Create your first SharePoint Site

Before creating a SharePoint site we should create a Web application. Inside the web application we have to create a site collection. A site collection can have number of sites and sub sites. By default a site collection will have one site which will be the root site.

1) On the windows server go to Start-->Programs and open SharePoint Central Administration.

2) Go to Application Management tab and click on Create a Web Application under "Sharepoint web application management" section.
3) Fill the values and click on OK button.
4) Congratulations! You have created your first web application.

Once a web application has been created we are ready to create a site collection.

1) Go to Application Management tab and click on Create a Site Collection under "Sharepoint Site Management" section.
2) Select the Web Application you just created and fill rest of the values.

3) After you have filled in all the required information, you can click the OK button to start the provisioning process. WSS will provision a new site collection containing a top-level site. The top-level site will be created using the site template you selected.

4) Congratulations! You have now created a new WSS site collection which includes a top-level site created from the template you selected.