How To Create A Website: Step-By-Step For Beginners (2021)
Step 1: Choose Your Website Platform
In order to build a website, firstly you need to decide what platform you’re going to build your website with. A Website Building Platform is a user-friendly platform for building websites and managing your own online content, instead of creating a website from scratch using HTML, PHP and other coding languages. Some popular site building platforms includes;
· WordPress
· WIX
· Squarespace
· Joomla
· Drupal
I will recommend WordPress because it is
· Free (no recurring subscriptions)
· It is user friendly
· Your site will work on smart phones and tablets as well, no need for experts to do that for you.
· There is a community ready to assist you with anything on your site
Step 2: Find a Domain Name and Host
In order to get a new website online, there are two main things you will need:
· Domain Name (a web address eg. yoursitename.com)
· Website Hosting (a service that connects your site to the internet)
WordPress is free, but hosting and domain name are not. The combined cost is less than $4 a month. In order for your website to look professional, you need to have your own domain name, instead of having a free domain that belongs to someone else (eg. yourbusiness.my-free-website.com.)
Having a quality hosting service will ensure that your website won’t go down and that it loads quickly (very important for everyone who visits your pages.)
Where Can You Get A Domain Name And Hosting?
The answer is simple! BlueHost
Why Choose BlueHost?
- Easy step-by-step set up
- Free Domain Name for 1st Year
- Free 24/7 lifetime support
- WordPress total design freedom
Their website hosting costs less than $4/month.
Of course, you can try other web hosting providers and even try to host your site by yourself, but it’s a very complicated process and often wouldn’t be capable of serving your website visitors. So save yourself some money and get a proper web host.
With your own domain name, you are also able to get a professional email account(s) (eg.Yourname@YahooWebsite.com), this is much more professional than a regular Yahoo or Gmail address, especially if you need multiple email accounts. Click on the link to get a professional domain name and hosting! https://www.bluehost.com/track/jessicadn/
Step 3: Set Up Your Website: Step-By-Step
· Install a WordPress Site
Steps to install WordPress on BlueHost
1. Go to https://www.bluehost.com/track/jessicadn/
2. Choose your hosting plan
3. If you already have a domain, type it there
4. Fill in your information and choose your hosting length.
5. Go through the payment process and create your account
6. Log in to BlueHost use “one-click WordPress install” to Install WordPress
Step 4: How To Choose A Theme For Your Website Using WordPress
· Appearance > Themes, and click the large + sign that says Add New Theme.
· Then use the search bar to find a theme that suitable for your site.
· You can click on any theme in the lists to view a demo of it and read more about its features.
· Once you find a theme suitable for your site, install it by clicking the Install button in the Details & Preview screen.
· Once the install process is complete, click the Activate button that appears where the Install button used to be.
Step 5: Add Contents
Why do we create Websites? Our main aim here is to share our contents to people all around the world.
After all, it’s hard to customize your site when there’s nothing on it to show the changes. What you need in terms of content will vary depending on the subject matter of your site and your goals.
However, there are a 3 main pages that nearly every site has:
· Homepage
· About page
· Contact page