Regardless of what your website is for, the way you create it matters a lot. For example, if you want your website to stand out and be unique from everyone else's, then you may want to consider hiring a professional web developer.
Professional website developers create websites based on your requirements and design plans. But these developers are expensive, plus website hosting platforms such as WordPress and Joomla are easy to handle for beginner website creators. And since these website hosting platforms provide easy-to-customize layouts, you can easily create your own kind of website in just a few steps.
Today we will share how you can create a well-built website for your new business without hiring a professional web developer. And please note that you only have 30 minutes to create a professional-looking website because it doesn't need more time.
10 Easy Steps to Create a Website for Business or Personal Use
If you know the proper steps, you can easily create a website. For example, you must determine which website hosting services you will require for your new website. We can now think of several, including Bluehost, Dreamhost, and A2 Hosting. However, deciding on a hosting provider is a separate step. To get started, we should go over the previous action items.
1. Define Your Niche
Every great website begins with a clearly defined website objective, and an understanding of who your audience is. Know what it is you’re trying to accomplish – selling products, providing information, or building a community. A well-defined website objective will keep you focused on this purpose, as you build your website.
Types of Websites
- Personal website
- Portfolio website
- Business/service website
- Blog
- E-commerce
Target Audience
Next, learn about your audience. Who are they, and what are their needs? Think about their demographic data, interests, and challenges and write down some possible personas of those people. You can also ask them via surveys or you could chat with them. The more you understand them, the better chance you will have of creating a website that grabs their attention and encourages them to return.
Would you like to build a website that is distinctive? Focus on understanding what you offer that is different. First, look at different websites in your niche. How do they look? What do they do? Take careful notes on what they do well, and their shortcomings. Identify trends and gaps, and think about how you might do that better.
Unique Value Proposition
Clearly define what differentiates your website from others.
Determine any unique features or services your website offers that your competitors do not. This could be a unique type of content, a better quality product, or an unmatched level of customer service.
Be sure the unique value proposition of your website is clear and prominent on your website. This can be communicated as a tagline, a message on your homepage, of specific content that promotes your advantages.
Set Goals that can be Measured
Use measurable goals as a guide for developing your website, and measuring its success.
Think about what success looks like for your website. Some metrics might include:
- Traffic goals: Amount of visitors per month.
- Engagement goals: Average time on site, bounce rate, or pages per session.
- Conversion goals: Sales goals, leads, email sign-ups, etc.
Tools like Google Analytics can be used to track these metrics, and evaluate your progress over time.
2.Choose a Domain
Choosing a domain name for your website is an essential step, and before you choose the domain name, you will have to consider your niche first. Your domain name should match the purpose for which you are building your project. For example, if your domain name is catfish.com, it might suggest that either your site is about cats and aquariums or people who catfish their dates.
But there are some rules about using your domain name that you should know. Number one is that you can use your own name as your domain name if it is a personal brand. Always use names that are easy to say and remember; we also recommend you use short and crisp names with no more than 14 characters. Try to use ".com" at the end of your domain name since it is easy to remember, but avoid using numbers or hyphens because it makes it harder for people to memorize your website name and address.
3. Go to a Hosting Provider for Domain Registration
After deciding on your domain name, you need to find a hosting provider and register it for that domain before it gets taken by another person. You can use Bluehost, Hostinger, Dreamhost, or any other website builder and register for the domain. Sometimes the domain is free when you opt for their hosting service, and sometimes you will have to buy the domain individually, depending on the hosting service you are working with.
Tips to Select a Domain Name
There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a domain name to make sure it well-represents your brand and connects with the audience:
- Keep it short and simple: Shorter domain names are much easier to remember and type. It should be no more than two to three words.
- Make it memorable: Make the name catchy. Avoid words that are overly complex or phrases that users may not remember.
- Use keywords: Use relevant keywords to describe your business or industry. The use of relevant keywords provides context to the user about what the website is about and also helps with search engine discoverability.
- Avoid numbers and hyphens: Numbers and hyphens can cause confusion and make it more challenging to remember. Stick to letters only, especially if it is a domain that you plan on verbally sharing.
Be sure to check for brand alignment. Be sure that the domain aligns with your brand identity and messaging. It should reflect your brand’s tone, style, and purpose.
Check Domain Availability and Select An Extension
After working on some ideas for a domain name, utilize a domain name search tool to determine if your preferred domains are available. If your first choice has already been registered, you may have to think creatively and consider other options.
Although .com is the most commonly associated domain extension, there are several others, such as .net or .org, and industry-specific ones like .store or .blog, that also may be suitable. Choose the extension that is best suited for your website, its purpose, and its audience.
If you can, secure additional variations of your domain name, including popular spellings or alternative extensions, to reinforce your brand and avoid competition.
Complete the Domain Registration Process
It is simple to register and manage your domains with Hostinger:
- Search & Register: Choose the domain name you wish to use for your website using our domain search tool, and when you find an extension that has not been taken yet, complete the purchase and you'll set up an account.
- Manage with Ease: Use the hosting provider’s dashboard to manage everything in one dashboard - your domain settings, DNS records, registration, and renewal process.
- Bundle and Save: If you register a domain and then bundle it with hosting services, your hosting and domain renewal may save you some money.
Select a Hosting Plan
Shared hosting is an economical way to get basic help if you have a simpler site like a blog or small online store.
With shared hosting, your resources are shared within your plan and with other sites on the server, which keeps the pricing low if you do not get a lot of traffic. VPS hosting or virtual private servers give you allocated space on a server (partitioned) and only costs you a little more, but your website will perform better with VPS hosting. When you host your site on a VPS, you’ll gain more storage and faster speeds.
Dedicated hosting is a good option for high traffic sites, as you get the most resources and premium support in an unlimited plan, but this is also the most expensive option.
You should also reflect on the site's bandwidth and storage needs depending on the content of your site (images or videos). If you are limited on storage, you will limit future growth of your site if you go with the storage plan, so stay away from any plan with storage limits. Finally, make sure your business has a 99.99% uptime guarantee with 24/7 support (can be useful) for any issue with your site.
Also, enhanced security features (i.e. a firewall) against cyber threats, plus backups to protect any content in the event of a problem is an option. You may want to include a plan that offers scalability in the event you experience an unexpected amount of traffic to your site.
Also, be sure to confirm that the hosting provider you go with offers backups in the event that the "unthinkable" happens and your site goes down!
4. Install WordPress with the Hosting Company
We recommend you use WordPress CMS because it is easy and extremely powerful. But depending on the hosting company you are working with, they can give you other CMS options such as Wix, Weebly, Joomla, etc. We like WP because it is easy to use and the safest and cheapest option.
You can create a WordPress account directly from your host's dashboard. But make sure to create a strong password for your new website. The stronger and more unpredictable your password is, the more secure and impossible it will be to break in. Moreover, you can access WordPress from your hosting provider's dashboard directly.
5. Customize Your Site
WordPress offers millions of themes for free, but you can also create your own theme or buy a premium one and design your website. Sites like Themeforest provide a wide range of themes for all kinds of websites, blogs, magazines, etc. And once you download or purchase a theme for any third-party website, you can add it to your own website on WordPress.
Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme, and you are done. Most themes come with their own layouts, fonts, and colors. But you can also change the layouts and shades as per your needs. While adjusting the colors and fonts, you must consider a few points, such as your site’s identity and how you want your website to appear in front of the users. Choose the fonts and colors that match your brand name or personality.
6. Build an Architecture for your Website
Your website’s homepage, contact page, about page, online store (if any), blog posts section, and product sections are also a part of the architecture of your website. Your homepage is the most important part of your website because it is the best way to tell your readers what your website is about and what kind of content you publish. Also, don't forget to add a navigation menu at the top of your website from where visitors can navigate to the products section, blog posts section, or any other pages you have on your website. Please ensure that you can easily navigate your website and that it is also user-friendly.
7. Create Content
After you finish building your website, you should create and publish content regularly to engage visitors with daily information and interesting product reviews or product descriptions. Regularly publishing quality and quantity of content on your website is the most flattering way to attract and engage people’s attention. It also improves your website's visibility on the Google page rank.
8. Optimize for Search Engines
Search engine optimization is essential for gaining visibility and attracting organic traffic to your sales funnel. Below are some ways to operationalize a few foundational SEO practices:
- Relevant Keywords Research keywords to find out what your target audience is searching for. Use these keywords within your content, being careful to use them naturally, throughout your content: titles, headings and body copy.
- Meta Tags: Write enticing meta titles and descriptions for each page, which accurately describes the content of the page as well as encourages the user to click to learn more.
- Internal Linking: Internal linking is linking to other pages on your website that are relevant to your content. This creates a network of content on your website and helps search engines better understand the structure of your site while also increasing your rankings.
- Alt Tags for Images: Incorporate clear and descriptive alt text for the images on your site that contain related keywords. This will not only help with SEO - but also accessibility for those who are vision impaired.
- Compress Images: In advance of uploading images to your website, compress them to minimize file size and increase load times. You can use tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim to compress images without sacrificing quality.
- Site Speed: Improve load time for your pages by optimizing images, leveraging browser caching and limiting response times from the server side. Tools like Google PageSpeed insights can give you determine other actions you can take to improve load times on your pages.
9. Test Your Website and Launch
Before your site goes live, it is important to conduct thorough testing to identify and fix any issues.
To begin testing, conduct cross-browser testing to review how your site functions in popular web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. Consider tools like BrowserStack or LambdaTest for cross-browser testing.
Also perform testing for devices by reviewing if your website is responsive and functional across many devices, like a smartphone, tablet, or a desktop.
Be sure to test all interactive elements for functionality, which includes links, forms, buttons, shopping carts, and search bars, and ensure users can interact with them seamlessly.
After testing, check your content to review for accuracy and consistency in wording, spelling, tone, and messaging.
Fact-check everything specifically for facts, statistics, and data, as well as to test any internal links or external links to confirm they are functioning and redirecting users to the correct pages.
After you have tested and reviewed your content, it is time to launch your website. Once your website has been published, you complete the final step of submitting the website to search engines, including Google or Bing, to index, using tools for submitting like Google Search Console, or Bing Webmaster Tools.
10. Promote
Your website will be seen by people from all over the world. But until Google finds your website, you must make a fuss about it on social media and online forums like Quora, Reddit, etc. The more people know about your website, the better your engagement and the more successful the website development project.
Conclusion
To recap, you need to find a niche and an interesting domain name for your site; then, you must register with a web hosting platform and install WordPress or any other CMS, from which you might as well get a free domain. And then, you can customize and build your website as per your requirements and publish your niche-relevant content to the website so that visitors from all over the world can find you. If you need any help with website development, you can ask us any questions in the comment box below.
