If you want a website in order to tell people about yourself or your company, answer frequently asked questions, share information among members of an organization or in other ways communicate without actually selling anything, there are several website hosting companies that offer complete packages and good phone support. They will help you register a name for your website, provide you with tools to create your pages in a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get tool that doesn't require any knowledge of web programming or HTML, and then provide a safe web server to "serve" your pages to the public without your having to get into the business of setting up your own machinery or software.
Some companies and organizations offer free or inexpensive websites, usually with a ready-made design (known as a template). With some, you must be a member. Others pay your way by showing ads on your site. Yahoo! GeoCities is one of the biggest. The drawbacks are: 1) The site is free but they usually show ads. 2) You don't get your own address (like www.mysite.com).
Be careful which company you choose to set up your web page. Some will bombard you with spam or sell your email address to other spammers.
You can have a do-it-yourself website for from $15 to $200 a year. There are a number of companies that cater to people who want just one site and who are not particularly interested in learning the technical aspects of setting up a website. These companies differ from regular web hosting companies in that their emphasis is on providing:
The thing to be careful about is to choose a reputable company that offers good tools for building your website, a choice of graphic designs and templates, and good customer support.
offers a set of easy to use online tools.
Homestead also specializes in serving the beginning website builder.
You won't be able to change the designs provided very much. Most of the page building tools only allow you to edit certain parts of each page. You will, however, be able to add your own text and, usually, insert some of your own graphics.
If you're not sure you want to try this approach, these companies all offer a free trial period where you can try out the tools and see if this avenue is for you.
If you need to ask your website visitors to supply you with information, for example, in surveys, contact forms, feedback forms, forms with calculations, online polls or a customized form with detailed information about a proposed project, there are services and software such as Form Pro that allow you to build your own forms. has a neat and really easy-to-use Flash form builder. Just ask your web host first whether they support "sendmail." They'll know what you're talking about.