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Have you ever wanted to create a website? If you want to communicate with people in the internet age, a website is your best friend!
Your website is what works for you round the clock on the internet to help you connect with people, generate awareness, build a brand, collect leads, accept payments from customers and so much more. The list is endless.
If you want to communicate with people in the internet age, a website is your best friend!
Your website is what works for you round the clock on the internet to help you connect with people, generate awareness, build a brand, collect leads, accept payments from customers and so much more. The list is endless.
Now there are a few ways to make one.
And you guessed it right, this article will give you concrete suggestions to make your website, in the easiest, most time-efficient way.
So let’s get right into it!
Please note, that this article may contain affiliate links.
The Process of building a website
Building a website, like building anything, is a process. You can think of making a website as a process with the following steps:
Step 1: Know the purpose of your site
You need to know the purpose behind building your website. The clearer your vision around why you’re building your site, the easier it will be to put the building blocks together and make a great website!
Answering the following questions will help you become crystal clear on why you need a website, and what kind of website you should build:
- What is the purpose of the website?
- Who are the target users for the website?
- What is the call to action you’d like users to take when they’re on your website?
- What type of visual appeal do you want your website to have?
- What kind of structure would be ideal for your website to serve its purpose?
- How would your website be different compared to the others in your space?
- What amount of traffic are you expecting to receive on your website?
- Would you be collecting any confidential information via your website? If yes, what measures might be required to protect it?
These questions are only the tip of the iceberg. You need to ensure you set the right foundation for having clear reasons to build a site, and then have a vision for what it will look like.
Step 2: Register a domain name
Now that you have a vision for your website, it’s time to register a domain name. Well, this could easily be your “step 1” if you’ve got a fantastic name for a website you’d like to register. So you can always interchange step 2, with step 1, and vice versa.
The important point to make here is that you should choose and register a domain name, after giving some thought to it. As a guide to help you, think of a domain name that demonstrates the following traits:
- Easy To Remember: You’re probably going to be asked your website name by a lot of people. When you tell them, you want your website name to stick in their minds so they remember to visit it!
- SEO/Keyword Optimised, Ideally: It’s a great strategy to choose a domain name that contains the keywords users would type on a search to find a website like yours. While there aren’t any brownie points Google rewards you with for having a keyword optimized domain name, it still might give your website a little edge or an ‘x-factor’ to attract users to click on it when it shows up on search results.
- Choose The Right Domain Extension: Don’t overlook the importance of choosing a great domain extension for your website. If you’re making a website for a university or school, a “.edu” is probably better than a “.com” for first impression’s sake. And a “.com” is usually more acceptable than a weird extension like a “.brb”, so try to choose extensions that are more in demand.
The platform you decide to build your website on may offer you a free, unique domain name too. But we’d recommend choosing an independent, unique domain name that stands out in a crowd.
For instance, if you build your website on the WordPress platform (in step 3), you might be offered a free domain name that ends with a ‘.wordpress.com’ but that may not be appropriate for marketing purposes.
Choose a name you own, that’s uniquely yours.
Step 3: Choosing a website platform
Now there are a bunch of ways to actually ‘code’ or ‘set up’ your website online. You can design all the UI & UX and then code it from scratch, which is painstakingly long and arduous, especially for a non-technical person.
Or, you can choose to build your website on a platform, like WordPress.
You guessed it right, WordPress is our recommended platform of choice for you to build a website. It’s a trusted platform provider for lots of people, and you can never go wrong with it! If you go with WordPress, you will also need to find WordPress hosting for your website. The monthly costs of your plan will depend on the provider you choose, so you can easily stay within your budget.
More than 52% of website builders choose to build it on WordPress.
If you’re still considering options, here are a few solid reasons why you should choose WordPress:
- It’s User-Friendly: It’s user-friendly for both, the user, and you! What that means is that it gives you a range of options to choose from to make your website experience (Both UX & UI elements) as user intuitive as possible, while also allowing you to add, remove and edit content from your website with ease.
- Get Started For Free: You can build your website for no charge on WordPress. There are so many free options to choose from, you’ll never run out of them. Just register yourself and get started right away, whether it’s an informational website or eCommerce store, you can do anything you want.
- The Power Of Community: One of the main reasons why WordPress is great is because it’s backed by a large community. If you ever get stuck, you’ll always be helped by several others who might have faced the same WordPress issue as you. The number of developers who are specialized ‘WordPress developers’ is massive, and you won’t ever feel alone when things go wrong.
- It’s Good For SEO: There’s absolutely no point in building a website that can’t be found online. And this is where building a website on WordPress can be to your advantage, because it’s a known website building platform that’s compatible with Google’s SEO guidelines. Since the WordPress CMS is already well structured, your website’s internal architecture makes it easy for search engines to crawl your website, making it easier for users to find it!
- You’ll Have Plenty Of Plugin Options: Much like buying a smartphone and then buying ‘attachments’, building a website doesn’t end at that! You’ll constantly want to review it, make interesting additions, and update its design and functions. WordPress gives you over 54000 plugins to choose from and many are free.
Apart from WordPress, there are several other platforms you can choose to build a website.
The basic function of a website platform is to help you make a beautiful and functional website… and also manage it effectively and effortlessly.
It shouldn’t feel too technical to manage, especially if you’re non-technical yourself. I am no techie and can do most things myself. But if you need help, there are plenty of contractors you can find on Upwork.com.
You can choose from Squarespace, Joomla, Drupal and Dotclear just to name a few.
Now that you’ve chosen your platform, your weapon of choice, it’s time to buy a hosting plan so your website has a ‘home’ on the internet.
While you can certainly just use WordPress hosting, but it’s not recommended since your website will be hosted on a shared server.
When you buy hosting space, your website will be hosted on a dedicated server, that enables it to function smoothly and benefit from uninterrupted services from your hosting provider.
In case you’re not aware, ‘hosting’ is best thought of as ‘internet real estate’. So if your website is the house, then your hosting service is the land on which the house sits. That’s why it’s vital to choose the land that’s best for your house, i.e. your website!
Welcome, Bluehost. The perfect solution to host your website, securely, and effectively. Usually hosting services cost between $3 – $12 per month.
On Bluehost, you have a few options available. You can buy the $3.95 per month plan, which gives you a free domain name and 50 GB of space or choose one of the higher priced plans at $5.95 & $13.95 per month, with added benefits as per your needs.
Once you buy a hosting plan, you’re ready to launch your website.
Most hosting providers, like Bluehost, provide you with a ‘one-click install’ option to launch and integrate your WordPress. It’s easy, it’s fast and hassle-free. Just follow the steps below and you’ll be on track:
- Log into your new Bluehost account
- Get into the control panel/account settings section
- Click on the One Click Install option
- Find WordPress and then click on it (assuming you’re using WordPress)
- Then choose the domain name you want to launch your site on and click on it
- And you’re done!
It’s that simple. Once you’ve installed it, you can start to add content to your website and filling it up as you’d like. It’s like painting a picture, so use your creativity.
From this point onwards, you’re the designer of your website! This is where the real fun begins.
Step 4: Pick a template or customize your website
Depending on the purpose of your site, the type of business you’re in and your broader marketing strategy, you can pick a theme that suits you.
For instance, if you’re a hotel, chances are you need to be able to showcase some photos to attract visitors, be able to accept bookings online, and welcome customer inquiries.
In this case, you can simply choose a ‘hotel website theme template’ from WordPress which gives you a structure or theme to work with. You’ll have the ‘generic’ components of a typical hotel website within your theme, like a home page, a photo gallery page, an about us page, a location page, contact us, and a booking page.
If you were to code this, it would take a while. But the good news is, you don’t need to stress over that.
Notice the “Upload Your Theme” option on the top. It allows you to upload your own website theme which you may have built yourself, or bought from a site like “Themeforest” which has a range of WordPress themes you can buy.
On selecting and installing a theme, you’ve basically given your ‘painting’ a structure. You can check if the theme has been installed on your website, simply by typing your website address and then having a look at it just as a user would! If you see the theme installed, you’re on the right track.
Now, it’s time to start customizing your theme by adding content. You can do this through the WordPress CMS or admin panel, by entering your domain name on your browser search bar, followed by “wp-admin”. So if your domain name is “www.theincomespot.com” you can type in “www.theincomespot .com/wp-admin” to directly go to your admin panel login page, which looks like the following image:
Once you log in, you’ll see a WordPress admin panel like the one below:
The admin panel gives you a broad snapshot of your website activity, pages, google analytics, the posts on your website blog and more.
Have a closer look at what the dashboard on the left looks like below:
As you can see, the WordPress CMS gives you a range of options. It’s like your driver’s seat to managing whatever content you want to save, display or remove from your website.
An important thing to add here is that the ‘users’ option on the panel allows you to add/remove users/editors of your site with different levels of authority. You can allow other people different levels of access to your website depending on what you’d like their role to be.
Start adding pages to your website by clicking on the ‘Pages’ option and then selecting from page option types available.
The options you get for page types will depend on the theme you choose earlier. Add pages, and then add content, images and other media as you see fit. This is the time to add some color to your site!
When adding images, make sure you compress the images, otherwise, if your images are too large, your site will load slow. A free tool like tinyjpg makes it a snap.
Another critical consideration at this stage is to name your site appropriately, along with a catchy tagline. It’s these smaller, finer details that make it easier for users to find your website.
Your tagline and website name are also what show up when users hover their mouse cursor on their browser tabs. Do this via the “General Settings” option as below:
Other finer details like these like adding relevant keywords to your image meta descriptions, and ensuring the text you add in your website contains important keywords users may be searching are critically important to users finding your website when they’re looking.
Other customizations you can add are:
- Email Newsletter Signups: If you want to collect email addresses of your users while they’re browsing your website, you can install a plugin that brings up a popup box when users scroll down a certain section of a specific page. This allows you to collect the email addresses of folks who want to hear from you, enabling you to build an email list, which is a critically important marketing asset.
- SEO Plugin: Plugins like the “Yoast SEO” plugin are really handy to optimize your site for SEO. It’s used by millions of people and provides a great boost to your website for SEO purposes.
- Chat Support: A really nifty tool you can install on your website is the chat support function. Your website is basically like your ‘retail shop front’ online, so adding chat support the second someone logs onto your website will enable you to communicate with users while they’re on your site. This can make or break your website experience.
- Many more! The list of plugins is enormous as has been mentioned before. Just pick the ones that work best for your site and I’m sure you’ll have the best support possible.
While you’re making edits to your website, you must be saving your content to prevent any loss of effort! There’s a “save” button on the left corner of the WordPress website, and another “preview” option available to you throughout your website design experience. You don’t want to lose all of this effort if you forgot to put data in.
Keep previewing your site, as you design, and once you’re happy with the way it looks, go ahead to the next step!
Step 5: Publish Your Site & Test It!
Now that you have created a new site, you can publish it. It’s a great time to preview your site, see if you want to make further changes, and even test your website.
We’d recommend you check the following:
- Log on to your website using different browsers and devices to ensure your website is responsive and legible to your users.
- Check all forms. Fill out the information being requested by your forms and pop-ups on your website to know if they work the way they should.
- Check your website speed. Is your website loading in a time-efficient manner? You don’t want users to wait endlessly for your site to load.
- Do a quick google search of your website and see if it’s showing up. It’s a great way to check if search engines recognize your domain names.
- Check all the media on your website. Is it loading properly? Check the descriptions associated with the media on your site to know if they’re keyword optimized.
If you’re happy with it all, that means you’ve just managed to launch your new website successfully. It wasn’t as hard as you thought, was it?