I got started as the result of an injury and an extensive rehab period. I was looking for something to do to occupy my down time, as well as learn something new, which always intrigued me. I had no knowledge of html, let alone website design, editors or all the rest.

Content

My interest really started with content. I had been recording my AF stories off and on for years, hoping to someday put together a book. A website to display and share these stories seemed like a perfect fit. In addition, I had a very short story of the USS Indianappolis told to me by an uncle when I was but 9 years old and some memories of a grandfathers time during WWI.

It wasn't much, but enough to justify looking into this new fangled thing, called a website.

Research

Since I didn't have a clue as to make a website, I got online, and begun to look over various military websites. First to see how they were laid out, secondly what kind of information they contained, and how they presented it. A third area, was looking to see how many websites presented a personal point of view, not just a rehash of history.

How to Build a Website

Once I had some content and some idea of how to put together a website, it was then time to learn how to do it all. Back in the day, there were a host of free hosting sites, with templates and tutorials for learning. Some were Tripod, GeoCities, Lyco and Bravenet.

I tried them all at one time or another but finally settled on Tripod. For one, because I liked the ease at which I could learn and display my new talent, and two because it was FREE to learn and host my first site. They had plenty of free tools, from counters to website statistics and all the rest.

I can't say my first crack or even the second or third times were successful, but with each rendition, I learned invaluble lessons I put to use. One of the best tools, as Lisa has today is the Forum. There I found common solutions to common problems and a host of very nice people, that I could bounce ideas off of, or ask questions of.

Timeline

I am a picky son of a gun, and am hard on myself. I probably went through six renditions of my military site, before I thought it was good enough to put out to the web. I can't recall the exact amount of time, from my initial interest to my final redintion- but somewhere between 6-12 months.

Although I had some content, I had to learn how to present it. I joined several writing clubs and gained some knowledge of how to write, although for me, it was a long learning curve, lol!

Once satisifed with the content, I begun to experiment with layouts. The first one amounted to nor more than a basic web site layout; Home Page, About Me, Contact Me, Links, Research and from the get go, a Forum.

Over the six years I had the site, I moved from a Free site to a paid hosting....I had my sites with such hosts as Bravenet, IX Webhosting then Startlogic. The site grew from my intial few pages to well over a 150! I had a top ranking on Google and had begun to attract some advertising...(They came to me, not me to them), and had acutally made enough to pay for my last couple of hosting years and SEO).

In Conclusion

My advice to anyone starting out, is to first do a bit of research. If you don't have any content, find out what you are interested in and pursue that avenue. The worst decision one can make is doing something they do not like to do! Forget the money for now!!! You need a lot of things, mainly CONTENT....Don't get in it just for the money...you will be disappointed.

Learn, learn and learn some more...One thing my old man use to harp on us kids..."Your never too old to learn!!" Learn some html, learn some CSS, learn how others layout their sites, how they add content, how they display it, how links are used, how they market and a whole host of other things...

It's not a get rich quick gimmick, or please give me all the answers first....Sometimes you just have to get down on all fours and do some of the hard work first! Mainly, do a bit of research, dive in and enjoy the fruits of your labor!

You don't need to learn every nook and cranny of every little thing, but it sure is nice to know the basics. What I tend to do is look & learn something that has an immediate effect on what I am working on. If it is code. I can spend a half day researching it on the net and experimenting. If it is asking for permission to use a copyrighted image, I will send out emails, save replies and print permissions and save them for later use.

I did experiment with marketing. From banner ads to pay per click to Cafe Press, and Commission Junction. All of them failed miserably. One thing you can overdo, is who and what you market with. They need to be realible, proven and not take up an inordinate amount of your bandwidth. As I re-consititute my military site, I will learn about Ad Sense and some of the other newer marketing tools...but not until my site is proven content wise and search engine wise...otherwise its just a waste of time...GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR NEW PROJECT!