First you have to decide the subject on which you want to create website. If you are not clear about layout design for your website you can visit similar website to get best looking layout. Select few layouts and write down about what you like and dislike about each layout. Make a separate note about all positive points you like about their lay out and content. One of the easiest ways to get help is by searching internet with "ideas for website".

You must have clear picture of your target audience. You must target specific group of people whether by age (for e.g. small kids will have different interest than teenagers) or by profession (for e.g. doctors, engineers).Think how you will make your web-site useful to them. This will help you in selecting content for your web site.

Do keywords research to select if other people are searching for your topics and learn more about your potential clients. There are lots of free keyword tools to help you get more information about your topic. You will need to find important keywords so that you can have maximum visitor and traffic on your web-site.

Have a clear picture about your financial commitment. How much money are you willing to put in to your website? You can start and run a website for free, but the more money you require to make from your site, the more time and money you will have to invest. If you do not care much about making money (like if you are interested in showing off your old coin collection) you can get away with free web hosting & sporadic maintenance.

Select your subject for which you are more passionate and well verse about. You will be spending your valuable time working on your web-site. Keep on updating your web-site as much as possible. This will help to generate traffic as same people will revisit your web-site again and search engines will promote your web-site.

Register a domain name (which is easy to recall and spell) and select a web host. The best domain name also includes your main keywords and some variation of what solution you provide.