For newbie's starting out with an online venture the notion of building a site can be a challenging one. There is so much information out there it's hard to know where to start. What direction should you go in to yield the best results?

Where you really need to start is with yourself. Write down what you wish to accomplish and put together some form of outline that will help you stay focused. One thing is for sure when doing anything online and that is you will find yourself getting distracted here and there when seeking out information.

This happens to us all but if you have an outline posted in front of you then it will be easier to stay focused. To make life easier on yourself you can use a site builder to build your site.

The advantage of a site builder is that it will help you to construct your site without having to worry about the technical details. The good site builders will also help you to construct your web pages properly so that your reader can understand your message and the search engines can figure out what your pages are about.

This will help your site to get indexed and into the search engines which overtime will provide you with free targeted traffic and if your webpage's are set up right this traffic will make you money.

In some cases site builders come with hosting as well. Once again this provides you with less to worry about and you can get on with the task of building your site around your favorite topic.

To conclude keep it simple, stay focused and you will achieve your goals.

What Is PHP?

The full form of PHP is Hypertext PreProcessor and is a server-side scripting language. The PHP code can be combined with regular HTML tags and parsed on the server. The creator of PHP, Rasmus Lerdorf first displayed the language in the form of a Perl script . In 1997 it was adapted by Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski to use a C-written compiler. They completely reconstructed the original PHP into the web language that we know and use today.

Uses of PHP

It is used in the creation of dynamic web pages. Web developers like it because of its fast parsing and flexibility and versatility. PHP is a popular tool for managing a form's data after it is submitted and comes built in with many different interfaces and API's. It has database capability built into the language, the most common database being MySQL. Typically the PHP can connect to any SQL enabled database.

The Syntax of PHP is similar in structure to Perl and C where curly braces { } define blocks of code and semi-colons specify the end of a statement PHP is as easy to learn as Perl. It maintains all the traditional loops, if/else, and subroutines that are expected in a programming language. One difference between the two is that the code'?' is embedded in with the HTML; you could however, use a separate file. The PHP code is different from HTML code by use of the opening and closing tags. When it finds a PHP file, it tells the server to scan through for these tags, and execute the code in between them. The server recognizes a PHP enabled file by its extension, .php. These are essentially HTML files with PHP codes in them.

Getting Started

To start PHP requires a server with PHP installed and a simple ASCII text editor such as Notepad or VI, eMacs, Kate, etc. for a UNIX/Linux machine.

What are the problems faced by PHP?

It is case sensitive. For example if you name a variable $MyVar, you cannot call it as $myvar or $mYvAr. In case you forget to close your curly brackets, then it helps to indent lines inside the curly braces so that any missing braces can be spotted easily.

The key element to your success is you. It is what you do today that will determine whether you succeed or fail. Beyond that it comes down to consistency. It's what you do every day that will bring results. Sporadic efforts here and there will not yield success long term.

So your first objective is to figure out what you are going to build a site around. Write down your interests and various topics that may be relative to those interests. Once you have a list then its time to start researching.

The key to effective research is focus. Focus can be achieved by understanding what your objectives are and what can help you achieve those objectives. As you know you need traffic to your site to have any hope of making money. No traffic means no money.

So you will need to research markets that have a high level of activity online. The ideal scenario is to find keywords that get searched a lot and have little competition. With that said you have to be careful.

Competition in actual fact is good because it means that there is money to be made in that market. So what you need to do is find ways to enter the market using less competitive keywords yet still be able to generate income relative to the main keyword.

For example with weight loss there are many ways to enter that market without going after the main keyword. Example; lose belly fat, or lose weight by eating healthy foods and so on. I think you get the idea.

Once you have the keywords that you can compete with you will then need to build your site using each keyword to build a page around. You will need to structure your web pages so that you get the right keyword density.

To conclude there are lots of site builders out there to help you with this. The one I had the most success with was site build it. They cover all of the above and also take care of the hosting. This way all you have to do is engage in your passion.