Learning how to start a website isn't easy, and a lot depends on the website hosting design packages you are interested in. Most people believe that the best way to start a website is to look for a host offering a free site. You won't build a successful online business using a free website: there is no such thing, unless it is provided to you in order to market a specific product.

If you are trying to sell your own products or services, then you will not find a website anywhere for free - you will be able to build something looking like a website, but it won't be a website because it won't be connected to the internet. That costs money, and you also have to pay for your domain name.

So let's lose the idea that you can get a website free and then use it to build a successful online home business selling your own products or even affiliate products. You can't. If you disagree with me, then leave now because you are going to be one of the 99% that fail to make any money online no matter how hard you try. You must have the right mindset to succeed and you must also be realistic and live in the real world.

If you want to learn how to start a website, then be prepared to pay. No matter what you read online, you won't make money on the internet for free. It will cost you and one of the tricks of internet marketing is to keep that cost to a minimum when you can least afford it and pay more once your business is successful.

Website hosting design varies across a wide choice of hosting services, and you can pick and choose the type of service you want. However, no matter which you choose a website will cost you money, and a fully featured site fitted with everything you will need to be successful online will cost you in the region of $1000+. If you are clever you won't have to pay that, but let's look at what is involved in that money. I am not going to detail the cost of every item, just list them, and if you can get that lot for under $1000 you are doing well.

Let's assume you have a product to sell (your own or somebody else's) or a service to offer, and want to build a website to market your business and make money from it. That's why you are in business, after all, to make money, so you will have to make more than you spend. Only around 1 out every 100 who start actually succeed in making money. They might make $50 but spend $50 doing it, so they aren't making money. Here's what you will need:

A web host: somebody that offers you the web space to sore your files and a means of connecting to the World Wide Web. The web is not the internet. The internet is like the telephone lines and the web comprises all the telephones you can connect to. Your host allows you to make these connections, and will charge you a monthly or annual fee. Which of the following is included depends upon the website hosting design package you choose.

A domain name: you will need a name for your site. You hire that on an annual basis from a domain name provider. You can't just do it yourself because in order that you can use it, your domain name has to be registered with the world-wide Domain name Service (DNS).

Website design software: you can try the free software available or the expensive applications such as Dreamweaver. You get what you pay for, and something in between will be best if you want a professional-looking site. That includes an HTML editor. It's possible to start a website using free software, but it will look like free software was used.

An Email service: a free service will be no good because won't buy from you. You will need a pop email service with unlimited email addresses for the various parts of your business (service, sales, support, etc). A good website hosting design option will include these.

A product showroom: you have to be able to describe your products and set prices for them. Your customers want to see what you have to offer, particularly if you are selling multi products.

A payment processor: PayPal or Clickbank might do if your product fits their rules. However many people won't touch PayPal and you need another form of processor that takes debit and credit cards. You should also offer old fashioned checks. These processors can be expensive to set up with a monthly fee.

Traffic generation: you have to get traffic to your website, so you will need good keywords. For that, you will likely need a good keyword research tool. There are free tools available, but for the kind of deep keyword research that can provide results, you might want something better.

Traffic analysis: you definitely need traffic analysis software. Without knowing what your popular web pages are and on what pages your visitors most frequently exit, you will find it difficult to make improvements to your website. You must also get some idea of how many visitors you have and how long each stays on each page.

SEO: without good search engine optimization you will find it almost impossible to get your web pages listed. That will be a big disadvantage.

Search Engine Analysis: you need software to tell where and one which search engines your web pages are listed.

Autoresponders: you need software to answer your emails, send invoices and receipts, accept payments and deliver electronic products such as software and ebooks. They can send weekly courses, regular newsletters and even run your blog for you. They can also be expensive.

A Blog: this is a must, and will offer a great deal of help in advertising your website and products and driving traffic to any page on your site of your choosing.

WEB2 Social Networking Interfaces: you will be more successful if you interface your website with the social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Craigslist. You need software for that and the knowledge to use it.

You will be really lucky to start a website with all that for under a grand: twice that sum more likely. Yet that is what you will ultimately have to get. If you don't then you might be one of those 99%. If you still think you can make it with a free website (that doesn't offer these extras free) then you are welcome to try, but when you fail you will have lost too much time and wasted too much money.

Lucky for you, it is possible to find website hosting design options that will offer all of the above on a monthly or yearly basis for a lot less than $1,000. You have to decide how serious you are going to be in building a successful website. If you really want to know how to start a website that works, then read through that list again.