How to create a website
These days, you don’t need to be a professional web developer to create a great website.
In fact, ignore any of these myths about creating a website right now:
- Creating a website is super expensive. Websites come in many different forms, and while you can spend a lot of money, this is not essential.
- Only super smart computer geeks can create a website. With sites like WordPress, Shopify, and Squarespace creating a simple website can be done by anybody with basic computer knowledge.
It’s important not to let these myths put you off or make you think you’re not capable of creating your own website because you almost certainly are.
However, there are also a few hard truths you should know.
- Once the website is live, traffic won’t just suddenly appear. Your work is far from over, in fact, it’s just begun.
- Your site will not just be viewed on a desktop. In today’s world, your website has to be mobile-friendly. No exceptions.
- Your website will require constant upkeep. This is not a case of creating it once and that’s that – keeping it up to date and at its best will be an ongoing job.
So, now that is covered, how do you actually create a website?
These are the five basic steps for creating a website with WordPress.
I’ve chosen WordPress since they’re the most popular CMS in the world. It’s also what I would personally recommend, due to the simplicity and affordability to create and the multitude of plugins available.
- Choose your domain. The first thing you need to do is choose and register your website domain. This is where you’ll decide what your website should be called, so think carefully and most of all make sure it’s available and not copyrighted by anybody else. Check out this blog post for more handy tips.
- Choose your web-hosting. Your web hosting is very important, so take your time with this step and check out this in-depth article all about choosing the right web-hosting with a full comparison to help you choose.
- Pick a WordPress theme. Next, you need to design the site of your dreams. It doesn’t need to be incredibly complicated to start with, but it needs to fit your purpose and be designed beautifully. That’s where choosing a great WordPress theme comes in and should make your job pretty easy.
- Publish your content. This may be the 4th step, but it will be ongoing throughout owning your website. While you’re building up content on your website, try to post as frequently as you can while keeping quality as your main priority. Then go back and refurbish old content regularly and make sure everything is ever-green and up to date.
- Grow traffic. Finally, you need to make sure your website ranks high enough to be found by your customers and readers. You can use a combination of social media marketing and on and off-page SEO to build up your traffic and improve your ranking over time.
What makes a great website
Studies show that it takes only 0.05 seconds (that’s 50 milliseconds) for your website to make a good impression. Don’t draw users in within that minute time frame and you risk them clicking straight back out again.
Having a poor bounce-back rate will negatively impact your SEO and make search engines think users can’t find what they’re looking for on your site.
This is why it’s so crucial to have a great website that attracts users and, most importantly, keeps their attention long enough to offer value.
Indicators of a quality website
- Quick to load. Users can instantly see everything on your site and don’t have to waste time waiting for things to format correctly.
- Logical site navigation. Users can find exactly what they’re looking for and the site has a natural and easy-to-use format.
- Thoughtful use of SEO practices. SEO has been used as a tool to help you rank higher and attract the right people to your site, not to lure in the wrong people or cut corners.
- Value-packed content. Original, well-researched and useful content that fulfills your user’s search intent is the ultimate way to keep people coming back for more.
Warning signs of a bad website
- Too slow. If the pages take too long to load or photos or videos don’t appear straight away you will quickly lose people’s interest.
- Unpolished. Silly mistakes like spelling, grammar, and formatting errors or expired links, and out-of-date information all send red flags to users and search engines.
- Weak structure. There is nothing more frustrating to a website user than not being able to find the information they need.
- Uninviting content. Poor quality images, text that’s hard to read, old-fashioned designs, or giant blocks of text will all put people off your website.
Monetizing your website
There are plenty of different reasons to create a website in 2021. Whether your website shows off what you’re selling, becomes what you sell, or something else entirely – a good website can make or break your success.
But creating your website is only half the battle. Now you need to make all that work worthwhile by monetizing it. These are some of the different ways you can do that.
With an eCommerce store
Nasdaq predicts that 95% of retail sales will be made through eCommerce stores by 2040.
While sellers are experimenting with other ways to advertise their goods online, such as through social media, websites are still an essential part of any online shop.
Show off your service-based business
Service-based businesses rely on their websites for potential customers to find their service, book appointments, check out their work, and pay for their services.
Make sure you’re utilizing local SEO and location-specific review sites and directories to get noticed in your area.
Create a blog
Creating a blog can be anything from a fun hobby to a lucrative livelihood. The most successful blogs involve a lot of work behind the scenes, but the rewards can definitely pay off.
These are some of the best ways to make money from your blog.
Flip websites
This is where you either build or buy websites, amp up the value they offer within their given niche, increase traffic and sell them for a profit. Then repeat.
Websites are usually sold for around 30x times their monthly profit. So if your website makes $500 of profit a month you would be looking at offers around $15,000.
