How to Build Your Own Website Without Coding: Step By Step Guide For Newbies
Drupal is another big player in the world of content management systems. While WordPress and Joomla boast that you need no coding knowledge to create a website, Drupal does it the other way around. As of today, it is one of the most powerful and secure CMSes in the hands of developers. With Hostinger, you can start your Drupal development journey in the shortest timeframe possible. Set it up in just 1-click using our Auto Installer!
First up, you need a good look. The official theme repo offers over unique options! Adding posts, writing articles, building landing pages — you can do all these tasks relatively easy with Drupal. All the action takes place in the Content section. Overall, Drupal is packed with quite an impressive amount of functions, which is one of the reasons why it stands strong among other top content management systems. Everything from the theme to SEO and cart functionality can be controlled within a single dashboard.
It also has drag and drop functionality that lets you build everything the way you want. To build a site, no additional setup is required. If you publish your site with website builder, it may override some of the existing files. The first step will be choosing a look. Depending on what you wish to build, there are categories for every type of site out there. From simple landing pages to hotels and e-commerce stores. Now the real fun begins. In the upper section of your screen, you will see a menu with all the tools at your disposal. Last, but no less important, is the section in the upper-right.
Using it, you can control even more technical aspects, such as:. Plus, there are many great website builders in the market. And most importantly, anyone can use them! You now know the various kinds of web hosting and the best tools to build a site. But the journey does not end here. Here are eight tips that will help you turn your project into the greatest website ever:. Perhaps one of the most important things that you must do is decide the niche and direction that your website will go. Without proper planning, things can start going wrong very quickly.
It can be difficult to make important decisions without having any data to back it up. Which is why gathering statistics is crucial if you want to succeed. One of the best tools to do the job is Google Analytics GA. Google has in-depth documentation and academy courses that will get you on the right track. You can start with:. Ensuring the well-being of your creation will help you avoid unnecessary downtime and issues. With Hostinger, you can view this information directly from the control panel. If more and more people start visiting your site, and you start to notice unusually large spikes — it may signal that you need more power or to reduce resource usage through optimization.
An important website growth factor will be updating it from time to time and adding new features. The most important thing is to draw the correct conclusions and move forward. HTTPS encryption is slowly, but surely, becoming a new standard of the web.
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We bundle a free lifetime SSL with all our annual Business hosting plans and have them available in our Power Store as well. For a free alternative, you may follow our manual SSL installation guide. Safety always comes first. Nowadays, you can never be too safe, especially with the various threats lurking around the web. The most common things that can affect your site are:. For example, here on Hostinger, we utilize custom firewall rules and real-time monitoring tools to block brute-force attempts, DDoS, XSS, and other online threats.
This ensures that every website is up and running at all times. Page speed and load time play a major role in user experience. As a result, faster website not only have a higher SEO rating, but their visitors are much happier and convert more. You may also find lots of great advice by querying the received site performance recommendations in Google Search. Last, but not least, try to be a few steps ahead.
If the website that you make is business related, decide what pages you should include. Try to store all your brainstorm sessions and ideas into a single spreadsheet. Taken to the extreme, if you are an online marketer, you don't want you domain name to be AppleTurnover.
It needs careful planning. Of course depending on the size of your business. Richard Newcomb 2 years ago. Hey Jeremy, Awesome article. I especially like the flow and the logical approach that you took to educate people. This is the article I point clients to, to get them up to speed before starting projects. I think it's important for them to know how their products work. While they aren't making their own sites, it definitely still fits the bill. Also, I'm curious as to what you think about WooCommerce these days. I didn't seem them on the list in the other article you wrote "Best Ecommerce Software".
Anyways, I've been sending my clients here for a while now and just want to give you a shout out at a job well done! If you are able to send me an email, I do have a question I'd like to ask if you have the time.
The essential step by step guide on how to set up a website
Hello Richard, Thanks for your comment and for your support! WooCommerce is a solid ecommerce tool they were purchased by WordPress last year, I believe. They're flexible and you can bolt on a lot of different tools, but the downside for a "typical" business person is that to use WooCommerce and WordPress well, they'll need to invest more time into learning and managing the tools, or hire someone knowledgeable for help. A lot of new small businesses just don't have the mental bandwidth and time to learn the in's and out's of operating a WordPress site efficiently and effectively.
The article you mentioned focuses more on hosted ecommerce builders, versus platform where you need to get your own hosting services and there more technically and administratively challenging for users. We did highlight WooCommerce briefly in this guide where we dig into the differences between hosted and non-hosted ecommerce platforms. Ah, now it makes sense. Totally understand how that doesn't fit now. I also like how you phrased "mental bandwidth". That definitely seems to be the case with most businesses that I work with, especially startups.
The other thing you mentioned that I really like is "typical" businesses. I think that all too often when people think businesses corporate America comes to mind. Most businesses are normal people running shops and trying to stay afloat in a digital sea. So, I wrote something on a similar topic, and I don't want to spam you with a link or anything like that. I was actually looking for feedback on it. If you're interested at all, shoot me an email. GREAT job on this site. It's obvious that you all dropped a lot of time and effort into your site and articles.
Farroq Hossain,MBA 2 years ago. Theo 2 years ago. Thanks you for this. I want to start but don't know great things. Do you think weebly can provide all the support I need? Hey Theo, Generally speaking, Weebly is a solid website building platform. You don't need how to code, their probably one of the most user-friendly web builders, and their support is good.
Best way to decide is to sign up for a free account and start testing their tools. You're not obligated to subscribe to a premium paid plan at all. You can upgrade whenever you want to, and only if you find them being to provide the tools and services that you need. Good article - but to make my choice easier, i must say this web site is awesome.
What website builder did you build this site on Jeremy? Because all other website templates from the builders that i see operate nowhere near as good as this site. This site looks great in all devices, it runs quick - looks really professional and has so many features that i see. It just works well. The others look good on the surface but when you realy start to see how they look changing browser window and how they run and load this web site is light years ahead.
So which website builder did you use for this site? This would be my choice for sure. Noah 2 years ago. Hi Jeremy, nice info Noah, If you are trying to create a site that has matching functions, sort of like a dating site, I suspect those types of functions are proprietary so they custom coded those features from scratch. I'm not aware of any website builders that can cater to that. Hi Richard, Thanks for your comment. Making websites is just like any new skill - it always "feel" more difficult than it really is!
With the right tools, it's really not as challenging as most people think. Good luck with building your website! Richard 2 years ago. Getting started just feels a whole lot easier now! Elaine 2 years ago. I am still a little confused but this was helpful and has given me some ideas to look into before I get started. Hello Elaine, Also take a look at our website building checklist to get a deeper dive into what you need to build your first website. That might be helpful to you as well. Kakkoiikun 2 years ago. Hello Kakkoiikun, Yup, they are.
Weebly is very user-friendly and is suitable for users of all skill levels! Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Fabiola 2 years ago. Magnus 2 years ago. I was searching for instructions and even just information on how to divert from old fashioned career paths into using the internet as a business thus having unconventional income sources and making a living that way. If you're looking for more specific, step-by-step type of guide, take a look at this guide on how to build a business website. Miguelle Manalo 2 years ago. I was just wondering if you have any idea on how to make my own Email address on my own website without using Gmail.
My webhost provided me 5 email services and I don't have any idea how to make it work. I'm also just a student and willing to learn more about these things. Miguelle, Depending on which hosting service you are using, they should have full tutorials to show you how to get it setup. I think you probably need to verify that you own the domain name first, then the rest should be pretty procedural?
Check their tutorials or contact their support team for exact steps. Thank you very much for the article and the reply. It was really a great help to help me proceed with my next step. I hope you can help many people like me who are willing to learn. Shannin 2 years ago. I'm working on making a job-board type of site. Where users can post jobs and and possible create profiles to frequently post job vacancies. The applicants should be able to filter through and search for jobs, so some sort of filteration system would be useful.
If possible, I'd like for the job posters and the people searching for jobs to be able to create a profile on the website. What web-builder would you suggest? So far word press with cetains plug-ins seems to be the best bet but I'd appreciate your advice on this. Hi there Shannin, What you're looking to create is a bit too advanced for the website builders we suggested above.
You'll probably need a more specialized website builder perhaps search for a "marketplace website builder"? If you decide on the latter, take a look at our guide on how to hire a website developer. Damien H 2 years ago. These website builders manage all the hosting and technical aspects of operating a website for you. And, their platform allow you to drag and drop your content when making your pages so you don't have to know how to code.
HOW TO CREATE A WEBSITE
I'd suggest testing out Wix and Weebly to start. Both are code free and have free plans for you to test. They don't have a time limit on their free plans so don't worry about upgrading until you are satisfied with them. But if you really want to use a hosting company for instance, you want to use WordPress. Vivy 2 years ago. Thanks for your informative reply.
Yes, I would like to try a hosting company, since WordPress is kinda what I'm aiming for. Yet, did some research and wish to start from a free hosting site. Found some options online, such as webhost, googiehost, freehostia, hostinger, etc. Any tips for choosing the best one? Hey Vivy, I haven't used any of those hosting services before so I can't quite comment.
I've used Bluehost and WP Engine. WP Engine is more expensive, but they're good. They're a hosting service that is dedicated to WordPress users, so their support people are quite knowledgeable about WP in general. I've had excellent experiences with them. MissPolla 2 years ago. Hello Vivy, I was in the same situation some time ago, so I tested the free hosting providers, the ones you mentioned above and even a few more.
Took some time, yet saved me money. If you want to start from free plan, my favorite was Hostinger. I believe it will match your requests: Since you're a beginner, having customer support is a great bonus and theirs will definitely help if you have any issues sure helped me , don't be shy to contact them. Good luck with your blog! Hope I could help. Hey, Jeremy, thanks for an informative article. I'm planing to start my own blog but choosing the right hosting provider gets me a bit confused I'm still a beginner at this, so would prefer something that would offer a free plan, at least for testing purposes.
Could you please share some hosting companies that match my requests or at least point me in the right direction where to find them? Amanda May 2 years ago. Hi Jeremy, just one more question Many thanks in advance. Squarespace has partnered up with Google Apps to offer you the ability to create custom email addresses.
The interface is the same as Gmail, which we like as it's user-friendly, reliable and secure. If you sign up to annual Business or higher plans, you get a custom email address for free for your first year. In our view it's a pretty reasonable price so you can brand your email and business or whatever you are building properly. Looks so much more professional than just using a generic Gmail address. Hi Jeremy, I've done so much "research" into making my own website and have to be honest, feel rather overwhelmed!
I'm wanting to create a website that will allow regular blogs, resources and ultimately to sell consulting services. I'm mindful of good seo but also safe storage of customers personal details. Longer term, if I wanted to move my website, and all its info, can I transfer this information to another host? Many thanks for any help.
Hello Amanda, I'd suggest you take a look at Squarespace. They also allow you to export most of your content into WordPress a very powerful and popular website builder later if you want that option. The benefit of using Squarespace now is that you can build a website without knowing how to edit codes. You can literally have your site up in quite a short period of time. With WordPress, it's much more advanced and technical so it's not as user-friendly compared to Squarespace.
You can see our comparison between them here. So Squarespace is much easier to get setup and will give you what you need. Once you're established and want a much more advanced platform down the road, WordPress is worth considering. Jenny 2 years ago. Creating a website is like making a coffee now. With the help of awesome online website building sites like wix, it is very convenient to just drag and drop elements For a bloggers, wordpress is the best option, but they have to learn a bit about wordpress first.
After creating website, especially a blogging one, there are some necessaries like a good hosting like godaddy. Thanks for sharing your opinion, Jenny. It's helpful to our readers! Sujoy 2 years ago. To manage my work I've used calendar templates to schedule my activities in a much better way. It is recommeded to use a Weebly and visit getcalendartemplates. Jonian 2 years ago.
Weebly is not the best website builder. Compare them with free templates from Wix or with paid ones from Squarespace — they are really worthy and beautiful web templates. You could better try to work with another platform. I have to agree with Jonian here. Weebly is a wonderful website builder as it is so easy and intuitive to use. However, their template designs are not as good as those offered by Wix or Squarespace. Rob 2 years ago. Thank you for giving me a very straightforward and transparent approach to making your own website.
My daughter is a visual artist, and she will be applying to art schools in the next year. A website is necessary for her to show her work all still paintings to prospective art school admissions councilors and staff. What would be a good builder to use to "bring to life" her paintings and present them in a simple, tasteful and uncluttered way? And at this time, she is not going to use this site to sell her work, just present it to schools. Hey Rob, Definitely check out Squarespace see our review here. A lot of artists use their website building platform as their templates and user-interface are geared towards design.
You can also see some example websites built with Squarespace here. Yo Paulie 2 years ago. I own a cosmetics company, pre start up and I am looking at a web presence. I want to keep costs down but quality very high due to the nature of my business, lipbalm.
Can I run my own video ad on a homepage of any of the drag and drop site s? I will be creating one for initial social media marketing campaigns I want it to start playing as soon as someone lands on the homepage. Hello Paul, We have a guide on how to create a website with a video background here. We've included some suggested templates and website builders, so you might find the guide insightful. Kayla 2 years ago. Thank you so much for posting this!
I found this to be very helpful!! So I do have a few questions though First off, I am wanting to build a website that advertises a service I offer, displays images in two separate galleries, can be involved with a separate calander that can be accessed from my phone and be up to date on available times to schedule an appointment, and, most importantly, can have a payment option to prepay for my service to secure a time slot with a possible escrow type function to be able to add payments onto the set appointments.
Does this make any sense? If it does, does this sound possible? Which website builder would you recommend to have access to these functions? I am just starting out so cost is also a factor, although I am willing to pay a reasonable amount of money to get this set up and to maintain it. Thank you in advance!! Hey Kayla, Have a look at Wix. They have a booking system that allows your customers to book and prepay for appointments. Joe 2 years ago. Thanks for the article Jermey. I was looking into making a site that serves dual functions. I wanted to create an entertainment news site that also functions as an online business.
I purchased a subscription with godaddy for an online shop, but the templates are pretty bland and the customization is dreadful. Is there a site you could recommend for something like that? Hey Joe, If you want an ecommerce store, I'd definitely suggest you check out Shopify. I'm not entirely sure you want to layout your news articles, but if it's in a form of blog posts, then Shopify will work.
Kevin, With website builders like Wix or Weebly, you can use them for free and there isn't a time limit. However, with the free plans, you won't be able to connect your own domain name to the website, and you will be limited to certain functions. But you can definitely publish a website. Further, all hosting services are provided by the website builders listed above. So you don't have to get your own hosting services. Vincent Walter 2 years ago. I mean a website for making calls.
How to Make a Website | The Only Guide You Need to Build a Site ()
Can someone throw a little light on this please? Hey Vincent, Could you elaborate a bit more by what you mean by "calls"? You mean you want to be able to use a website to make phone calls? Or maybe something like Skype where you can log into the app and make phone calls? Mutua 2 years ago. Mart 2 years ago. Hi Jeremy, This is the most informative article on web design that I have come across.
And I have read quite a number! I had a question though. Thank you very much. I "think" I've seen an external widget that you can use and plug it into a website.
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Have you tried searching for one? If there isn't any, I'd imagine you'd have to have one custom built to work the way you want it to. One "hack" you might want to consider is to use the website builder's search bar tool. So you would insert all your data into your website as pages, and let people use the sitewide search bar to find what they're looking for. It's not an elegant solution, but worth considering or testing. Sara 2 years ago. Joe 3 years ago. Hi Jeremy, What do you recommend for someone who sells Domain Names? I am looking for a site builder that can sell Intellectual Property like domain names.
Jeremy 3 years ago. Hi Joe, I'm not entirely sure to be perfectly honest. I'd imagine you would have to have the ability to host the domain name, help your customers connect the domain names to their websites, etc. The website builders mentioned above are probably not equipped for the unique requirements that a domain name registrar need in order to run its business properly. I'd imagine a lot of the functions will be pretty customized. Hi Jeremy, I'm looking to build a site that my paying subscribers can log in and post pics and embed links to other site.
Do any drAG and drop sites offer such a template or or am I looking at a whole different animal. If you have or know of a possible option it would be much appreciated. Hello Pete, It sounds to me that you are looking to build a community type website? Unfortunately the drag and drop web builders above won't be able to do this. Take a look at Ning. I heard that it's pretty good and easy to use, though I don't have any experiences with them. Lewis Martin 3 years ago. Hello, I used BigCommerce to build the website, tenbrookeleanne.
I do not know any code and before making this website, I knew nothing about ecommerce. The customer service for BigCommerce is awesome! They changed the background for my chosen free template and added an instagram social button even though it wasn't in the template. When making the website I had a ton of questions and they were always happy to help, now I very rarely have to call support. The BigCommerce University and question forums are very resourceful at well. I would highly recommend BigCommerce to anyone who is looking to make an ecommerce site.
I have to use an expensive and less than satisfactory third party software for the two platforms to communicate with each other. Thanks for sharing your experiences with BigCommerce with us! That's awesome and I'm glad you're having a great time and getting great support from their team! I also heard that they are working on their own native Point of Sale system. I'm not entirely sure when it will be released, but hopefully soon.
Shopify has their own POS system , which integrates smoothly with an online store built with their software. For those who are curious about BigCommerce, take a look at this discussion here. Thanks again for sharing and adding to this discussion! I am very happy to find out this post regarding making build a website. You have given deep information about 'domain name, hosting, security.
I really appreciate your efforts. Xylvia 3 years ago. Hey, I find this article really helpful. I am planning to build a video streaming website on which I can upload my movies for people to watch at little cost. Which builder or solution you would recommend? Hey Xylvia, The website builders that we suggested above aren't built specifically to stream videos for a price sort of like Netflix.
However, that's not to say it's not possible with a few simple workarounds. What you can do is set up a membership access only area Wix and Weebly has this feature. You'll have to manually insert a payment button of some sort such as using PayPal. Once your customer pays you, you can then email them links to pages that are "locked" behind the membership gateway, so they can access the videos. It's a bit manual and not as smooth as multi-billion dollar companies like Netflix, but it will work in concept. Alternatively, take a look at Sentry Login, which is a membership widget that works with Wix, Squarespace and Weebly.
With Sentry, I think you can unlock a membership area once your customer pays. So it connects the payment system with the membership access system for you, which streamlines the process so you don't have to manually grant access to pages. Another thing you should consider is how big are the videos you want to upload.
For instance, if you're going to have 1, people viewing your HD movie that's 3 GB large all at the same time, that might be problematic. A workaround might be to get your own hosting solution for such large videos, then embed the videos into your membership only pages. It goes without saying that make sure you have distribution rights for the movies! But I'm not a lawyer, so best to consult proper advice in that regards! Abhishek Mukherjee 3 years ago. Jeremy, I believe this article is really helpful to cross the initial mental hurdle of making a website.
I do also want to build a website. But before getting started few questions are coming into my mind. Brief about my planned website: A website strictly user login based. Those uploaded files should be played or displayed on the website UI only. Is this really possible to build this kind of website though the online website builders? Which builder will be best suited for my requirements? Who will give me this amount of cloud storage?
How much will it cost? How do I write decision making codes inside? How do I maintain database and run query on database? How can I get money from my website without advertisements? Who will pay me money and how? See, I am an IT professional though not working in web development domain. I have no issue in writing codes, but I was wondering if I could do it with shorter timespan and lesser amount of maintenance effort. That's why I was going through your blog. Lastly, if you really believe that it is quite impossible to build this kind of website online, please suggest me what should be the best way to build it from scratch.
What framework should I use I know Java and Python both? But in that case also, one question still remains: Thanking you in advance. Hello Abhishek, Based on what you're looking for, it sounds to me that you're looking to build a community type website something like Facebook. The website builders we discuss here aren't equipped to do that. I personally haven't used them before, but I read somewhere in the past that they're decent.
How to Make a Website – The All-in-One Guide
KJ 3 years ago. I was wondering, if you built a website using one of the above i. Wix, weebly, word press etc nd it gained lots of traffic, enough to sell, who actually owns the site to be able to sell it? Hey KJ, You can definitely sell websites that you built. I've seen people sell websites built on WordPress, Weebly, Wix, etc.
A key component of the sale, in addition to the actual webpages, is the domain name. People buy and sell domain names all the time! Glenn 3 years ago. I am really enjoying this post. I am a second year computer science student. I want to build a simple website. How do I get it done. What free builder would you recommend for me? I'd also like to do a trier for the small organization I work with. Am ready to learn. You can take a look at the side-by-side comparison chart so you get a birdseye view of the key differences.
Also check out this guide on how to pick a good website builder. It's a good place to get started! Maxigoody 2 years ago. Wix is nice but one of the Cons noticed is the inability of the user to build a free site using a tablet device. As for WordPress, I think I am beginning to love it with my new site as I am trying to experiment with it. You are doing a great job man.
STEP 1: Choose the Right Platform
Kate 3 years ago. Hi Jeremy, Thanks for your article. There are many other issues regarding the design of web pages. The above will get you started. However, if you have the time after you get something out onto the web, you may want to read my other articles on Web Design and Website Promotion and Search Engine Ranking. Although I list this step separately, it should be done throughout your web design cycle. I list it here to give it a little more prominence, since too few new webmasters actually perform it adequately. You will need to test your web pages as you design them in the major browsers: All these browsers can be obtained free of charge, so it should be no hardship to get them.
Unfortunately, directly testing your site is the only way you can be really sure that it works the way you want it to on your visitors' machines. In addition, if you have a smartphone, try out your site there too. For those who don't have Windows 10 but need Microsoft Edge, and those who run a Mac and thus do not have either Edge or Internet Explorer , all is not lost. You can use a piece of software called a virtual machine, which mimics a completely separate computer running within your real computer.
If you want to improve the chances that your website will work in future versions of all web browsers, consider validating the code for your web pages. In layman's language, this means that you should check that the underlying code of your web page, called "HTML" and "CSS" , has no syntax errors. You don't actually need technical knowledge of HTML and CSS to validate the page, since you can use one of the numerous free web page validators around to do the hard work.
On the other hand, if the validator tells you that your page has errors, it may sometimes be hard to figure out what's wrong and whether the error is actually a serious one if you don't have the requisite knowledge. Having said that, some validators actually give concrete suggestions on how to fix your code, and one of them, called "HTML Tidy", is even supposed to be able to fix errors for you.
If you are selling products or services, you will need some way to collect credit card information. A list of advertisers and affiliate programs can be found on Affiliate Programs: Free Sponsors and Advertisers. Those companies are on the constant lookout for new web publishers to display their advertisements.
When your site is ready, you can submit it to the search engines. To do this, you will need to create a webmaster account at both the search engines, verify that you own the website, and submit it there. In general, if your site is already linked to from other websites, you may not even need to do the above.
The search engines will probably find it themselves by following the links on those places. Apart from submitting your site to the search engine, you may also want to consider promoting it in other ways, such as the usual way people did things before the creation of the Internet: There are even companies on the Internet, like PRWeb , that can help you create press releases, which may get your site noticed by news sites and blogs. As mentioned in my article on More Tips on Google Search Engine Results Placement , you can also advertise in the various search engines.
Although I only mentioned Google in that article, since that was the topic of that discussion, you can also advertise in other search engines like Bing and Yahoo! This has the potential of putting your advertisement near the top of the search engine results page, and possibly even on other websites. There are also less obvious ways of promoting your website , which you might want to look into.
Naturally the above guide is not exhaustive. It is a distillation of some of the essential steps in getting started with your site. If you want more information, you should read the other articles on thesitewizard. However, the above tutorial should be enough to help you put your website on the Internet.
Get more free tips and articles like this , on web design, promotion, revenue and scripting, from https: