Three Easy Steps to Build a Website from Scratch

Three Easy Steps to Build a Website from Scratch
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  • Choose a Domain NameChoose a Domain Name
  • Get Website HostingGet Website Hosting
  • Create The WebsiteCreate The Website

When you have an important message to get out there in the world, then building your own website is certainly the best way to go about it. Yet, many people hesitate to create their very own site, because they fear they might not have the money or technical know-how to do so.

In this simple guide, we’ll show you just how much effort building a site actually needs. First of all, since you were able to find this site and read this article, you already have all the skills needed to create a website!

Of course we wouldn’t just leave you with just so little information, would we?

Let’s take those steps one by one and analyze what each of them needs and how to tackle every step smartly.

Choosing a domain name

Choosing-a-Domain-Name

This might sound like the simplest part of making your website, but it might just be the most crucial!

The domain name is the address of your website. It is what appears between the www and the .something at the end.

Let’s talk about the .something first. The word after the dot tells you where your site will be hosted. It is always best to choose a name that can have a .com at the end, the most typical and popular ending.

When figuring out your domain name, try to:

  • Make it relevant to the website’s future content: If you’re going to write content about soap, for instance, make it something like mysoap.com
  • Make it short: Large domain names are a pain to write down and less people will choose to do so. Who wants to type down something like: bestwebsiteaboutsoapintyheworld.com?
  • Make it specific: If your favorite domain name isn’t available, don’t just go wild and choose something random. Just add words like: my, good, best, top, tips, life, love… etc

    From all the above, you can summarize that you have to know what your site will be about before you choose your domain name for it. Now, with a snappy name at hand, it is time to move on to the next step.

Get website hosting

Web Hosting

You want your site to be available for the public online constantly. This means that it has to exist on a powerful computer somewhere, which is never switched off. These hard working computers are called servers and they are quite expensive to maintain.

The companies that own these servers usually demand a fee for their services. There are free hosting options out there, but they won’t allow you to be creative or make any money out of your site through advertisements.

The paid hosting companies and servers aren’t always located in your country so you actually need:

A credit card

credit-card

Money

  • ipage-logo$1.99/month
  • Hostgator-Logo$3.96/month
  • justhost$2.95/month
  • fatcow$3.15/month

Paid hosting can be as cheap as 50 dollars or as expensive as 200 dollars per year, depending on the host you choose. These prices often reflect the service quality, so do your research. Now that you have a place to put your website in we go to the very last step:

  1. Create the website

Wordpress

There are amazing pieces of software out there that will do all the hard work for you. Since this is your first site, free software like WordPress will do more than fine.

You just need to choose the layout and the style used for your website. When in doubt try the most simple options first and starting building your way up. This step will take the most time, but is also the most rewarding when it comes to creativity.

If creating the website itself is simply beyond you, you don’t need to worry at all. There are thousands of extremely good web designers out there that will help you for reasonable prices.

And… that’s it! You have your very own website, named, hosted and created. From there, the sky’s the limit!

RECOMMENDED: Get your website online and looking great using iPage’s 1-Click WordPress setup after you create your iPage account. Best of all, it’s super-easy and you get pro-results. That’s why we love WordPress so much. iPage has great support for WP, and you can do anything you want with it. Start with a blog, add a shop later, whatever you want, the power is in your hands with no need to hire a pro.

2 Comments

  1. Has anyone tried using bloxup site builder? It says free so I’m planning to use it since almost every site builder site I’ve visited need to purchase the software or be on a monthly subscription, yadda yada..

     
  2. Another thing you’d want to consider is getting a reliable website monitoring software. I’ve been using Monitance for my website and they have top notch service. You receive an email or text message if you were to experience downtime, which can be costly, especially if you’re running a small business. Monitance also has a freemium service that you can use free for life, if you wanted to try it out. Nice article, Johnny!

     

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