Warning: If you haven’t created a website before. Without proper knowledge you can waste your money and time. While its always great idea to get help from an expert. But if you are really serious to create a good performing and growing website. You should know all options, pros and cons yourself. This wouldn’t only make you powerful to take right decisions. But would also help you understand the cost and time you would spend setting up your website.
Since 2009 i have helped thousands of people to setup their website. But unfortunately not even 5% could take their website to next level. When we start a website with a great idea we do have a great energy and motivation. But as time goes our energy level and motivation drops which cost us the time and money which we already spent. So it’s really important to go right directions otherwise there is really no use to make a website. As it wouldn’t even visible between millions of websites online today!
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What’s Purpose of This Guide?
Well would be straight forward and to the point. The main purpose of this guide for creating a website. As i told you earlier i have helped thousands of people to start or create their websites. Usually people come to me after they already have taken decisions. Like domain name, hosting company, platform to use, theme selection everything. So there is really very few things i can suggest them as they already have spent their money. With help of their whole search and knowledge.
But i always knew the way they are heading towards. Creating a website is just one thing. Would that work the way you want? Would your website have continuous growth? Yes! But only if you go right directions from the beginning. Otherwise there is really no sense to create a website which have 0 traffic. This is completely waste of time, money and energy as well. And big factor it demotivates you like hell that you would not ever want to create a website again.
Point: We will stay focused and create a website which grows as we made mind before start.
Before Start, Let’s Decide The Platform To Setup a Website
There are hundreds of platforms to support your website. Its really important to decide which platform you should carry your website with.
There are two types of websites one is static website which you can build with simple HTML/CSS. And websites which are supported by Content Management Systems you can say them dynamic websites.
Recommendation: If you do not have knowledge of HTML/CSS we do not recommend you to create HTML/CSS website. Go with some content management system which can help you manage your content easily.
Some famous CMS are WordPress, Drupal, Joomla. These all are CMS which you can install on your hosting and have full authority. While some other website builders like WIX, Squarespace, Godaddy website builders are self hosted. On self hosted platforms you have limited power while on your own installation you have full power.
Let’s take a look to famous platforms to manage websites in use. https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/traffic/Entire-Internet
- WordPress 50.92%
- Wix 7.16%
- Progress Sitefinity 5.24%
- Squarespace 3.79%
- Joomla! 3.34%
So as WordPress is the most popular website Content Management System and widely in use. We will carry how to create website post based on WordPress.
What Is The Reason People Choose WordPress Mostly To Create Website?
Since WordPress launched in 2003 as it was competition for google’s blogspot.com service. But later cause of the features and flexibility including the ability to get installed on user’s website. Furthermore WordPress provided open source code, and great documentation for plugins and theme developers.
These were enough ingredients to give a tough competition to google’s blogspot. So after 16 years if we see today where blogspot and WordPress stands. You can easily notice that blogspot is far behind WordPress today.
So why the users are selecting WordPress and what’s the main thing behind its popularity? The answer is its flexibility, ease of usage, simple and easy backend interface. The availability of help, support, themes and plugins. You have everything to build a website with WordPress. The tutorials, books, even videos with so much material WordPress is only a selection.
Simplifying the answer is, WordPress makes it very easy for end user to add new pages, add new posts, add new images, and edit existing content. Adding new widgets or updating existing widgets in footer, or in sidebar. Also the navigation update adding new items into navigation deleting old items. Everything is just like a piece of cake in WordPress and that’s why people love to use WordPress. When they require a new functionality they just find a plugin and they have that power as well. This is the power and reason of WordPress’s popularity.
Thoughts about Joomla, Drupal and Other Content Management Systems
Before you start building your website. This is really important to do some research and go right directions. Cause when you based on a platform then later changing that can cost you a lot of money and time together.
With my experience i can tell you the best selection is what you like. Since you reached to the question what is good WordPress , Drupal or Joomla. Which states that you know a little about these 3 platforms. And you already know what you likes or want to use. But you want us to give you assurity again about your selection. Let’s say if you like WordPress already and i suggest you joomla here would you start using it. I don’t think so. So the good solution is check some video tutorials of usage for all 3 platforms to select a good one for you!
Drupal Vs WordPress Vs Joomla
| CMS | WordPress | Joomla | Drupal |
| About (What they say about themselves) | WordPress is open source software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app. | Joomla! Is an award-winning content management system (CMS) which enables you to build websites and powerful online applications. | Drupal is content management software. It’s used to make many of the websites and applications you use every day. |
| Software | FREE and Open Source | FREE and Open Source | FREE and Open Source |
| CMS Market Share(W3Techs) | 58.9% | 7.0% | 4.7% |
| Installation | One-click Install or manual installation manually within 5 minutes | One-click Install ormanual installation within 10 minutes | One-click Install ormanual installation within 10 minutes |
| Ease of Use | Beginner-friendly (5/5) | Somewhat Beginner-friendly (4/5) | Requires Coding Skills (3.5/5) |
| Design (Themes & Templates) | 4500+ Official FREE Themes9500+ Premium Themes at Webful Creations | NO Official Template Directory950+ Premium Joomla Templates at ThemeForest | 2000+ Official Drupal Themes450+ Premium Drupal Themes at ThemeForest |
| Functionality (Plugins & Extensions) | 50,000+ Official FREE Plugins (Thousands of Paid Plugins on the web) | 7500+ Official Extensions (FREE+Paid) | 37,000+ Drupal Module at Official Directory |
| Websites Using this Platform | Chicaco Sun Times, Vogue India, Katy Perry & More. | Michael Phelps – MP Brand, Discover Magazine, French West Indies & More. | US. Department of Energy, University of Minnesota & More. |
| Website | Visit WordPress | Visit Joomla | Visit Drupal |
Hope this table gave you some sort of idea. Which platform you should select to start your website with.
What’s Difference Between Domain name and Web Hosting?
Domain and Hosting both are completely different services. We are often asked by our readers to explain what is the difference between a domain name and web hosting? Many beginners don’t know that these are two separate things. While domain and hosting both are different services but when you are running a website. They both are related to each other.
Domain Name:
Domain name is the address of your website that people type in the browser’s URL bar to visit your website.
You can also say if your website is your business shop then your domain name is your business address. When you give that address on browser’s address bar then you reach your business shop.
Internet is basically a giant network of computers connected to each other through cables. To easily identify them, each computer is assigned a series of numbers called IP Address.
This IP address is a combination of numbers separated with dots. Typically, IP addresses look like this: 209.348.92.7
Computers have no problem identifying and remembering these numbers. However, it is impossible for humans to remember and use these numbers to connect to websites on the internet. To solve this problem, domain names were invented. A domain name can have words which makes it easy to remember website addresses.
Now if you wanted to visit a website on the internet, you don’t need to type a string of numbers. Instead, you can type in an easy to remember domain name, for example, webfulcreations.com. We recommend namecheap for domain registration.
Web Hosting:
Web hosting is the place where all the files of your website live. Web hosting is an online hard drive where your website files, data, images are stored.
What you do in real world when you want to buy a book from a book store? First of all you get business shop address that is what domain name online. Then you go there and get book which is stored in shop that store or shelve is hosting resource.
When someone enters your domain name in a browser, the domain name is translated into the IP address of your web hosting company’s computer. Which is linked via Domain Name Servers to point domain to hosting. This computer contains your website’s files, and it sends those files back to the users’ browsers.
Web hosting companies specialize in storing and serving websites. They offer different types of hosting plans to their customers. We are working with HostGator and you can find their hosting packages on their website.
Let’s Begin Building our website now!
So you must have the name of your website in your mind yet? Before you register your domain name or web hosting please do some research about available domain names.
If you are going to sell flowers on your website then your domain name should use flowers in it as well. For example izmirflowers.com would help you to rank faster than other domain names for flower related business.
1) Choose a domain name and registrar
So before buying or investing any money on anything do some research on available domain names. And find a name which relates with your business or content you are going to publish on your website. We would recommend you to buy domain with our partner NameCheap they are best domain registrars.
Find a domain name for your website. For now just search the domain name do not buy it. Because you can get domain name for free with your web hosting package for first year.
During the hosting plan selection below you would also get the option to select and find domain to get that for free with hosting.
2) Choose a Hosting Plan
First of all go to shared hosting section in HostGator. And select a plan for you we think you should start with Baby Plan because you can always upgrade to higher plan whenever you want.
2.1) Why HostGator is a good web host?
There are thousands of web hosting companies around the world operating today. Why we are bringing HostGator for you is just cause they perform better their price is better and their support is awesome. Most important thing in all is performance and they provide you a really great performing web hosting for your website.
3) Confirm your Hosting Plan & Addons
Your website can run only with Hosting plan and the Domain name. However you don’t need any third addon or service but in case you want to add addons to your purchase confirm them.
And confirm your hosting plan with the months for how many months you want to purchase your hosting plan.
4) Fill your Account Information
Provide your correct account details make sure you use correct Email and phone number. So in case you forget your logins in future you can easily recover your hosting account with your email address. PRovide all verified and correct information.
If you want to make payment with Paypal then click on Use PayPal tab/button to proceed to paypal section.
5) Process Your Order
Overview your order main items to review. Make sure the domain is showing in your order is correct and the domain you want to use. Your all account information is correct and you can be contacted with your given contact details.
As you get huge discount on your first time payment for your hosting package so make sure you pay for as many months as possible during registration of first time. All is done now process your order and boom!
6) Welcome to your Account Manager
Congratulations! you have successfully created your account with hosting company. Now you are officially owner of Domain name and hosting plan also.
So where you have reached is actually your account manager. Where you can find your invoices, contact details, support and your hosting cPanel logins and other items.
Your account manager looks something like this.
6.1) cPanel logins and Nameservers Email
Your should also have received email which contains your hosting logins. Also your nameserver, hosting IP address and other important details about your hosting Panel.
Please connect your nameservers with your domain name if you bought domain from some other registrar not your hosting company.
If you are not sure how to update nameservers please contact your domain registrar and provide them the nameservers you received in email.
Domain takes upto 24 hours to start propagating new nameservers to have patience until your domain start pointing your hosting account.
6.2) Login your cPanel
Login your hosting Control panel which you can do via IP address also by adding /cpanel at end of your domain name in case your domain is connected to hosting.
So either you can load your ip address with https:// protocol or you can load your domain name on browser following /cpanel and login with credentials you received in email from hosting company.
6.3) Understanding cPanel Interface
Your cPanel would be looking something like image below. Which is divided into different sections. While sidebar provides you some stats and your server information like IP address, name servers etc.
Left side have different sections e.g emails, files, installations, softwares so you can check them one by one to make yourself familiar with your hosting Control Panel dashboard.
7) Create your Business/Domain Email
Why don’t you get rid of @gmail.com or @hotmail.com or @yahoo.com now? 🙂 Cause you have your own domain and hosting now!
Go to Email accounts and click on Emails and create your @yourdomain.com email address. Keep your email and password noted in case you want to connect your email account with some other email clients like iCloud or gmail or hotmail or yahoo.
If you need help how to create your email account and connect with your email clients you can contact us.
7.1 How to make a HTML website?
If you want to make HTML site then do not read further. Find a HTML template and see how to install that html template on your website.
We can also help you find a good HTML template and launch your website with simple and easy HTML website.
8. Install WordPress For Creating New Website
WordPress is a very useful and easy content management system to start building your website with. As we stated above WordPress isn’t only easy to manage but its also have a lot of resources themes, plugins available to use.
You maybe interested in WordPress Training Courses.
In your control panel go to Software section and either click there QuickInstallation or WordPress icon. Then proceed to the instructions by providing your domain name. Directory leave blank to run WordPress on main domain root.
Once you have provided http:// protocol either you want to use www. or domain name without www. your directory name. Click install so installation process can start.
8.1) WordPress Installation in Process
Once installation button is clicked the process is started and now you should sit idle and wait for your WordPress URL and WordPress admin URL.
8.2) Find WordPress Logins
After installation is complete you would receive message about
- Your website URL
- Admin account URL mostly yourdomain.com/wp-admin following /wp-admin
- Username and Password
Remember always use email which you can always use to recover the logins. Now you can enter your username and password in screen below of course its just a preview.
9) Login to Your WordPress Dashboard
After successful login you are now in your wordPress dashboard. Congratulations! you have successfully created your WordPress website.
You are ready to create pages, posts, images, menus, widgets and much more with just few clicks.
Setup your WordPress Website Nicely
As you already have installed the WordPress on your website. I would recommend you to do some research and read as much as you can about WordPress. You can also watch our videos related to WordPress here.
You already have seen how your WordPress dashboard looks like? And you may have twenty twenty WordPress theme to serve your front end as well 🙂
1) Understand WordPress Dashboard
Sidebar is the all menus WordPress have for you. Also you can call them the options. Posts are where you can add new blog posts, media where you can add and manage media files.
So you should navigate through each section and try to understand what they are. In case you do not get something or need further help we are here to help you about WordPress check our WordPress services.
2) Choose a WordPress Theme
First of all please send a WordPress theme for yourself. Remember you have thousands of options and its upto you which way you want to go.
If you want custom designed WordPress theme we develop WordPress themes also. Contact WordPress development agency.
3) Add Logo
Very simple just go to wp-admin >> Appearance >> Customize >> General Settings >> Site Identity and add your site’s icon and logo. Also define your site name this is very important.
4) Setup Header
Check all available options in your Appearance >> Customizer to make sure you have selected all best header options.
Some themes also have theme options under Appearance >> theme options check them also to make sure your header looks awesome.
5) Setup Footer and Widgets
Footer widgets can be managed by going to wp-admin >> Appearance >> widgets.
Please note theme have to support footer widgets in case you want to use them from above given suggestion. You can add any kind of widgets in available footer sidebars. Sidebar doesn’t stand for a sidebar only in WordPress its actually a place for widgets. Can be present anywhere on site.
6) Create WordPress Pages
Go to wp-admin >> Pages and create your all pages you want to have on your website. With premium WordPress themes you can easily get demo content. With awesome page builder and nice slider.
So things are easy to manage when you have support also with premium WordPress themes.
7) Select Home and Blog Page
Once you have decided if your home page would be your blog page or a static page would be your home or front page. Then go to wp-admin >> Settings >> Reading and select your desired front page options.
To change the permalinks in WordPress go to wp-admin >> Settings >> Permalinks and select your desired format. /post-name/ is recommended form as they are very nicely search engine friendly permalinks.
8) Create your website’s navigation
Once you have all the Post categories , pages or any other items you want to use. Now you can go to Appearance >> Menu and create a new menu for top or bottom then assign that navigation to menu places.
You have different places which your theme provides you. So you can edit or add new menu for each navigation place.
9) Install Contact Form Plugin and Setup Contact Page
You can find a contact form WordPress plugin if you are using premium WordPress theme then this would come with theme itself. But in case you are using a free WordPress theme then you need to find out a plugin yourself. And setup that as there are hundred of plugins so we cannot tell you what’s best for you.
10) Add widgets to available sidebars
Last thing you should now try to check if all sidebars have good widgets. Go to appearance >> Widgets and do it right way because sidebars have very important locations on web pages. So you should have good or reasonable widgets in sidebars.
Congratulations! Your website is ready to launch!
Tell the world you have created the website. Also tell us 🙂
- Go to https://analytics.google.com/ and create google analytics to use for your website.
- Register your website with https://search.google.com/search-console/about
- Post on your social media
Keep your website alive by adding new content or improving existing content every week. This is the only way your website can grow nicely.
Suggestions and Advice for website growth
If you are really serious to grow your website you cannot do everything yourself. You can hire a WordPress maintenance Service provider who can do a lot of things for you. From which you can learn and get your requests done as well.
Once again if you want help of professionals to create a website we are available just contact us. We also have awesome WordPress services including WordPress maintenance service. To help you grow your website and business also. And our Premium WordPress themes have all options which you can need to maintain your website as well.
I hope this was a great article and helpful article any questions contact us!