Creating your own website is easy.

If you're a little (or a lot) overwhelmed by the idea of setting up your own website, well you needn't be. Setting up your very own site can be really easy using some very cheap options that do all of the heavy lifting for you.

Before I set up my first site I was really unsure of how to go about it. What name should I choose? Where will I get domain hosting? There are many sites offering domain hosting, so which was the best deal? Were the cheaper one's better, and did the more expensive sites have something that the cheaper ones did not?

To be honest I wasn't even sure what a domain was, or hosting either!

Eventually I found a good deal and tried it out. It was cheap, which is why I chose it in the first place, but for some reason my site never actually got up and running.

Looking back now I realise it was because the web hosting site was over-complicated. It offered too many choices for me, and they kept trying to up-sell me products that I didn't want or need. I spent all of my time trying to build my website, and get my head around their complicated dashboard layout.

After a few months of nothing happening I stumbled upon FatCow web hosting, which was a welcome relief for me. It's layout was so simple, clean and easy to use, and I especially liked that they have live help while you are on the site. It took something that was completely overwhelming for me and simplified it.

Within a couple of hours my site was up, running and online. It is still early days yet, but it is now slowly gaining traffic and moving up the search engine rankings

So, anyway, back to your website and where to begin.

1) Step one is choosing a domain name. This is the name of your site, so when you look up in the bar at the top of your page, your domain name will be up there e.g. www.[your domain name].com

When you get to FatCow's start page you will be able to test a name to see if it is already taken. If not, then it can be yours, otherwise you will be provided with a few suggestion of domain names that aren't taken. FatCow includes one domain name in the price of the service, and you can buy more later if you wish.

2) Step two is domain hosting. This is where all of your pages and information are stored. They are not actually stored on your computer, you upload them to a server. In this case Fatcow is the domain host, so that is already taken care of for you.

3) Step three is building your website. This can be the tricky bit, but I was really impressed with how simple Fat cow made it!

Take a look for yourself, I have included two videos at the bottom of this page that demonstrate exactly how you build your site. The first video is using what is called a drag-and-drop builder. The second is using Wordpress.

Both are pretty simple as you can see, and both options are included with the service. You just need to choose one and give it a go.

There are no extra costs, everything is included, which personally I really liked because it is nice to know upfront exactly what you are in for. If you require any help you just click on the help button and a pop-up window with a live consultant will help you sort out your difficulty.

If you make mistakes they can easily be corrected - your site is not carved in stone! Making mistakes, and trial-and-error are simply part of the process.

How much does it cost?

Well the big question that I am sure you will want to know... How much does it cost? It is less than sixty dollars a year, or $4.67 a month, at least it was when I built my site. *Note - I have just double-checked and they have a special promo on for $3.67 a month*

You are also faced with a number of optional extras which can be confusing, but if in doubt you can always purchase them later.

If you are not sure then I suggest that you just focus on getting the site up and running. You can work out if you need any of that other stuff as you go.

These are the extras that I chose:

1) Site Backup and Restore: This was $12.95 a year and I got this because it regularly backs up your information in case of the worst. Rather than lose any of your content, you can easily restore it if anything goes wrong.

2) SiteLock: This regularly scans your site for viruses and malware and costs $12.95 a year. In hindsight I probably would not have purchased this one because, since I use Norton 360 on my computer, I also used Norton's service to regularly scan my site for viruses etc. This is a free service and I don't think that you need to have Norton to use it, but I am not totally sure about that one.

At least I know that my site is safe since it is regulary scanned by two different services!

3) Domain Privacy: This was $8.99 for the whole year and I think it is well worth it. It gives you privacy by withholding your personal details when someone does a search to find out who owns your site. It basically just says that a registered user of FatCow owns the site.

So there you have it... even with all the extras it only cost me $90 for a whole year to run my website. That is less than 8 bucks a month. Also included in that price is free advertising credit of between 25-50 dollars (each) with bing, google adwords, yahoo, and facebook, available for new accounts with those advertising services. Very handy for getting immediate traffic to your new website!

Well that's all there is too it then? Set up your site in an hour or two, and the visitors (and money) start rolling in, right? Unfortunately I can't say that this is the case. Once your site is up you will move on to the next learning curve which is writing content (if you are on hubpages then you probably already have a good idea of what is involved here), promoting your site, search engine optimisation (trying to get your site on the first page of search engine results), and putting ads on your site.

It can be very involved but I highly recommend it if you like that kind of thing, or if you just love a challenge. If you don't, then perhaps building a website is not for you, or not necessary, there are other options such as hubpages that take care of all of that stuff for you.

I personally enjoy the challenge and the learning that comes with having my own website, and I believe that if you want to be successful at anything then you must be passionate about it. If you are not then find something else that you are excited about.

If it does sound like your thing then I recommend using Fatcow to set up your website. Take a look and you will see what I mean by a very clean layout and user-friendly site. I never knew that it could be so simple, and I wasted a lot of time finding the right place to go.

If you have been on hubpages for a while then you already have a lot of the skills needed to build your own site, and the good new is that any money you make is all yours (aside from the tax man's share of course!) Even though having your own website is a lot more work to get traffic, etc, any further information on how to do it is readily available online.

In coming articles I will let you know of some tools and tutorials that I have found which have been of immense help to me, and which will also help you to get your site earning money.

[To look at FatCow web hosting and check for domain names, click here]