How to: Create a Simple Website

Naming Your Site & Getting a Domain

You're going to want to name your site first, and think of the domain name you want for it. A domain is the custom section of a url; it's the part that comes after http://www. or the part you would say out loud like petersbakery.com. It may need time to process before you can use it; which is why you'll want to start this process first.

In most cases, you will have to buy the domain. Some website builders will sell them, but you can usually get them cheaper somewhere else, like on Hover or GoDaddy. They're typically $15 per year for .com, and a little more for special ones like .org or .co. Website builders usually provide you a domain (for 1 year) if you pay for one of their premium plans. Any place you can buy a domain will tell you if it is already taken or not; and may give you similar names if it has been taken.

When you can use your domain (which may be after you build your website) you're going to want to go to the website builder you chose, and find the place that lets you transfer your domain. Any of these places will then have step-by-step instructions on how to connect your domain to the website you just built.

Choosing a Website Builder

The easiest way to create a website is by using a website builder. Website builders allow you to make it yourself by drag and drop elements instead of hiring a web developer to code it all for you*. They also host your site, which just means they will make it go live for you to be seen on the internet. This site was made with Wix, but there are other options like Weebly, Squarespace, Webflow, Wordpress, Shopify (for e-commerce), and more. Each have different pricing plans for specific needs. (This site was made for free.)

It's important to note if you want to make an e-commerce site and sell things, you cannot make the website for free. Any website builder you use is going to charge you to use the special features needed to manage customers, orders, and shipping.

About Templates

Don't worry, you don't have to be a designer to put your website together. Most website builders include free templates (or fancier, pricier ones) for you to choose from. A template is going to have the most basic structure of a website already put together for you. This includes a home, general pages, contact page, about page, etc.; full of placeholder titles, headlines, photos, and more. All you have to do is replace the text and photos, move things around; and you're done. Do note you will have to manually edit the mobile version of the site a bit for it to match the desktop version.

If you really don't feel comfortable designing the site yourself (or you don't have time), but you still want to use a website builder, you can hire a graphic designer or web designer to do it for you (they're different from developers that code websites). You can find these kind of people for hire on Dribbble.com, or on Fiverr or Upwork if you're really desperate for cheap work. Any designer though should be able to put something decent together, and for those more experienced in creating websites, they will probably give you suggestions to improve the site; like what would be the best to include on the home page or ideas for additional pages to include. You'd be paying them to put it together, but you're also getting access to a consultant in the industry.

Things I Learned Using Wix for Free

If you're going to make a website for free with Wix, you cannot use a custom domain. By custom, I mean one you pay for like www.dribbble.com. You must pay for a premium Wix plan to use a custom domain.

It's important to note, if it's your first and only website with Wix, you can use a free domain, but it will include your username in it (and you can change your username to fit it. So if your username is samwill, your wix domain will be www.samwill.wixsite.com. The problem I ran into with this is that when you try to make more than 1 free site with Wix, it will always read as that, and the only thing you can change to have multiple sites, is the ending, like this: www.samwill.wixsite.com/portfolio

*Additional Notes: Website Builder VS Hiring a Developer

The difference between these options is ultimately customization, and how much you can afford. In my opinion, a website builder is good for the average person, like someone that wants a blog, a portfolio, or a very small business. Business sizes differ, but I would think all businesses would probably start with a website builder, and they'll know when they outgrow it. When they outgrow it, they're going to be finding the website they have just doesn't have all the options they're looking for. An example with Wix, is you're limited in nesting pages in your menu; so you cannot have a menu that would expand for something like: women's wear > casual > tops > long sleeve. Another example is it's limited in the types of coupons or sales you can run. So, when you're finding you can't get the kind of options you see on other websites, and your business is bringing in enough profit, it's time to hire a developer. A developer is someone that is familiar with graphic design/web design (they work on how a website looks) and they can also create it by hand, aka coding. Coding is very old and is basically writing in languages a computer can understand. (Yes, it's weird and confusing, which is why it's costly.) So if you hire a developer that has enough experience, they should be able to create a website for you that has all those other things you wanted.