How To Make A Website From Scratch? 5 Step-by-step Guide For Beginners

In this digital era, every company needs an online presence to reach more customers. And creating sites is the best method to do that. 

You might be concerned about how to make a website from scratch if you don’t have any technological expertise. The great news is that building a website is now more straightforward than it used to be. To make one, you don’t need any programming experience or to hire a developer. You can run WordPress or use website builders, etc.

This article will be a fantastic guide for beginners who want to set up a website without technical knowledge. 

9 Things To Consider Before Setting Up A Website

There are several things you need to consider and prepare before setting up a website, as follows:

Determine Your Goal

The first thing you have to consider before opening a website is your goal. What do you want your website to achieve the most? When you have the right answer to that question, you will know how to plan the website to reach that goal.

Every page on your website, including all the text, graphics, and design elements, should direct visitors toward your goal and give users the information they need to complete it. A website that attempts to do so many things might overwhelm visitors, causing them to leave the page too soon.

Define Your Users

The next step is to understand your target audience. What is your customers’ age? What draws them in? And last but not least, how are they using your website? You must remember that as you create and optimize your new website.

For example, suppose your potential customers are under 50. In that case, they tend to view and navigate your website primarily on a mobile phone, so you must design a simple website with a mobile-friendly appearance to reach your customers. 

Plan Out Your Site

Your website should have a substantial home page and a logical, simple flow toward your goal. Spend some time creating your site map and getting feedback from people functioning as “average users,”. 

Install Google Analytics if you already have a website so you can get concrete information about how and where users are leaving the site so you can improve the flow of your update.

Secure A URL

Your URL determines your site’s online location, so it must be simple to say, short, and memorable. If it is lengthy, make it more straightforward while sounding distinctive. 

For instance, if your business is Bob’s Fantastic Hot Dogs, having a URL like BobsDogs.com would make it easier for customers to find you online. Make sure your business name doesn’t run together into something awkward because a URL ignores capitalization.

Study The Competition

Try to figure out 3 to 5 competitors’ websites and examine them carefully before investing time and effort in building your own. Make careful notes regarding the appearance, usability, navigation, readability, and other aspects of their websites that you find appealing and unappealing. As you create your website, consider these suggestions as a starting place.

Identify SEO Keywords

You want to attract people using search engines to find your company’s offers. Select 3-5 goal keywords connected to your goods or services, and spread them throughout your website copy. 

You could start by imagining what the typical user would enter into a search engine if they wanted to learn more about your services. Then using some keyword tools to look for popular keywords that will help increase your website’s organic search results. Our ROI experts can perform an elementary keyword study for your business for a reasonable fee.

Write An Excellent Copy

Before building your website, get all of your material written. Copy should be as brief and concise as possible. Besides, all necessary details about what you provide and what makes you unique should be prominently displayed near the top so users aren’t overwhelmed and abandon the site too soon. 

If you can not write professionally, consider employing a copywriter. Proofreading the text is also a must because typos and poor grammar will turn off-site users. They may think if the website content’s quality is not good, your goods and services quality is also the same.

Prepare A Powerful Logo

A powerful and constant logo will firmly establish your brand’s image. In contrast, a weak and confused logo can break your business.

If your logo does not meet the standard, consider placing your website on hold and hiring a pro to design a logo to last the distance. If you alter your logo after the website introduction, users and customers will be confused.

Prepare Professional Photography

Another “must” for presenting a professional business picture is high-quality images. If you can not arrange a professional shoot, hire a photographer or buy high-quality stock images that capture the “feel” of your company. 

All of your website pictures must be of the highest caliber and resolution. Before you build your website, list all the photographs you’ll need (for the location, the goods, the staff, etc.) and collect them all. 

5 Stages To Make A Website From Scratch

After preparing everything needed for making a website, you will need to go through 5 stages to make your website from scratch.

Step 1: Choosing and Buying A Domain Name

This is the first step that you need to complete before going to other building-a-website steps. As mentioned above, the URL or the domain name is the online address visitors type into their browsers to reach your website. It may include a mix of letters, digits, and a domain extension, such as “.com,” “.net,” or “.org.”

Your domain name should include keywords, simple and unique. After having a proper domain name, you must register to be the sole user within a period. 

Step 2: Choosing A Host Provider

It would be best if you had a web host provider who will host or keep your website on devices called servers so that it can go live and be visible to your target audience online.

Selecting the right host provider is essential since it can affect your website speed or performance in general. Therefore, choosing the cheap one is not a smart idea. Consider a hosting provider with a good loading speed. Besides, spending some time reading reviews from actual users is necessary.

Step 2: Determine Website-Building Method

Your skills will be a significant factor in how you build your website. If you are a beginner, try beginner-friendly website builders like Wix or Squarespace. If you are proficient in web design and have some technical knowledge, you can use Drupal or Joomla to build a WordPress website. If you have reasonably advanced coding skills, you can create a website yourself.

Option 1: Using website builder( beginner level)

It can be effective to use a website builder to make a website for small businesses. This program guides you through creating a website without using any code. The provider handles the underlying coding, which is more accessible than a word processor.

However, compared to creating the website from the start using HTML, a template-based website builder typically provides fewer customization options. A website builder offers flexibility and a decent user experience for beginners, though the skills needed are not exceptionally high.

Option 2: Build a WordPress website( intermediate level)

Many company owners and workers have minimal coding knowledge. However, having to depend on a web designer or developer to build and maintain your website can be restrictive. WordPress is a general-purpose solution for companies needing a simple website with minimal effort and financial outlay. You can also install it quickly.

The WordPress interface is well-known for its modern, minimalist style. You will benefit from the premium themes’ options and the expanding collection of WordPress plugins.

WordPress is a flexible option for all types of companies thanks to the availability of various themes and layouts and the ability to progress to more advanced designs and features.

Option 3: Create a website from scratch( advanced level)

Creating a website from scratch will enable you to customize the site exactly as you want.

The learning curve is steeper, but the payoff is more significant because mastering HTML will enable you to optimize your website design and use those abilities moving forward to grow and update the site with ease.

Step 4: Set Up And Customize Your Website

After selecting a domain name, web host, and technique, you can start building your website’s appearance and content.

Setting up steps with website builders

The methods to create a website look like this:

• Make an account.
• Pick a hosting package. You don’t need a different hosting company if you use some website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify. These companies will handle your hosting.
• Register your domain name.
• Select a customized template.
• Customize your website by dragging and dropping components.
• Choose your add-ons. It is important to add security plugins to protect your website from hackers. Each content management system will offer several security plugins that you can choose from.
• Add content.
• Publish.

Setting up steps with WordPress

• Install WordPress. A one-click WordPress installation function is typically offered by hosting companies. Some even come pre-installed with it.
• Learn how to use the dashboard, where you will upload images, create and edit pages and blog entries, manage comments, alter the look and feel of the website, and add plugins or widgets.
• Install a theme for WordPress.
• Install plugins like Yoast for SEO optimization, WPForms for contact form creation, MonsterInsights or Google Analytics for online data analysis, Mailchimp for email list building, etc.
• Include content in the form of pages and blog entries.
• Publish.

Setting up steps with coding

Making a website using HTML is a worthwhile endeavor that expands your web editing and design knowledge. It suits people looking for a challenge and having additional time to experiment with computer science fundamentals. 

Your initial action should be to sign up with a hosting company. You’ll need a top-notch text processor with support for web-specific coding to create HTML tags. Microsoft users should consider Notepad++, while Mac users should choose TextMate. 

HTML, represented by text files with the extension.html, is the only language you can use to create web pages. Usually, your website’s index.html page is its primary page. Create and save this file, then fill it with the HTML site’s fundamental structure.

Tips for customizing your website

• Make it easy to navigate. Use categories or menu words your readers would be familiar with to avoid confusing them. As an illustration, Contact Us would be for your contact form, About Us for your company’s goals and values, Blog or Articles for your blog section, Shop for your online shop, and so on.
• Make your content readable. The fonts you use must be legible. Watch out for the word and line spacing as well, as these can impact your content’s readability.
• Use images to your advantage. Most individuals favor visual content over text. As in the case of graphs or maps, they draw readers’ attention and can more effectively communicate a message. But be careful not to overdo it when you compress your images so that they don’t increase the load speed of your website.
• Remember your Call to action. The most effective method to persuade people to take action is to ask them. CTAs accomplish this. In your blog posts and websites, use them wisely.

Step 5: Update Content

Building a website is not something you can do once and leave alone. As we briefly stated, for your website to achieve its objectives in terms of SEO, brand building, sales generation, authority building, list nurturing, etc., you need to update it with pertinent, helpful content regularly.

Guidelines for material updates:

• Refresh your theme: Updating a stale motif, such as one you’ve been using for five years, is one way to give your website some new life.
• Revitalize outdated content: Update outdated material to make it more current. Use data or examples from more recent times, for instance.
• Adapt your content: Convert popular blog posts into other material, like an infographic or downloadable PDF.

What Are The Best Content Management System For Website Building

You may need to understand the difference between website builders and content management systems. Website builders give you access to all the tools you need to create a website, including blogs with drag-and-drop features.

On the other hand, CMS provides you with the ability to develop, edit, and manage content. Most CMSs are more potent than website builders and have their features for creating websites. Here we can list the four best content management system for website building as follow:

WordPress

WordPress is among the most well-known content management systems in the world, powering over 43% of all websites. It is an open-source, easy-to-use, flexible, and customizable platform. 

WordPress has a large community of developers and users, and thousands of themes and plugins are available to extend its functionality.

Pros:

• Extensive collection of free and premium themes and plugins
• User-friendly
• SEO-friendly
• Mobile-responsive (automatically adjust to fit different screen sizes and devices)
• Large and active community

Cons:

• Set up hosting and domain name, and manage things like security and backups by yourself
• Start hardly because of flexibility options

Wix

Wix is a famous website builder with apps and components that serve as a CMS. It is easy to use and a good choice for small businesses or individuals who want to quickly build and manage a simple website.

Pros:

• The User-friendly drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create and customize your website
• Many templates are available for all types of websites, from e-commerce sites to blogs to portfolios.
• App market allows you to add extra functionality to your website.

Cons:

• Limited data ownership: You have limited ownership over your website’s data and may not be able to quickly transfer it to another platform if you decide to switch in the future.
• Limitation in Ecommerce store running.
• Restricted template changing
• Wix ads and branding on your website when using the free version

Magento

Magento is a potent open-source CMS from the sizable software firm Adobe. The Magento Open Source edition is free for distribution and installation on your web hosting account.

The simplest method to get started using this would be SiteGround Magento hosting.

Pros:

• Flexible with a wide variety of third-party extensions accessible that you can use to add additional features
• Highly customizable
• Manage numerous goods and clients.
• Lots of big-name brands using Magento, such as Ford, Nike, Coca Cola
• Link Magento to various payment processors

Cons:

• Challenging to locate competent coders for Magento tasks
• Complex and more difficult to learn than other Ecommerce platforms
• The time-consuming process of upgrading one version of Magento to another

Drupal

Drupal is a powerful and flexible CMS for building large and complex websites. It has a steep learning curve compared to other CMS platforms but is highly customizable to meet specific needs.

Pros: 

• Lots of different modules are available to add to your site
• Easy to add content
• Available community support options
• Easy user management with a built-in system

Cons:

• Difficult to understand how to add features or alter the look of your website
• A highly costly developer-made theme with high customization levels

Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Does It Cost When Creating A Website?

Creating a simple website for a small business may cost you between $100 and $500. However, based on your objectives, this expense might go up. A custom website with several features may cost up to $30,000.

The cost of creating a website from scratch can vary widely depending on various factors, such as the platform you choose, the complexity of the website, the level of customization required, and whether you hire a professional web developer or do it yourself. Below are the main factors that can decide the cost of creating a website:

• Domain name: costs $10 to $50 per year
• Web host: $5 to $50 per month.
• Design and development
• Content creation
• Maintenance and updates

Do You Need Technical Knowledge to Make a Website?

Having technical knowledge to make a website is better since you can customize it to what you want. However, having the technical expertise to build a website is optional because you have great support from website builders. They make the process of creating a website simple for beginners.

Website builders can handle all the technical details so you don’t need to mess around with server and hosting setup. Besides, they also manage all the technical information on the backend, you can build your complete website without ever writing a single line of code.

How Many Products Can I Sell With Hostinger Website Builder?

Hostinger is a beginner-friendly website builder perfect for anyone with minimal technical expertise.

With user-friendly eCommerce features, you can sell up to 500 goods or services at no commission. Twenty payment methods are available globally. The eCommerce management suite’s user-friendly interface makes handling orders, inventory, reservations, and discounts simple. 

Conclusion

In general, similar to building a house, creating a website is a significant undertaking, especially if you want to offer goods there. Understanding how to make a website from scratch will help you save time and money for other business activities while owning an effective website.  

In case your financial situation is good enough, and you have enormous requirements for a website, it is preferable to hire a website developer or a service to do that for you. Our website development service can assist you in creating a unique website that meets all your requirements at an affordable price.