So your ready to make the plunge into developing your own piece of the web.  There are many options on getting your website live, perhaps a blogging platform, CMS, or just good old hand coding.

Before attempting to develop a website, here a few basics tips that you should perform, or at least keep in mind.

Domain name

As each day goes by, finding a domain name you want gets harder and harder.  Finding a domain name that you like or one that relates to the topic of your website can take time, but this should be carefully chosen and researched prior to registering one.  Your domain name will be your brand name, and needs to be memorable and if possible, catchy.

Design

One mistake of first time developers is trying to cram every little flashy, or "cool" thing they have found on other people's websites or a script snippet site onto their website.  First, decide how you want the end product to look before starting to design it.  Keep your design simple, easy to read and navigate.  Choose your colors wisely and ensure they are easy on the eyes when reading.

When designing your layout avoid trying to cram more information then your visitor can handle on one page.  Try to keep your pages to a maximum of 3 folds, a fold is what's visible before your visitor has to scroll down.  

Going live

Once you have designed your website your ready to set it free and put it live for the masses to enjoy, maybe not.  Before going live, test every link and function of your website to ensure they all work.

Validate it using the W3C Validator, this will point out coding errors, while not every website validates, its good practice to try and validate your coding to ensure proper cross browser compatibility.

One other test you could do, is a test provided live by Browser Shots, they will show you how your website looks in all major browsers on different operating systems.

Traffic

Unlike your commute home, the more traffic the better when it comes to the internet.  This is a full-time job for a developer and sometimes the hardest part of running a website.  The first couple of months can be the worst for a new website, the idea that if you build it they will come never comes when launching a website.  It takes countless hours to get people to know your diamond in the ruff actually exists.

First, most surfers use search engines to find what they are looking for, so, make sure you are indexed by all major search engines including MSN, Yahoo and espeically Google.  This can be done simply by submitting your website to them, but the most effective way is to signup for a free Webmasters account at Google and submit a sitemap.

Second, find and visit other websites in your niche, especially blogs.  Posting comments on blogs that are rleated to your website can provide a great deal of traffic.  Posting comments also is the first step in setting up an online relationship with the blog owner which can also lead to being mentioned in one of his/her future posts if they like your website.  Keep your comments on topic with the post subject, you can post your website URL which will make your name link to your website.

Third, forums, same as blogs find as many as you can and register for an account, post a link to yur website in the signature and strat posting, but remember only post legitimate posts, anything spammy will result in you getting banned which will only hurt you in the long run.

Up until the last year or so submitting your website to hundreds of directories was recommended, but Google now frowns upon this, so avoid it.  Look for reputable directories with Google Pagerank, and submit to them.  Avoid paying for submitting your website, this is also frowned upon, unless it's Yahoo's directory, but this will cost you a couple of hundred dollars.  One directory you should attempt getting listed in is DMOZ.

These are just are few basics tips I have picked up over time, they have worked for me and should for you too.