Are you looking to make a website for your business but you’re wondering where to start? If so, then this step-by-step guide will teach you how to start a website from scratch. With businesses and individuals looking to reach a wide audience, it makes sense to create a website.
But before you design a website you need to know that there are 1.7+ billion websites on the internet today and close to 54,7200 new are created every day. So, you need to know how to make a website that can stand out from the crowd.
It gets better because learning how to build a website in 2020 is not difficult anymore. Besides, you don’t need any coding or website design skills.
All you need is to:
- Decide what you’re going to do with your website.
- Choose a domain name and web hosting.
- Decide what platform to use.
- Then start creating your website from scratch.
Moreover, there are many resource websites to show you how to go about everything. For instance, when it comes to choosing a web hosting company, Host Calc, is one of our go-to-website as it contains useful and informative guides for beginners and experts alike. This, and other websites review multiple web hosting companies to help consumers to make an informed choice. It’s that easy. Sounds good? Great, let’s get rolling.
01. Decide the Type of Website You Want to Build
The first step on how to start a website from scratch is to decide what you want to do with it. Many websites have failed to achieve the goals which they were created for because of skipping this step. Deciding what your website will be used for is as difficult as creating the actual website though.
Clearly, before you build a website, you already know what you want to do with it, right? But new ideas may come up along the way. So, it’s good to ensure that when they come up, your website can still support those ideas.
For instance, let’s say you want to start a blog and make money online. So, your goal is to promote your goods or services. Within a short time, you realize the need to incorporate other make-money-online ideas. Can the blog accommodate all these ideas?
That’s why you need to spend time deciding what you want to do with your website before actually creating it.
02. Decide What Platform to Build Your Website On
The internet has a wealth of different website builders to choose from. Having too many options is good on one side but bad on another. As a beginner, choosing from a plethora of options can get overwhelming. Furthermore, many are free to use. So, you risk choosing the wrong platform.
Fortunately, we will show you the best and most popular website builder to choose to build your website from scratch. Typically, the most popular content management platforms are WordPress, Wix, Joomla, Medium, and Drupal. Ideally, you want to choose a content management system that’s easy to work with, lets you create a responsive and mobile-friendly website, and can accommodate any type of website.
You’ll have the most flexibility when you create your website on a self-hosted WordPress platform. When you choose a hosted solution like Wix, you may find their tools make web design easy, yet they may restrict your ability to customize your website. In addition, they are often not ideal for SEO.
03. Purchase a Domain Name for Your Website
To make a website from scratch, you need to choose a domain name and purchase a web hosting account. For your domain name, keep it short, catchy, unique, and memorable. It will cost you between $10 and $15 per year.
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
Generally, the domain name is the URL or website link that people enter into their browsers address bar to visit your website like Google.com. That’s why you need to choose a name that’s easy to remember. It should also represent your brand. You can use a domain name generator like NameBoy or BustAName for that reason.
Web hosting is where your website is housed. All your content and files are stored in servers of the web hosting company you choose. Again, Host Calc can guide you on what web hosting provider to choose for that matter.
Web hosting may cost you between $2 and $10 per month depending on the company you choose. Cloudways, InterServer, Bluehost, A2 Hosting, are just a few of the popular cheap and reliable web hosting companies to choose from.
Once you have purchased a domain name and web hosting, the next step is to install WordPress on your web host, design your website by choosing a responsive and mobile-friendly WordPress theme, and start creating content on your website.
Most of the web hosting companies offer a one-click WordPress installation, so you just need to follow a simple step by step process to get things done. Remember to configure your website, choose the right plugins, and make your website visible to search engines.
Congratulations, You Have Created Your Website from Scratch!
But before you start celebrating, you need to know how to promote your website. You can spend as much as you can to promote your website as long as it provides value to your targeted audience.
Arguably, the content you share on your website needs to be educative, informative, and entertaining. Videos are very powerful when it comes to educating and entertaining your visitors. But that depends on the type of your website and how you want to do with it.
Learning how to drive traffic to your website is also another task you don’t want to skip. Without traffic, your website is worthless. You can drive traffic to your website in several ways, including:
- Guest post submissions: This involves publishing articles on other popular blogs with a link back to your site. This method helps to drive traffic to your website as well as making you an authority in your industry.
- Social media: You can share links to your content with your social media followers and let them know that your website is live.
- Search engine optimization: SEO is also another powerful tool to grow your website traffic as it lets your content rank better in search engines. SEO is a huge topic, so you need to learn both on-page and off-page SEO tactics for this reason.
Most of these website promotion methods are free but you can research many others out there.
It’s That Simple!
Learning how to start a website from scratch can feel like a daunting task for someone who is just starting. But it doesn’t have to be for you. We hope this step by step guide on how to make a website in 2020 helps you get your website live in less than an hour.
The steps explained above are the most important ones. Otherwise, the rest of the work you can do once your website is live.
Good luck!
