First, you must register a domain name for your site, and find a company to host it for you. In other words, you need to stake out "mycompanyname.com" or something similar as your own, and make arrangements for that name to point to a web server provided by one of many hosting companies. Domain name registration prices vary, but should be $35 per year or less (the best deals are much lower, but read the fine print; make sure you will legally own your domain name). Hosting prices vary from $10/month on up depending on the nature of your site and the amount of traffic you expect; extremely popular sites can expect to pay for a more expensive plan, or to pay extra bandwidth charges. Many web hosting companies can handle domain name registration for you in order to speed things along. Web Hosting Ratings offers reviews of the many different plans and companies available.
Second, you will need to create your web site's content. In most cases you will already own one or more programs that can be used to make web pages. For instance, both the 100% free OpenOffice suite and Microsoft Office offer a "Save As HTML" option in their word processor software. Also, both the Mozilla browser and the Netscape browser offer a built-in web page "composer;" just pull down the file menu, pick "New," and then pick "Composer Page." Creating a page with these tools is much like working with any word processor, with the addition of the ability to make links to other pages and sites.

You will also need to create graphics for your site, of course. Your graphics must be in GIF, JPEG or PNG format to be used effectively on the web; please do not put BMP files on the web as they are very, very slow to download and do not work with every browser. Linux users will want to use GIMP. Windows users should consider the inexpensive Paint Shop Pro. Macintosh users and high-end graphics mavens swear by Photoshop.

Third, you will need to upload the pages and images you have created to your new web space. Your hosting company will provide instructions for this. Typically your hosting provider's instructions call for moving files via FTP; you can use the "Publish" option on the File menu of Netscape/Mozilla composer, or any of the many FTP programs available.

Now your site is up!

Webmasters who wish to understand the web more directly and gain more control will be interested in learning about HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), the format in which web pages are created. Although I have recommended user-friendly tools above, it is not difficult at all to learn to write your own HTML tags. For more information, see the HTML entry.

Professionals and others with a significant budget should also look at Macromedia Dreamweaver, currently the most reputable high-end tool for creating web pages.