How to Create a Website in 9 Simple Steps #website #websitedevelopment #computer

 

How to Create a Website in 9 Simple Steps

You can create a website in less than 20 minutes. You don’t need to be a tech wizard either.

It doesn’t matter if it’s for business or pleasure. You don’t need a fancy designer or an expensive developer. Just follow the simple steps below and you’ll be online in no time at all.  

Top Web Hosting Providers To Create A Website

If you want to create a website, you’ll need a web hosting provider. Here are the best options.

• Hostinger – Most affordable hosting plans overall
• WP Engine – Best managed WordPress hosting
• Bluehost – Best web host for beginners
• DreamHost – Most affordable month-to-month plan
• HostGator – Best for lean or minimal needs
• GreenGeeks – Best eco-friendly hosting
• SiteGround – Best for making your WordPress site speedy & secure
• A2 Hosting – Fast and reliable shared hosting
• InMotion – Best VPS hosting
• Nexcess – Best for scaling and growth

9 Steps to Create a Website

Here’s a summary of the steps to build your website:

1. Choose the perfect domain
2. Get web hosting and free domain registration with Hostinger
3. Claim your free domain with Hostinger
4. Install WordPress with Hostinger
5. Access WordPress in the Hostinger dashboard
6. Design your website with a customizable theme
7. Build your website’s architecture
8. Connect your web pages with menus
9. Create compelling content for your website

Feel free to use these links to jump around to the section you need as you create your website.

Step 1: Choose the Perfect Domain

Choosing a domain is one of the most important decisions you can make for your site. It’s the address for your site and the way people will remember your website.

While many of the best domains are taken, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find a perfect domain for your brand. 

When brainstorming good domain names, consider the following elements:

• Easy to say and spell. Potential visitors should be able to say your domain name out loud to someone without them having to ask twice how to spell or say it.
• Short and sweet. We recommend no more than 14 characters. You don’t want an overly long domain name that’s hard to remember and say.
• Go with .com, .org, or .net. While there are plenty of domain name systems out there, it’s best to stick with the tried-and-true. You want people to be able to remember it, after all.
• Use your name. A particularly great choice for a personal blog, website, or portfolio.
• Avoid numbers and hyphens. This just makes it look weird in the URL. Plus it makes it harder for people to say your URL to others.

domain name you want is available.

Type your desired name in to the Domain Checker. If it’s available, fantastic. If not, Hostinger will automatically provide a few recommendations that are close to what you are looking for.

Maybe one of the recommendations works for you. Maybe you have to try a different approach.

I recommend you brainstorm ideas and search until you find an available domain you like, rather than taking something that isn’t quite right just because it is available.

It’s possible to buy a domain that’s already taken—but I don’t recommend doing that because it’s very expensive. In fact, quality domains typically cost a few thousand dollars at a minimum. I’ve seen it go as high as six or seven figures for a domain.

My advice is to get scrappy, get creative, and be flexible. You will be able to find one that’s available at a reasonable price.

Don’t add the domain to your cart at this time–you can get a domain for free by signing up for their Premium Shared Hosting service, which is what I recommend.

I’ll walk you through that process next.

Step 2: Get Web Hosting and Free Domain Registration With Hostinger

A website needs just two things to go live: A domain name and a web host.

You just came up with your domain name. Now it’s time to put it to use with a good web host.

We highly recommend you use Hostinger for your website’s host. They offer a fast and reliable web host. Hostinger also allows you to register your domain free of charge.

Visit Hostinger

• BEST DEAL FOR HOSTING
• PERFECT FOR WORDPRESS SITES
• FREE DOMAIN REGISTRATION
• STARTS AT $1.99/MONTH

GET STARTED TODAY

You can get Hostinger today for just $1.99/month using our discount link. It’ll give you all you need to get your website up and running.

Start by going to Hostinger’s website. Then click on Start Now. 

Once you select the best plan for you, Hostinger will ask you how long you want to sign up. Here’s what that looks like if you choose the Premium plan:

I chose the 48-month period for my Premium plan so that I could max out the discount. As you can see, I’ll wind up paying less than $100 for four years of hosting!

That’s a phenomenal price, especially when you consider that many other hosting providers charge extra for things like SSL certificates, website builders, email accounts, and other critical features that Hostinger bundles in for free.

After selecting the length of your hosting agreement, complete the rest of the information on the page.

1. Register an account with Hostinger. You can use an email address, or signup via an existing Google, Facebook, or GitHub account. Whatever you choose, make it an email or account that you check regularly, as this is how Hostinger will communicate with you about any issues that come up.
2. Enter payment details. Hostinger accepts all major credit cards and a variety of online payment gateways, such as PayPal, GooglePay, and CoinGate.
3. Click “Submit”. Once you submit your payment, you have 30 days to try Hostinger risk-free. If you are not happy with your service, cancel within the first month for a refund.

Once your payment goes through, and you confirm your email address, you’ll be able to begin setting up your site.

If you need managed WordPress hosting, WPEngine is a fantastic option.

Step 3: Claim Your Free Domain

Follow the instructions on the welcome email to log in to Hostinger.

Once you are there, you’ll answer a series of straightforward questions about the website you are trying to create:

And it’s basically this easy throughout the whole setup, which only takes a few minutes.

You’ll have the option to claim your free domain as long as you signed up with Premium or Business Shared Hosting:

At this time you can also connect domains you already own (the walkthrough is very simple) or buy additional domains.

As you select from free domains, keep an eye on the renewal pricing. Your domain is free for the first year. After that, you have to renew, typically at a higher price. This is no different from any other host, but you don’t want to be surprised about renewal pricing.

The top example where the renewal price is more than 50 times higher than starting price is unusual. But it happens. The bottom example is much more within the normal range for domain name renewals.

Step 4: Install WordPress with Hostinger

Next, you’ll choose your content management system (CMS). I recommend using WordPress.

Hostinger will give you other CMS options, but unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, WordPress is the easiest, cheapest, safest play you can make.

Create a WordPress account with a strong password, and choose from dozens of different layout options for your site. Different layouts are known as WordPress themes.

You just have to make a choice at this time–you’ll be able to change themes and customize the site later. We’ll go into all that in the next steps.

For now, just confirm everything is correct

Step 5: Access WordPress in Hostinger Dashboard

Hostinger offers a very convenient dashboard for you to manage your site. It’s known as hPanel, and is very welcoming to new users, as far as website control panels go.

And if you have any confusion, Hostinger has tons of support about how to navigate hPanel.

You’ll be prompted to use WordPress to create your site. If you miss the prompts or skip them for any reason, you can always log in to WordPress using the left-side dropdown panel in the dashboard:

Enter the WordPress account password you created in the last step to log in and start customizing your new website.

Step 6: Design Your Website with Customizable  Themes

You already selected a WordPress theme to build your site, and if you are happy with the way it looks, great!

If you want to see what else is out there, you can explore tens of thousands of themes on WordPress.org. A lot of them are free. There are also some you need to pay for.

Pro tip: Don’t worry too much about this section. It’s easy to get caught up with perfectionism and think that you need to get your theme right the first time. That’s not true.

The most important thing you can do is choose a basic theme and go with it. You can always change your theme later. 

Go to your WordPress website’s administration dashboard. You can do this through the Hostinger dashboard, or you can use the URL [your website name].com/wp-admin. Then simply use the username and password you got in the previous step.

Once you’re in the admin dashboard, go to your sidebar and click Appearance>Themes>Add New Theme. 

This will allow you to add any theme you want from WordPress’s library. Choose one now.

For this article, we’ll be using OceanWP. This is a free theme that’s very flexible. Whether you need a blog, ecommerce store, or whatever else, OceanWP can get it done.

Step 7: Build Your Website’s Architecture

If your website is a house, it’s currently an empty lot. It has a solid foundation and it’s connected to essential utilities—but it needs the walls and rooms.

To build those, you need to create web pages. These are documents on the internet that readers access through your website.

But you should think of them as the rooms of your house. These are the areas visitors will see and get to know you and your website.

While there are a lot of different types of web pages that exist, the most essential ones are:

• Homepage. This is the main page for your website. It’s what readers see first, so it’s very important.
• Contact page. This page shows how your users can contact you. This can be vitally important, depending on your business.
• About page. This page tells new visitors all about your website and/or business. Typically, businesses will put their “brand story” here about how they came to be.
• Online store. This is where your readers can purchase products and services from you. Again, can be vitally important depending on your business.
• Blog page. This page is where all of your blog posts go. If you plan on publishing articles for readers to read, this will be a very important part of your website.

Creating pages on WordPress just takes a few clicks. Let’s jump into how you can create the most important page now for your website.

How to Create a Homepage

OceanWP gives you two different ways to create a homepage:

• Your latest posts. Your homepage showcases your latest blog posts.
• A static page. You create a page to become your home page.

The first option is straightforward: Create blog posts and the homepage will automatically show all your latest blog posts.

That’s why we want to walk you through creating a static page for your website. This can be especially useful for companies that just want a branded page to introduce their audience to the website.

Step 8: Connect Your Web Pages with Menus

Creating menus is going to vary from theme to theme. However, in OceanWP it’s fairly simple.

From your WordPress dashboard, click on Appearance>Customize. 

Then click on Menu>Create New Menu. 

Here you’ll be able to give your menu a name and choose where you’d like it to appear.

For now, we’re going to go with the very creative name “New Menu” and choose Top Bar for the menu location. You can always change this later. Then click Next. 

Now it’s time to add some links. Click on + Add Items to start building your menu.

From here you can add pages via the pages that you have already created, custom links to different websites, blog posts, categories, tags, and more.

Step 9: Create Compelling Content for Your Website

What you ultimately choose to include in your website for content is entirely up to you.

However, there are two areas that we’ve found to be the most important when it comes to successful websites: design and content.

Below are our best resources for leveling up both:

Thanks for your help and support.