Now that you have decided you want to make your own website, should you go straight ahead and sign up with the web hosting provider? Not yet! Firstly you should decide on your intention of setting up a web site as well the overall theme or concept of your web site. Except for Sitesell, in most cases when you sign with a web hosting provider you will have to decide on the website domain name when you signup their web hosting plan. Sitesell’s Site Build It is not just a web hosting provider; they also provide you with the tools necessary for your website success. So signing up with them opens up a whole set of tools which other web hosting company do not offer which you can use before deciding on a domain name.

So what about your website intention? Will it be a personal blogging site with your name as the domain name? That would really boost your ego with a website bearing your own name, right? With the cost of setting up website has become more affordable plus with a host of extras thrown in, well why not? Go ahead and grab that name before somebody with the same name as yours gets it!

If it is not a personal blogging site, then you need to decide on your theme and topic of your web site. Give it some thought. Perhaps a subject matter that is close to you heart that you know in detail would very well be a good place to start. When you have the heart and passion for a subject you can take your web site to new heights as you go on adding content and features. Because at some point while building up your web site there may be a tendency to give up due to the sheer amount work of tinkering at it. You may ask yourself why you are doing it and want to give up. Even if this was done as a hobby and interest, there will be times that you will feel bog down with the amount of work. Take a break and come back to it later when you are more refreshed.

But what if we throw in some element of earning potential? We will get into that later but it would certainly spice up the effort. But for now, let’s see what kind of topics might be of potential to your website.

These are broad categories, but it could serve as a rough guide.

• Business
• Electronics
• Entertainment
• Finance & Investing
• Food & Cooking
• Health & Medicine
• Hobbies
• Self-Help
• Sports & Fitness
• Travel

When I truly first started on my proper website (yes, there were other web sites previously, but those were free web sites so they didn’t really count!), I was really racking my brains for a topic that I could really muster. I had many interest and hobbies, but which one should I choose? If you throw in all kinds of subject into your web site then it becomes off-topic and that is not what you want to do if you want people to find your web site based on some specific searches.

That’s fine if you are just doing it for pure fun, but my subject here is about building a web site not just for fun but for some profit as well. So it is vital to select a theme or topic for your web site that will bring in traffic.

So let’s take for example my very first web site at Cameron-Highland-Destination.com and how I came up with the overall theme. I like traveling, so does my wife. So I decided to create a travel related website. We traveled to many places but one place we have always returned yearly is Cameron Highlands. Thus my website theme is geared towards this location.

When choosing a travel related web site it can be sub categorized further for example offering hotel booking services, or it could be a travel guide and from there if related to what you are doing perhaps as a travel agency offer your travel services.

You could create a website about a certain geographic location that you know well or even semi-well like me. Hah! My initial knowledge of that place was perhaps 30%. But that was good enough to kick-start the website. Any additional details can be obtained via guide books, magazines and newspaper as well as keeping notes about the area whenever I visit the place for my holiday break. In time, my knowledge grew and so did my website. It was filled slowly but surely with useful information and became the place to check when tourist needed some info about the place.

There is also another reason why you should go for a theme based web site. When your topic is focused, it becomes more relevant when people are looking for specific information. Your whole website will be providing information about that one subject which you have in-depth knowledge. Yes, it’s true! You have that knowledge in you. It is just a tad disorganized inside that brain of yours. And where there are gaps in your knowledge you can do research and fill in the blanks.

When your web site content is specific on a topic, it shows that you are the authoritative figure on that subject matter which you know well in your heart and mind. People will remember and know that you are the one to look for whenever they need to look up information about that particular topic.

Just an amusing thought, because of the sheer amount of information about Cameron Highlands, people thought I live in that place when in actual fact I stay much further away in the lowlands. In addition, I receive lots of request and questions and they ask me whether I can help them out about it.

So as you can see when you create a web site based on a specific theme, people will regard you as the authoritative figure about that subject matter.

So all set about what you want your web site theme and content ought to be? Good. The next step is to decide on the domain name to complement the theme of your web site.