2020 is the year of digitalization, and this notion is attracting businesses as well as individuals to create their website. Unlike the old days, now people are much more inclined towards personal branding. Sites are the primary source to share your views with blogs, vlogs, showcase your portfolio, and build an online presence of your brand.  Earlier, you had to look for professional website designers to create your website. And that will surely cost you thousands of dollars. But, it’s not the case now.  All thanks to online website builders and open-source platforms!  But, there are certain pre-requisites before you start building your website. 

What are must-haves to create a website? 

First things first, look for the domain name and purchase it. The domain name can be yourname.com or companyname.com. You can also look for the keywords oriented domain name. While selecting the domain name of your website, it is important to keep the end goal in mind. The TLDs can be .com, .org, .net, .gov, or country level extensions. If you want to target a global audience, it is better to check for widely accepted .com. In case, the domain name you opted for is unavailable; you will be given other suggestions to choose from.  Once you are done with the selection of the domain name, check for the website hosting plans. The domain selling sites like Godaddy, Bluehost, Hostgator, etc. are known to sell website hosting plans along with it. We recommend you to check for the hosting plans and compare them across the site. The comparison must be made considering the tenure, pricing, storage space, shared/dedicated hosting, location of the server, the uptime of the site, customer support, count of websites, SSL certificate, and upgrade charges. After comparison, you can go ahead and select a suitable hosting plan for your website. You must count on the freebies offered, like one domain free for a year, professional email free, etc. Such options can help you minimize your budget and reduce your initial investment.  Now, that you have a live domain, you need to set up the hosting of your website. The procedure varies from platform to platform on which you are planning to host the site. You will get all the details on your registered mail. Further, you can follow the link to continue.  On completion of your setup, you will get access to your c-panel where all data of your website will be stored. Now, you move ahead with building your site. 

How can I build my own website? 

To build your website, you have two options viz taking the help of website builder platforms or developing from scratch with the help of open-source CMS. 

  • Building a website with the Website builder 

By signing up on the website builder solutions, you can create a static website for yourself within just minutes.  If you want to build a single-page website, Godaddy’s starter bundle can also be helpful for you. It gives you a free domain with .co and .co.in extensions, hosting, professional mail, and access to the website builder. With professionally designed templates, you can create and launch your website in just minutes.  However, you will not be able to customize it completely as per your choice. To search and add the functionality of your choice, we recommend you to choose open-source CMS like WordPress. 

  • Building a website with open-source CMS

By accessing the c-panel of your website, you can install any of the open-source CMS like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and so on. With the market share of 35% of websites on the web, WordPress is most beloved in the community. We will be guiding you further, about creating your website on your own with WordPress. 

  • Installation of WordPress:

On your web hosting platform, often WordPress is available in the CMS, you can search for it and click to install. After filling the basic information like the name of the blog, subheading, location of file storage, admin credentials, you will be able to install WordPress in just a few minutes.  On installation, you will see the screen with links of your website, admin portal. For further edits, you have to go to the admin portal. 

  • Access your admin portal: 

Click on the link as domainname.com/wp-admin and with your credentials you will be able to login to your WordPress dashboard. This is the backend of your website. You can make every possible change to improve the look and feel of your site. 

  • Update your general settings: 

Under the settings section, you will find general settings, writing, reading, media, discussion, and permalinks. We advise you to check your general settings, writing and update the format of permalinks, if you want to. 

  • Select theme for your website: 

From the appearance section, you can select the theme for your website. By default, you will be getting a 2020 theme set for your website; you can select the ones that are available. By clicking on “Add a new theme,” you can explore the vast collection of free themes and filter the ones as per popularity, business niche, featured ones and latest. You need not purchase the theme; you can look for free themes on other websites and can download them. Further, you can upload the theme on your WordPress. For a trouble-free and easy experience, search “free Wordpress themes” on Google, so your website will be compatible with the latest version of WordPress.  You can check for Neve and Phlox theme store to download and export the entire demo template for your website. You will be asked to add some more plugins for the smooth functioning of the theme. Don’t forget to check the responsiveness of the theme, as it is a key factor in ranking your site, and it largely affects the look and feel of your website across devices. 

  • Add pages and content:

Website is nothing without the content for which it is designed. If you have used the demo theme, your website is already having some basic content with necessary pages. If you are building from scratch, you need to create necessary pages. The essential pages of any website are home page, about, contact, and blog. If you are creating a portfolio, you will have a dedicated page of the portfolio. For service-based companies, you can create a section of services. To explain your services in detail, you can create individual pages for them, else a single page of services can also serve the requirement. The affiliate marketers or ecommerce enthusiasts will have the section of ‘shop’ on their website. By default, there will be one post page on the site, and the rest of the pages will be static. If you want to create a multi-page website, you need to check for additional plugins. Initially, your blog will be the posting page, and home page will be the first landing page on your website. If you like to change, you can do so from the ‘menu’ and ‘customize your site section’. From the ‘post’ section, you can add new posts on your website.   For the security of your visitors, you will be creating a policy page, cookie and cache policy to take the permission of the customers to save and use their search history for improving the customer experience. 

  • Customize your site: 

By clicking on “Customize your site,” you will be redirected to the WYSIWYG editor. From here, you can personalize the front-end layout of your site and see the changes right in front of you. This makes it easier for you to update the layout as per your choice. You can use an elementor page builder plugin to change the content sections and update the content of your site. In addition to different layout options, you will be given ready-to-implement templates for different sections of your website. By selecting these templates, you can reduce the work of creating different sections and personalize your website as per your choice.  To add more functionalities to your website, you can check the plugins section and search for usability. From the ‘appearance’ section, you can add or remove the widgets from the side-bar and footer. 

  • Optimize your site with SEO: 

By adding essential pages and content for your website, you made it eligible to be viewed by your visitors, viewers and prospective customers. But, if you want them to discover you, you have to optimize your website for search engines as well. There are several plugins out there; you can count on SEO Yoast and Google Analytics all in one plugin for your website. You can also count on the Jetstarter pack that helps you optimize your posts and web pages for search engines. By updating meta tag, meta description, meta keywords for your website and content, you improve the understanding of search engines about your website. This will organically enhance the ranking of your site and improve the quality of traffic at your store. 

    • Launch your website: 

As soon as you are done with optimization, you must audit your site. You can ask your friend to view it and let you know the requirement of editing if any. This will make it easier for you to find the loopholes and fix the issue before some of your visitors tell you about it or leave the site instantly. Now, it’s time to launch your website. At this stage, we recommend you to link Google Analytics to your account to understand your demographics and how people are interacting with your website.  Congratulations! You did it!  Yes, it’s that easy to create a fully functional website. However, if you are looking for advanced functionalities for your business and don’t have an understanding of technicalities, professionals can make it happen in very less time. For redesigning your website, you can connect with the web design company to create a stunning website for you. If you have specific ideas sprouting from the edges of your creative brain, you can write to us at sales@www.wedowebapps.co.uk. Get more information about the List of The Major Setback Of Website Maintenance