Now that you've chosen a Web Hosting plan, it's time to get your site online!

In this guide you'll learn to:

1. Sign in to your Web Hosting Control Panel
2. Choose a site building tool
3. Build your site
4. Preview
5. Publish
6. Update Next steps

For background information and key concepts, please review "Before You Begin Creating and Updating Your Site."

Step 1: Sign In to Your Web Hosting Control Panel

Your Web Hosting Control Panel is the hub of your account, the console that houses your site building tools, links to your email, and other tools. To visit your Web Hosting Control Panel anytime, just type webhosting.yahoo.com in the address bar of your web browser.

If you haven't signed in recently, you'll see a Yahoo! sign-in page. Just enter your Yahoo! ID and password in the fields provided and click "Sign In." (For your security, you need to sign in to Yahoo! before you can access any part of your account.)

You'll arrive on your Web Hosting Control Panel.

Step 2: Choose a Site Building Tool

If you're new to Web Hosting, you'll begin with our Getting Started Wizard, which makes it easy to tackle the three most important steps in web hosting: setting up email, building your site, and promoting your site and business. Click Design Your Site now.

Hint: If you completed some of your web hosting tasks before May 24, 2007, you'll skip the wizard and start with our standard control panel instead. Don't worry — you can easily reach your design tools by clicking the Create & Update tab or any of the shortcuts on your control panel instead.

On the following page, take a moment to read about your site building options.

Too many choices? You could create a site from scratch by writing your own HTML code, but we're guessing you'll want to try one of our site building tools. Site building tools help you build a web site intuitively — with buttons and clicks of your mouse — instead of messing around with complicated code.

We recommend Site Solution, our easiest-to-use design tool, but you can choose any tool you like. (Note that if you need HTML access or ecommerce tools, or you want a very large site or control over every detail of your design, you might try a more complex tool, like our flexible Yahoo! SiteBuilder.)

Hint: For more information on all of your site building options, compare Yahoo! tools or learn about building your site with FTP, a blog, or a third-party tool such as Dreamweaver.

To get started with Site Solution, click the Start Site Solution button now.

Step 3: Build Your Site

Site Solution walks you through the entire site design process. First you'll be asked to complete the following quick steps:

1. Choose a business category.
2. Enter your business name.
3. Enter as much of your business contact information as you like (be sure to enter your information exactly as you'd like it to appear on your site).

When you're finished, we'll use your answers to set up a few recommended pages using one of our professional designs. You'll be able to see how your site is shaping up after just a few clicks.

We'll show you how to change your design and add the important stuff: your words and photos — the things that make your business site yours. Site Solution includes in-page suggestions and a simple checklist to help you craft your own content, as well as layout options that ensure your words look great on every page. Add links and style your text (bold and blue, anyone?) by clicking buttons on the editing toolbar. We'll even show you how to add lead-generating features like a feedback form and optional map, which can help you connect with new customers.

Site Solution Editing Toolbar

For detailed instructions, see our Site Solution guide or check out our quick demo!

Step 4: Preview

Before you show off your new site, be sure to click the Preview button. A new window or tab will open in your browser so you can review your work so far.

You can preview as often as you like. You'll save yourself time — and customers! — by catching mistakes before you share your site with the world.

Step 5: Publish

When you're happy with your pages, you'll want to make them available for everyone to see. Publishing will allow anyone to see your site online by typing your domain name (such as widgetdesigns.com) into the address bar of his browser.

Click Publish.

You'll see a message confirming that you'd like to publish now — click Publish to continue. When publishing is complete, click the view your site link to see your new web site!

Step 6: Update

Congratulations! You've reached a key milestone — but not the last one! To encourage your visitors to return, be sure to keep your site fresh by updating your content regularly.

To return to Site Solution and update your site anytime, visit the Create & Update tab of your Web Hosting Control Panel, then click Site Solution.

Remember to click the Publish button anytime you're ready to show off new changes!

Next Steps

After you publish, you'll want potential customers to be able to find you. To help you get noticed, we'll submit your site to both Yahoo! and Google for consideration in their search engine results, and make sure the inner workings of your site include the information search engines need to find you.

Search engines are not the only path to success, though, and you'll certainly think of lots of ways to spread the word — starting with telling your friends and current customers! To help, we've collected some of the best marketing tools around in the Promote tab of your Web Hosting Control Panel. Some of these tools are free, some require a little investment, but all are designed to help small businesses just like yours succeed.

Learn more about promoting your site.