8 Easy Tips on How to Create A Website

You’re recently set by your boss to create a website for your small business brand. You feel overwhelmed by the trust and the high expectations placed upon you. But the higher percentage of that fear belongs to the thought of starting.

You want everything perfect and right the moment you build a website for your company. Then, there’s this part of you that says – you’re neither ready nor equipped with the skills.

Hear me out! Drop those fears if you want to accomplish anything and start cashing in on your online presence.Because no matter how tempting it may seem to postpone web development tasks, giving in to the urge will leave you not getting anything done.

This blog comes with a mission. First, to offer a simple tutorial on how to create a website, regardless of your background.I will also discuss with you different options to get your site built.

Is it practical to get help from a professional web development company? How about buying a do-it-yourself or DIY web development package?

With more freedom and independence to monetize your online effort, let’s first start with the reasons why you should start building your own website.

 

How to Create a Website: A Step-by-Step Guide

 

I’ll assume you’re a newbie designer or web developer with zero skill level or background. Hence, this step-by-step guide to build a website will take you from beginning through the launch of your own web presence.

 

1. Get a Domain Name.

 

What name do you want to give your website? Domain name is one vital consideration to gain extra branding for your business. It should make your customers remember your URL.

A domain name usually cost between $10-$40 a year. But even without owning a domain name first, you can already setup your brand presence through free or paid hosting services.

To get a domain name, head to GoDaddy.com, NameCheap.com or any other domain registrar. Register your preferred name and pay the annual fee. Voila, you’re now the digital rights owner of your chosen name!

 

2. Choose a Web Hosting.

 

Hosting is where you put your website and you’re your online pages. Often, this step is ranked first or second in importance in the to-do list when building a website.

Usually, the company offering this service is a third party so you will need to sign up and pay for an account in order for your website to obtain or rent an online office for your business.

To complete the process in this stage, you will need to point your domain to that account on your web host vendor.

 

3. Plan Your Website.

 

After getting a web host and domain name for your business brand, plan how you’ll want to start with the process of designing your web pages and web development.

You also have a few options if you want to create a website that looks more decent and professional looking – hiring a professional web development agency or buying a DIY web development package.

But before you start looking for these options, decide the following considerations:

• Kind of website. Is it an eCommerce, new or information, or mobile web page?
• Navigation. What comprises your navigation? This should be well planned, as this will impact your site’s information architecture.
• Content. What are the content that you’ll include and need to produce that will make your site perfect and complete?

 

4. Design Your Web Pages.

 

This is the most difficult and tricky part. If you’re the one who’s going to design the pages of your website, then,this guide’s for you. If you’re considering approaching a professional web development provider for help, you can skip this part.

But don’t get overwhelmed by jargons. Always remember that building a page should be a step-by-step process. Work on one page at a time. But first you have to familiarize yourself with some key concepts.

Start learning the basic principles of design. Here, take pains in mastering key concepts of color theory for the selection of color of the web design background and logo.Design basics like typography, user experience and usability should also be part of the package.

Have a good grasp of the building block of a website (HTML) and building block of how it looks (CSS).

You should also consider looking for the perfect web editor. Try using a WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get) web editor or DIY web development tools, which can let you design even without the technical skills.

Lastly, make sure that when you create a website the search engine readiness of your brand page. A beautiful website but not visible on the top pages of search engines are ineffective.

 

5. Testing Your Web Design.

 

When you build your website, testing should be part of it. It may appear too obvious for me to be mentioning this, but checking whether your website is running smoothly in all major browsers is crucial.

Download the latest versions of all major browsers – including Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer – which can be obtained free of charge. Then begin testing your webpage using each browser to make sure that your website works the way you want it to on the machines of your audience.

It will help to validate the code – or check for any syntax error your HTML and CSS – for your web design pages. Validating shouldn’t be be hard to do these days with plenty of free web page validators to choose from.

Take note that validators will often give you errors it detected out of your web pages. Beginners with very little knowledge of coding might find difficult to figure out whether the error is a serious flaw or what’s actually wrong.

Good thing, though, there are validators which suggest how to fix your codes and some which actually fix errors for you.

 

6. The Best Part – Publishing Your Website.

 

After the tedious process of web development, here’s to cap this how to create a website guide – going live!

If you’ve learned a bit of our step-by-step process in website building, you’ll recall that you’ll need to get your online presence to the hosting provider you setup.

You can do this process through either the hosting provider’s tools or with FTP clients. If you’re not sure, just contact your hosting vendor anyway.

Publish.

 

7. Promoting Your Website.

 

This may not be part of our tutorial on how to create a website but marketing and promoting your website is vital to get noticed.

After completing and getting your website ready for prime time, here is where marketing will come to play its part. Not that it will only begin the work when the site’s ready.

To help increase your web page’s ranking at Google or Yahoo, you can employ various search engine optimization or SEO tactics. Among the more popular strategies is by guest blogging, sending your website to search engine

You can also create a fan page for your brand using Facebook, Google+ and Instagram. Having a Twitter account won’t hurt too.

You may even employ the convention means that people use before the web gets so popular like sending press release, placing advertisements and even worth-of-mouth. Fortunately, some of these conventional tactics are vastly available on the Internet.

To increaseyour chances of getting a high amount of ranking in search engine, you can allot a budget by placing an ad. You might also spend a few bucks to promote your Facebook fan page by advertising at the social media giant.

 

8. Maintaining Your Website.

 

While often derided as the most boring part of the whole web development process, maintenance is very important. It is what you need to keep your site running and humming with good, quality content.

Don’t forget, content development. Have a good content strategy to create loyal brand followers and engaged audience.

 

Final Thoughts

 

Of course, this is not the kind of ultimate guide if you want to build a website. It’s a synthesis of some of the vital steps when you start to build a website.

If you’re still not confident with your skills and knowledge, you have the option to seek help from a professional web development firm or purchase a DIY web development.

However, I think this how to create a website guide is fair enough to help you get started in putting your online presence on the Web. Goodluck!