Want to learn how to start a website in minutes? Follow my beginner’s guide to open your first website in 4 easy steps.
Whether you want to start just a simple website to talk about your passions or you want to build a website in order to make money online, this guide got you covered.
How To Start A Website In 4 Steps
It has never been easier to start a website like today. You can really create a beautiful and stunning website in minutes.
There are plenty of options available to build a website: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Wix, Blogger etc.
In this guide I will focus on WordPress, the best and most common platform to create a website, used by millions of people around the World.
WordPress is a content system management (CSM) platform that will help you create any kind of website or blog.
Of course, you could also code your website from scratch but if you’re a beginner this is not a viable way.
A lot of time needed and much more expensive.
1. Choose And Register A Domain Name
The domain name is the first thing a person will see about your website.
It’s the name people type into their browsers to find your website.
My domain name is therichmarketer.com.
A good domain name should follow these criteria:
- Readability: the domain must be easy to read and remember.
- Uniqueness: it will be your brand name, therefore must be something remarkable.
- Legal: your domain must not infringe copyright or existing trademarks.
- SEO friendly: it includes keywords related to the main topic of your website, to rank higher in Google.
On top of that the recommended extensions (if available) are .com, .net or .org.
Usually a domain name costs around $10 per year, but you can get your free domain name, included in your hosting plan, by clicking here.
Click on “Get Started”, under WordPress Hosting section. After that, click on “Get Plan” and you can check the availability of a domain name you want.
2. Get Web Hosting
A web hosting makes your website accessible to other people on the Internet.
Therefore, we can consider it the foundation of your website. You can start with as little as $3,95/month with SiteGround.
SiteGround is one of the best web hosting available today. I personally host all my websites on SiteGround (including therichmarketer.com).
With SiteGround you can start a self-hosted WordPress website very easily. Included in your SiteGround plan, you can install WordPress with a simple 1-click button.
Usually the plans are paid annually and come with 30-day money-back guaranteed.
The Start Up plan is totally enough if you are a beginner, as you can have 10gb of data storage and up to 10K visits a month to your site. Click the image below and check yourself:
After you decide which plan fits your needs, just click on “Get Plan”, select the domain name for your website, complete the registration process and finally you’re ready to build your website!
3. Install WordPress And Choose A Theme
If you sign up with SiteGround, you should find the 1-click installation in your account control panel.
Once the installation is ready, you’ll see a very basic and clean website.
You can select one of the free themes available to start. Anyway if you’re serious about your website or online business, you should consider buying a premium theme, in order to stand out from the competition.
I personally use Avada but you can check many other premium themes on Envato Market, the best marketplace for WordPress websites.
Once you purchase a premium theme, you can easily install it to your website and it will be listed together with the other free themes in your “appearance” section.
Hover over the panel and then click “use this theme”, choosing between the ones available.
4. Add Content To Your Website
With your theme installed, you’re ready to start creating content.
WordPress makes it easy to start writing content that looks great.
Go to the left menu of WordPress and hover the mouse on “Posts”. Then Click on “Add new”.
When you create a blog post, you should also select a category.
WordPress gives you the ability to organize your blog posts into categories which helps to create more relevant content, divided into topics, subjects and sections.
It’s very important as well to set basic pages to make your website look legitimate.
The most important pages you need are:
- About
- Contact
- Privacy Policy (and Cookie policy)
To create a new page, just click on “Pages” and then “Add new”.
Try to add additional content every week, especially if you want to start a blog. That’s the only way for people to find you on the net.
You can as well delegate part of your job to other freelancers.
If you don’t have time or don’t know where to start, find website designers here.
Watch the video below:
How To Start A Website And Make Money
It’s not enough to have a web presence in order to make money online.
The most important aspect is to publish high quality content. Especially if you’ve decided to start a blog, you must publish constantly in order to retain your audience.
That’ being said, let’s see what are the options to drive traffic to your website and how actually start making money.
First and foremost, you need to be niche specific. You cannot start a website where you talk about everything (unless you have a personal blog without a goal to make money).
These are the most popular options to earn a revenue from a website:
- Advertisement (Google AdSense)
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsored content
- Consultancy
- Online courses
The sky is the limit!
If you are a beginner you’ll probably start with affiliate marketing, by promoting other’s people products or by placing banner ads on your website through Google AdSense.
Going further, when the audience is bigger, you might be contacted to write sponsored content or you can actually start selling your own courses or offer freelance services.
All of these methods are equally important but what matters the most is traffic. Without people coming to your website, none of these methods will work.
How To Get Traffic To Your Website
Do you have some friends? Well start by sharing your idea and let them know once your website is ready.
Anyway, these are some ways you can use to start promoting your brand-new website and drive traffic to it.
1. Quora
Quora is a Q&A site where anyone can ask a question and get answers.
That’s a super powerful way to drive targeted traffic to your website, as people are already looking for answers online.
You could answer them by leaving a link to one of your blog posts that will answer a specific question.
Check out my profile on Quora.
2. Facebook Groups
Find relevant groups for your niche on Facebook. They are a powerful way to build a loyal audience very quickly.
It’s important to create a conversation with other members first and to don’t spam all the time.
Try to be active at least twice a week on each of the group you’re in and answer to people comments, in order to increase the engagement of your posts.
3. Comment On Other Blogs
It’s probably one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to a website.
Find well-know blogs in your niche and start commenting under popular posts.
Craft thoughtful comments related to the blog content and leave your site link as a signature.
4. Paid Advertising
If you have some money to invest, of course there is no better way than promoting your website through paid advertising platforms, such as Facebook Ads or Google Ads.
Facebook Ads is super efficient in finding the right audience for your content, thanks to its targeting options.
Google Ads will help you to appear in the first positions of the search page, based on the keywords people are looking for.
Generally Google is better to gain a warm audience as people are already looking for specific problems or topics, while on Facebook you have a cold audience that you need to attract with compelling posts.
How To Start A Website For Free
Are you looking for a free way to start your website?
Well, even if I believe that having a website today is like having a real business, I can understand if some of you cannot afford to invest immediately or simply don’t want to spend at the beginning but just make some tests.
There are tons of free website builders out there, but what if a website builder includes as well a course to start an online business? Let me present you SiteRubix.
SiteRubix
SiteRubix is a website builder powered by Wealthy Affiliate, the biggest online community for internet entrepreneurs.
You can start your website for free, and get access to other awesome features:
- Community
- Training
- Support
- Tools
Insert your website name below to get started:
SiteRubix was built with the newbie in mind, so it’s super easy and fast to build a website:
- Choose a domain name
- Name your website
- Choose a theme
- Click “build it now”
Just 30 seconds and you’ll get a ready to use WordPress site!
It takes less than a minute to make it, but to get access to your free website and all other features, you’ll have to join Wealthy Affiliate as a starter member.
It’s completely free and no credit card required.
You can start to play around with your website, understand the basic functionalities and get your hands dirty.
Once you get confident you can decide to become a premium member and start to grow your own online business from scratch.
If you have any questions about how to start a website, feel free to leave a comment below and I'll do my best to reply to all your doubts.