.com and DNS2.YourWebHost.com. What ever they may be, write them down.

- Login to your domain-purchasing account so that you can edit the properties of your domain name(s). In this case, go to GoDaddy, login, go to "Manage Domains, and click to edit Random411.com. Change the Domain Name Servers, DNS, to point to your web hosts DNS servers. As mentioned previously, your web host should tell you what these DNS servers names are. Changing the DNS of a domain name usually takes 2-5 days to "propogate" or take effect. This means that after changing the DNS, even if *everything else* is set up correctly, your website and pages may not be 'availible' or load correctly until the DNS propogates.

- Create one or many html pages.

- Upload your pages to your web server's FTP location.

- That is everything!