How to open an Internet site

After thinking about it for a long time, you have decided to create your own website and start publishing content on the Net. Once you have completed all the initial operations, such as the choice of the topic to be discussed and the domain name, it is time to move on. the choice of hosting, the services associated with the latter and the platform to be used to create the pages that will make up your website. However, not considering yourself an expert on the subject, you searched the web for a guide to help you achieve your goal and you ended up here.

If that’s the case, let me tell you that you’ve come to the right place at the right time! In the next paragraphs, in fact, I will explain how to open an Internet site indicating both the best free services you can rely on to create a blog at no cost and the main paid hosting that allow you to have a custom domain. In addition to walking you through the walkthrough of creating your website, I’ll also show you some methods that will help you monetize your work overtime. Interesting, right?

If you can’t wait to find out more, let’s not waste any more time chatting and let’s get to the heart of the matter immediately. Courage: make yourself comfortable, take all the time you see fit and carefully read the instructions I am about to give you. Choose the solution that you think best suits your needs, try to put my “tips” into practice and I assure you that creating your website will really be a breeze. Happy reading and, above all, good work!

Index

• Open a free website
  • Open a free website with Google
  • Other solutions to open a free website
• Open a paid website
  • Costs for opening an Internet site
  • Open an Internet site with Aruba
  • Other solutions to open a paid website
• Open a website and make money
  • Earn money with banner ads
  • Earn money with affiliations
  • Open an e-commerce website
• Open a website with WordPress

Open a free website

If you are looking for free solutions to open a website, you will be happy to know that there are several services that allow you to do so. However, they all provide a third-level domain, with the chosen service name listed after the site name (e.g. sitename.servicename.com ).

Open a free website with Google

Opening a website for free with Google is one of the first no-cost solutions that you can consider to create your website. All you have to do is log into Google Sites with your Google account, choose your website name and start building your website pages.

If you think this is the solution that best suits your needs, connected to the main page of Google Sites and, if you have not already done so, select your Google account, then enter the password in the appropriate field and press the Next button. If you don’t have an account yet, my guide on how to create a Google account may be useful.

In the new screen displayed, click on the + button at the bottom right, assign a name to your website by entering it in the Untitled site field and build the main page of the latter: using the right sidebar, you can choose the page layout, add new text boxes and images, while selecting the Themes tab you can choose the graphic theme of your interest and set its colors.

To add new pages to your website, select the Pages tab instead, click on the + button, enter the name of the page to be created in the appropriate field and click on the Finish item. Once you have finished creating your website with Google Sites, click on the Publish button (top right), enter the name to show in its address (the URL displayed will be https://sites.google.com/view / [ chosenname] ) and press the Publish button again.

It will be useful to know that, even once published, you will be able to modify your website whenever you wish. To learn more, you can take a look at my guide on how to create a site with Google Sites.

Other solutions to open a free website

Aren’t you excited about the idea of ​​using Google Sites to build your website? In this case, you can choose one of the other solutions to open a website for free: here are some of the ones that I think are most interesting.

• Altervista: it is among the best solutions to create a free blog with WordPress. It does not impose limitations on storage space and traffic and allows you to monetize your website by adding banner ads. The domain used isnomesito.altervista.org.
• Blogger: is another Google service that allows you to create a website at no cost with the domain nomesito.blogspot.com . Building pages is quick and easy: for the detailed procedure, I’ll leave you with my guide on how to start a blog with Blogger.
• Wix: is a free service that allows you to create your own website by choosing a ready-to-use template, with the ability to customize every single detail. The address of your website is nomesito.wixsite.com: at any time, however, it is possible to purchase a second level domain starting from 4.08 euros/month.
• com is a platform that allows you to create your own blog with WordPress. In its free version, it offers a storage space of 3 GB, a third level domain ( www.nomesito.home.blog ) and does not allow you to install new plugins or to insert advertising banners. To learn more, you can read my guide on how to create a free blog with WordPress.com.

In addition to the solutions I just recommended, you should know that there are other services to create free websites, such as Jimdo, Weebly and Strikingly. To learn more, you can read my guide on how to create websites for free.

Open a paid website

Opening a paid website is the best way to create a professional website. In fact, unlike the zero-cost services, by putting your own wallet and investing a few tens of euros a year, it is possible to have a second-level domain and manage every detail of your Web space.

Costs for opening an Internet site

Before indicating the companies that allow you to buy a web space and explain how to open your website, it may be useful to know what the costs are to be incurred.

As mentioned above, the purchase of a domain and a web space (on a shared server) does not exceed 100 euros/year. Prices, of course, vary depending on the company you decide to rely on, the services you want to activate and the type of assistance you want to use.

My advice is to carefully evaluate the choice of hosting based on your needs. If you intend to create a “showcase” website with little content, you can also consider cheaper solutions with limited storage space. In this case, the cost varies between 40 and 60 euros per year.

If, on the other hand, your intention is to become a blogger or to create the website of your business with the intent of being first on Google, there are many factors to take into consideration, such as the loading speed of the pages which, in part, good hosting is also due. In this case, it is essential to carefully evaluate the choice and my guide on how to choose a hosting for your website may be useful.

Open an Internet site with Aruba

If you have chosen to open an Internet site with Aruba and would like to know the detailed procedure for purchasing your domain and web space, connected to the Italian company’s website, enter the chosen name in the your domain field, choose the extension of your interest ( .it, .com, .org, .info, etc.) and click on the Search button.

If the chosen domain is available, press the Continue button and, in the new open page, choose the Hosting package of your interest: if your intention is to create a blog using a CMS (eg. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Prestashop and Magento) you will have to choose a Linux Hosting, otherwise opt for a Windows Hosting which has support for programming languages ​​such as .ASP and .NET and supports solutions such as BlogEngine.NET, SUBTEXT, yaf and mojoPortal.

Then select the additional services of your interest, placing the check mark next to those you wish to purchase, and click on the Continue button twice in a row, then press the Sign up button to create your account on Aruba or enter your credentials access (if you are already registered) in the Login and Password fields.

Finally, enter your billing information in the appropriate fields, select the payment method you prefer, choosing from PayPal, Credit Card, Bank transfer and Bulletin, affix the marks required to accept the terms of service and click Continue. To complete the payment, click on the Pay with credit card or Pay with PayPal button or, if you have chosen another payment method, wait for the order confirmation email with the data to proceed with the purchase.

For further information, I refer you to my tutorials dedicated to Aruba WordPress hosting and its Cloud Hosting.

Other solutions to open a paid website

If you want to know other ways to open a paid website and carefully consider the options available to you, here is a list of other popular hosting services that you can consider.

• Register: the famous Italian company offers numerous services, such as Linux hosting for the main CMS (WordPress, Joomla, PrestaShop) starting from50 euros/month + VAT with a free domain for one year.
• Siteground: among its strengths, there is certainly an excellent assistance service and, by purchasing one of the plans between GrowBig and GoGeek, the possibility of creating multiple Internet sites on the same Web space. The cheapest plan (ideal for Internet sites with traffic of less than 10,000 monthly visitors) costs € 3.95 / month + VAT for the first year (then € 9.95 / month + VAT) and offers 10 GB of storage space.
• GoDaddy: offers several packages specially designed for the most common CMS (eg WordPress). The cheapest plan (87 euros/month), allows you to have 10 GB of storage space on SSD and is ideal for websites with traffic not exceeding 25,000 monthly visitors.
• ServerPlan: allows you to create your own website starting from  24 euros/year + VAT, including a domain, 5 mailboxes and a storage space of 2 GB on SDD.

Open a website and make money

If your intention is to open a website to make money, you need to know that it takes time to have good results on newly created websites. However, if you have a blog with excellent content and well positioned on Google, you can place advertising banners on it, try to make money with affiliations or open an e-commerce.

Earn money with banner ads

If you have done a good job of positioning on search engines and your website has a decent monthly traffic,  banner ads are the first solution that I would recommend to start monetizing.

If so, Google AdSense is the best service to start earning. If you have never heard of it, this is the Google advertising circuit that does not require minimum requirements in terms of views and allows anyone to get banner ads to place on their website.

To start earning with Google AdSense, connected to the main page of the service, click on the Login button and log in with your Google account, then press the Register now button and enter all the data required to complete the registration.

After creating your account, all you have to do is click on the Copy Code button on the Link page of your site to AdSense, paste the code you just copied into the HTML code of your site (between the <head>  and  </ head tags  > ), put the check mark next to the option I have pasted the code on my site and click on the Finish button to start the verification and activation procedure.

As soon as your request is accepted (you will be notified by email), you will be ready to create your first banner ad. To do so, click on the Ads item, choose the Ad units option and press the New ad unit button, then select the Text and display ads option, enter the name of the ad unit you are creating in the Name field and click on the Save and get code button.

Then copy the code shown in the Ad Code field, paste it on the pages of the site where you want the banner to be displayed and that’s it. To learn more, I leave you to my guide on how to make money with AdSense.

Earn money with affiliations

The affiliations are another viable option to monetize your website. The affiliate programs that you can choose from, vary according to the subject of your blog, and among those who feel to advise me are certainly mentioned Amazon, Apple, TicketOne, Skyscanner and eBay.

If you are wondering how affiliate programs work, you must know that all you have to do is sign up to the one you are interested in and create your account, which is useful for creating banners and links to products and/or services to be inserted later on yours. website.

Unlike banner ads, which allow you to earn by viewing and clicking the advertising space, affiliations allow you to have a profit only if the linked product or service is purchased: each successful sale is “rewarded” with a commission on the price of the item sold and which varies from program to program and from product to product.

To deepen the subject and learn more, I suggest you read my guides on how to make money with a site with affiliations and how to make money with Amazon with affiliations.

Open an e-commerce website

If you have products to sell and you have decided to increase your earning possibilities by creating an e-commerce, also in this case, to create your website, you must purchase a Web space as I indicated in the paragraphs dedicated to the opening. of a paid website.

First, however, I advise you to carefully choose the CMS that best suits your needs. In addition to WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, to create and manage your e-commerce you can also consider Magento and PrestaShop, two open source platforms specially designed for online sales websites. In this regard, I suggest you take a look at my guide on how to create an e-commerce site.

In some cases, however, opening a site to sell is not the best solution to make money. In fact, if you do not carry out an excellent SEO (Search Engine Optimization) activity to improve the positioning of your website on search engines and do not plan an editorial activity parallel to the sales activity and aimed at attracting new users and possible customers, it is preferable to rely directly on sites dedicated to Internet sales. In this case, Shopify could be useful: an all-in-one service that allows, in a few simple clicks, to create an e-commerce with unlimited products.

The service, already used by over 1,000,000 stores around the world, is also usable as an app for Android (available on the Play Store and alternative stores ) and iPhone / iPad (available on the App Store ) and includes unlimited secure hosting, bandwidth unlimited free, a free shopify.com domain name (with the possibility to buy a custom one or use an existing one), marketing campaigns via social networks, email or SMS and a simplified administration panel to manage products, customers, orders, payments, shipments, inventory etc. The possibility of using the Facebook sales channel should also be emphasizedto synchronize their products and create marketing activities on the famous social network and also take advantage of Instagram Shopping.

Shopify is free for an initial trial period (no renewal obligation), after which you can choose from various plans, starting at $ 29 / month. To activate the trial, connect to the official website of the service, type in your email address and press the Start free trial button. Then enter your password and name to give to the shop, click on the Create your shop button and indicate if you have already started selling, what your current income is, in which sector you want to operate and if you are creating a shop for a customer.

Finally, enter the address information to receive payments, press the Enter the store button and start setting up your e-commerce. For more details, check out my tutorial on how to create an e-commerce with Shopify.

Open a website with WordPress

Would you like to open a website with WordPress? In this case, all you have to do is follow the instructions I gave you in the previous paragraphs to choose the web space and start creating the pages of your blog.

If you intend to create a website for free, you can rely on Altervista or WordPress.com which allow you to have a free web space with the famous CMS already installed. If, on the other hand, you want to rely on paid solutions, I recommend you read my guide to Aruba WordPress hosting and my tutorial dedicated to the best WordPress hosting.

After choosing the web space that best suits your needs and logging into the WordPress Dashboard following the instructions that were provided to you via email following the activation of your website, you can customize the graphics of the latter by choosing among numerous ready-to-use themes (both free and paid), install new plugins to increase the functionality of your website and, subsequently, start creating pages and publishing articles. To find out more, I leave you to my guide on how to use WordPress.