imFreeTools Scripts Software eBooks Reports Tips n Tricks for Internet Marketers

First, why do you need to write blog post offline?

Listed below are some of the reasons I could think of:

It has been nearly 2 years since I posted a question on Drupal.org forum about setting up my very first Drupal multisite.

If you don't mind the challenge, building a website on your own is very satisfying. It's like building a house (virtual one).

(Note: If you prefer having your website built using mix-n-match approach, please see part 1 of this subject)

There a few steps involved as follows:

1. decide on a domain name of choice
2. check if the domain name is available
3. register domain name
4. obtain a web hosting service
5. prepare website content offline
6. upload website

1. Domain name

This is similar to obtaining an address to the premise of a physical business entity. A place where people can go to buy products or services.

Before you register for one, you need to find out if it is not taken yet by doing a simple research. A good site to go for this is:

www.nameboy.com

First, it's not at all difficult to own and build a website. Nothing compares to brick-and-mortar business environement because online business store can easily be built. 

So claim your virtual real estate (VRE) online by creating your very own website.

However, this is one of few places where I don't encourage using free services such as Freewebs, Geocities, Tripod, FortuneCity and many others.

Having urls that end with one of those will give "unprofessional" impression to your website visitors. Also the providers tend to stuff your web pages with ads that may not suit your site target visitors.

One other big minus is that you don't have the liberty to design a site as per your liking, in most cases.

If you simply want to play around with website creation, then try one of the "paid" services as most provide free trials as well. So whenever you decide to go ahead, there's no more learning curve to worry about.