Help please! How do I set up a website?

I want to set up a forum (not a freebie site though...it'd stand no chance against SC!) There's a free program thing here: http://www.simplemachines.org/
I know that my cousin (just a year older than me, but a computer person) set up his gaming site there (I have a thread on that here if you're interested in online gaming:http://forum.smartcanucks.ca/76507-r...ousins-canada/)
So...how does it work? I downloaded something but don't know what to do with it. Is it just a program and I still have to buy a URL thing? Is that how it works? I have absolutely no idea. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

to use that you would need to set up a server and pay access fees ect, to set up a simple no fuss message board, you can try the free ones that do the work for you, such as http://www.freeboards.net/main.htm or http://www.getforum.org/ all you do is design it and set it up the way you like it. might be simpler. good luck.

CAn you use google ads etc on these?

I wanted to make money with Google ads like my cousin. I will check out the free website places later...but how would I do this? I'm sooo confused :(

Generally the free forums have advertising on them already, so you don't make the pofit on them (That's how they offer them for free.)

There are many many MANY hosting sites out there: It's just a matter of finding a package that works for you. It sounds like you might want to sit down and write out what you need / expect from the website. Some things to think about:
1. Size. How big is your forum in terms of features / boards / etc. This is the total amount of space you expect it to reasonably take up, in MB or GB. Remember that letting people load custom avatars and signature images to your server take up lots of space. If you are running something graphics-heavy, take that into account.

2. Bandwidth. This is like size, but is the total amount of traffic loaded through the page on a monthly/weekly/daily basis. For example, if your forum mainpage is 3MB, you need 3MB of space on the server. But if 100 people visit your forum every day, you need at least 300MB of bandwidth allowance daily. For this you need to think of how many users you will be servicing with your forum.

Those are the big two for hosting. Domain registration is something else entirely. You have to purchase/register the website address (for example, smartcanucks.ca ;) ) seperately, though some hosts will offer a domain for a year included in the package. I use gandi.net for hosting, because I agree with their business practices and they have great customer support, though they are a bit more expensive than some (about $15 / year).

For hosting, just look around and see what you can find. The only advice I can give is to stay away from Godaddy. They're the worst.

My suggestion is not to worry about ads quite yet. You'll have time to work on that after you have a feasable website first. For the most part, ads do NOT generate enough revenue for site upkeep.

I agree with Jacq and kool_105. . There are lots of free resources to start off with (for example Freeforums.org) that have forum software and style templates already done for you, which lets you focus as a new site owner on content and membership, etc.

The downside is that many free boards that DO allow advertising simply allow Google etc. to place targeted ads on your boards - not your own ads. And of course, you often don't have control over what ads appear on a free board (I've heard lots of stories of church group forums being surprised by adult ads appearing on their sites).

As well, the company you have hosting your free board takes any ad revenue - not you. These are the tradeoffs of a free board.

If you get started on a free site, make sure before you start the forum that you have the option to buy/transfer the domain name to your own server of choice later so you can then have your own Adsense income. Of course, you will then be responsible on your own for administering the forum software (phpBB, vBulletin, etc) as well.

I would recommend purchasing your own domain name and any similar variants of it (.com, .org, .net, as well as spelling variants - this prevents spoofing of your site name for malicious purposes.) This can be quite inexpensive, but at least you then know you own the name and can transfer hosting as you wish without losing all the hard work associated with your site name.