Every new website creator wonders how to create a great website at one point or another. The growth and success of the online project they engage in certainly often depend on it. Therefore, having a solid plan in place and exploring all viable options for setting up a website are essential and pertinent moves that any aspiring webmaster should have when tackling the project independently.
This guide was put together to present three variations available to build a website. They include:
- Building using CMS (Content Management System)
- Using e-commerce scripts
- Utilizing a website builder
As with anything, there are benefits and downfalls to using each method. It’s essential to understand some critical aspects of website building to help make a better, well-informed decision.
First Step: Establish the Idea for Your Website
The first step is to determine what your website will be about. There are many different ideas, so once you have selected the idea you feel is right for your project, a well-executed approach can start bringing in great money. To determine the idea for your website, think about your intent, the main purpose for building one in the first place, and what functionality you would like for it to have. According to Clay. Global, a web design company in San Francisco, there are multiple purposes that one would want to create a website for. These include:
News
News sites are popping up everywhere. There is so much to report that more outlets are being created to distribute news. Many have great stories to report to the world and simply need an outlet to do this.
E-commerce
It’s harder to think of a more popular type of website these days than e-commerce. Between the popularity of online shopping and drop shipping methods, many are starting online side businesses that will make great money selling physical and digital products to a market of global customers.
Blogs
For every person who has information to share and valuable tips to put out into the world, there are hundreds or thousands of people who are eager to read about it. Blogging about a topic is a great way to engage an audience, whether it is about business aspects such as reviews, affiliates, niche topics, or leisure topics like music, travel, cooking, and books.
Education
Some of the most popular websites are those that teach. Many people are looking for a particular skill, and they will happily come to and pay for courses on the topic. To you, it might just be something you are good at or a hobby, but for someone else, it may be an essential skill they wish to acquire.
Online Communities
Online community sites are viral judging based on the sheer number of them that exist. But the caveat with these is it takes time to grow them as more members find them to join. So there is no use waiting around to get these started.
Portfolios
Looking to strengthen your online visibility and want to showcase your strengths? A website allows you to put your work front and center. If you are applying for jobs or trying to get a freelance gig, putting your work out there can give anyone interested in your body or work to see what you have been working on.
Once you have your website’s goal, you can start looking into hosting providers to ensure that their model fits what you are doing.
Second Step: Registering a Domain Name
Any website you put together should have a catchy name that it is known by. There are a few points to hit on while choosing your website’s reputation.
- Think of several good name ideas for your website
- Use a domain checker to see if your idea for a name is already being used
- After weeding out names, you cannot use, choose the best remaining option
- Complete your registration to secure your domain name. This process sounds simple, and in its mechanics, it is. But the challenging part is coming up with a great, timeless name. So here are a few helpful tips.
- While other options are available and viable, stick to a .com for your TLD. Therefore, it is the most popular and will be the easiest for your viewers to remember.
- The excellent idea is to register a few alternatives that those looking for your site can type in by mistake. In other words, if there is a common misspelling or confusion that you can think of, it’s worth registering those domain names too to still direct users to your intended website.
- Less is more when it comes to website names. The shorter and catchier your website’s title, the easier and more memorable it will be for your visitors to remember.
- Some websites include hyphens or numbers in their name. This isn’t ideal because it only increases the chances that users mistype your address and are unable to find your site.
Third Step: Acquire Web Host
The next step is to pick a web host that will provide the resources you need to publish your website online. There are many choices for web hosts, and the one you need greatly depends on the scope and nature of your website project. There are three primary hosting options that webmasters use depending on their needs:
Shared Hosting
It’s easy to understand shared hosting when thinking of it as an apartment building or a mode of public transport. It is one server that hosts multiple users, with all of the websites sharing the resources of one server. Because various websites share the space, the costs are lower. Still, the limitations are higher because no one website can utilize too many of the server’s resources to provide equal balance to everyone sharing the space. If the server goes down, all of its websites become inaccessible until it is restored.
Cloud Hosting
This option aims to fuse the simplicity of shared hosting without utilizing a physical server. Rather than keeping every website in one place, this option spreads copies of the website across virtual servers. If one server goes down, other documents will allow the website to stay available, yielding maximum uptime. For better performance and uptime your online store always chooses a reliable cloud hosting provider for Magento, WooCommerce, and other open-source platforms.
VPS Hosting
VPS (virtual provider server) allows for additional control and freedom to website hosting, but as a tradeoff, it’s more of a hands-on process, where the webmaster would need some server skill management knowledge. This option is the most customizable, and thanks to root access, the entirety of the system will be under your control.
Fourth Step: Select a Platform for Your Website
It is now time to select the foundation for your website, which means building your website and making decisions about how it is to be executed. Putting together a site can be done in a multitude of ways, including:
CMS (Content Management System)
These construction tools include WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. This approach to website building is best for those sites publishing a lot of content regularly, such as blogs or news feeds.
Website Builders
Those with little to no coding knowledge like to utilize website builders that allow website generation to be a simple drag and drop process.
eCommerce Scripts
Software like WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and Magento is specifically designed to make online store websites easier to set up.
Self-Coded Sites
Savvy coders can always take the approach of coding their website into existence. While this is more resource-intensive and time-consuming, it allows you to build the website you want without the limitations of the other options, allowing for maximum customization and detailed options.
Fifth Step: Advanced Planning
Try to avoid a situation where you build a website and don’t know where to go with it from there. Putting a site together is only the beginning, it’s the upkeep that is the real crux of its success. This is doubly true for business sites. eCommerce sites also need to plan to ensure a viable selling and marketing strategy.
You may have many ideas, but they will be gone if you don’t retain them. So try to organize all of your website-relevant ideas in one central place, like a spreadsheet. This will also allow you to trend how you have progressed as a website owner over time, and it will enable you to have a planned schedule of what products, pages, and features you are getting ready to introduce to your audience.
Final Thought
Now that you have been introduced to several ways of building a website and are armed with some great tips, it’s time to sit down and put in the thought on how you will want to get started.
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