Although there are many ways to create a website, we mostly found two to be the easiest: using a website builder or using WordPress. If this is your first try in this field, we’ll recommend the best website builders like GoDaddy, SquareSpace, and Wix. These builders help you create your site, and surely it’s the best option for all tech novices.
WordPress is also a very popular choice, so in this article, we’ll take you through both the process via a website builder and also via WordPress. No matter which option you choose, by the end of this article, you’ll be able to build a top-notch website if you follow our ten easy steps to create a website.
You’re thinking, “How do we know? We’ve been here for years, where you are right now. Since then, we’ve done a lot of research on it and assembled the most accurate and relevant guidance to help you get your site up. So why not read on and give it a go for yourself? From choosing a website builder to how to design each element of the site, this article will walk you through how to create a website in 2022.
Ten Steps to Create a Website:
This section will show you a step-by-step guide to creating a website.
1. Define the goal of your website:
Before we get started, it’s essential to know the reason why you want to create a website in the first place. Whether you want to create an online store, a blog website, or an online portfolio, Defining the website’s goal ensures that all design decisions align with the site’s main end goals.
For example, suppose you want an online store. In that case, the site design and structure should be according to the customer’s buying journey, from discovering and searching for items to ordering their purchases.
And for those who want to create an online portfolio or a blog site, the website’s structure and content should be according to the things that complement the work.
If you need help defining the website’s proper goal before starting it, here are some guiding questions that may help you.
- Who’s the target audience for the website?
- What are the main goals of business strategy?
- What type of actions should a website visitor take upon opening the website? Some activities are: browsing the products, buying an item, reading the content, signing up for the newsletter, or subscribing.
- What kind of tone do you need to communicate with your visitors—is it professional or formal?
These notes are useful when you create a website, so keep them in mind when taking off. You can also look at our website content strategy ideas to assist you.
2. Search web designs for inspiration:
A thorough web design research includes some web design examples to help you visualize how your site will look in the future or what type of design you want to create based on your niche.
There are many online sites to look at for inspiration, for example. One of them is Awwwards. Awwwards is a great place to get web design inspiration because it contains a variety of award-winning web designs that can lead you to top-notch websites. Use filtering options to arrange the search results according to your needs.
Additionally, take a look at some competitor sites. It can give you some more ideas on what visitors expect from a business and how others present their products or services in front of them. If you have no knowledge about your competitors, then go for SimilarWeb. It may help you find your competitors, and then you can search their web designs. Also, for more ease and ideas, check out some of the latest web design trends that incorporate some of the newest style elements. They can ensure that the site looks modern and up-to-date, according to trends.
3. Choose a Website Platform:
After defining the goal and researching Web designs, it’s time to create a website. To get started, choose the right platform to build your site. Ideally, it would be best if you used software that suits your skill set, budget, and purpose for starting the business. In website platforms one of the popular website platforms is WordPress, a content management system (CMS). WordPress is a great software for creating various websites. It contains all types of website designs, from digital resumes to online directories to e-commerce websites.
When you use WordPress, it requires that you purchase a web hosting service to make it publicly accessible. Some of the primary benefits of using WordPress are:
- WordPress’s menu-driven interface is easy for all users of any skill level, from beginners to expert developers.
- An extensive collection of plugins on WordPress allows us to add custom functionality on top of the core software. And through plugins, you can create various types of websites in no time.
- It is scalable since users who are using WordPress have control over their web hosting. So they can easily choose to upgrade their plan whenever needed.
After picking the website-creating platform, make sure to get a domain name. A domain name is basically the URL visitors insert in their browsers to open a site. The domain of your website depends on the purpose or goal of your website. Most people use their business name as their website domain.
4. Choose the Website Theme:
After finalizing the website platform and a domain name, the next step is to finalize the design theme of the website. It’s a file containing a customized layout and some visual elements organized and created by a web designer. The purpose of a website’s theme is to assist non-technical users in building a website without having to start from scratch without any perfect skill set. The popular place to find themes and templates depends on the website platform you’re using for the creation of a website. For instance, you can use WordPress to search for the theme for your website. WordPress users can download thousands of themes free from the official theme directory.
These themes are excellent to use and within a reasonable budget range. But some free themes come with limited functionality, so most people look for premium options from third-party websites like Template Monster. The cost of template monster themes ranges between $40 and hundreds per license.
Since there are many themes out there in the market, it’s a good idea for you to be selective and strategic while you choose a theme for your business site. I will highlight some important aspects when searching for a website theme.
Check Features: It’s a good strategy to pick a theme with functions suitable for your niche purpose. For example, if you own an online store, you may want to use a theme with a pre-made or customized shop page, as well as layouts for the best sellers and discounted product sections.
Customization sections: Check the font, color combination, and layout choices included in the theme. Some developers add unique pre-made pages and icon packs for your convenience.
Responsive: The responsiveness of a website is a crucial element. Before selecting the theme, check whether the website is adjustable to mobile, desktop, and tablet versions or not.
Examine SEO: Most theme developers claim that their HTML code is lightweight and ideal for SEO and performance. You can validate it and cross-check it with a markup validation service.
Last Update:
Typically, developers update the site product key every six months. Using an outdated version can cause some vulnerability issues for your website.
Reviews: By going through the reviews, you can check whether the theme is working properly or not and what type of issues customers face while using it.
Once you have installed the theme, move on to the next step: customize it according to your needs and wants.
5. Customize the Theme Design:
At this step, it’s time to start designing your website. Examine the first step in the website creation process; it will assist you in creating the site’s visual identity. For ease, if you choose the WordPress platform, open the theme customizer by going to Dashboard -> Appearance -> Customize. Keep that thing in mind: the average customizability depends on the theme you choose for the website. In WordPress, Twenty Twenty-One allows editing the background color and image. But there’s no built-in setting to change the font. So you can’t change the font until you insert custom CSS code into it to change the font.
On the other hand, you can change the font’s family, colors, button forms, and layout with the Astra Premium theme. We will first focus on the color scheme to begin the customization process. So let’s start with choosing the dominant color representing your personal or business identity best. After selecting the dominant color for brand identity, pick several other colors to complement the site. Typically, there isn’t an exact limit on how many secondary colors you can use to design and create a website. But it’s best to feature just two or three colors so that the dominant one can remain prominent to the visitors.
If you need help crafting a color scheme for your website, you can use Coolors as a color tool.
After Color selection, let’s move on to the typeface. Similar to selecting a color palette, it’s best to choose the text font that represents your brand. According to Canva, there are three major fonts.
Serif: The well-known examples of serifs are Times New Roman and Cambria. These fonts have some decorative ends on the strokes. And they’re more popular officially in financial, government, and law agencies.
San Serif: Helvetica and Arial are famous representatives of San Serif. The strokes have some even width, but no ends like serifs. Startup brand tech typically used it as San Serif fonts to deliver a modern look.
Script: These types of fonts have a handwritten or cursive style. They generally symbolize elegance and creativity.
Commonly, web designers combine two or three typefaces on a single website. Slack uses only one font type while maintaining a consistent visual across the website.
6. Setup the core Pages:
Typically, a website contains the following main pages:
- Home Page
- About
- Blog Page
- Contact Us
- Product or Services Page
To create pages on the website, go to Pages -> Add New Page on the admin panel or Dashboard. Feel free to add blocks on the page to populate the content.
Let’s explore with me what each page should look and feel like.
Home Page:
The home page is commonly the main page of the website a user lands on. So it must communicate what the website is about and its goals. The home page also makes a first impression, positive or negative, on the visitor, deciding whether or not to continue exploring the site. Focusing on a message that communicates what distinguishes your company from others is a good practice when designing the home page. This tip is handy for new businesses that want to stand out in the competitive market.
Those with an e-commerce site can display a heroic shot of their product or services. A picture or a video that represents the uses and benefits of your products or services.
About Page:
The about page of a site contains more in-depth information about your business or the person behind the site. It’s an excellent way to tell your story or inform users about your business, communicate your values, and establish a deeper connection with your audience.
This About Page of InCreate Technologies features the business’s USP. A one-line explanation about digital marketing agencies and further explanation below about the brand’s vision and mission statement.
Contact Page:
The Contact page shows visitors how to contact you and reach you. This page includes the contact number, official email, social media handles, and an interactive map that feature the company’s location. If you want to take your contact page to the next level, you can add a contact form that allows visitors to submit their queries without leaving the site. Here are some valuable tips for creating a contact page:
- Add a FAQ section to entertain people’s common questions.
- Include the most necessary fields in the form: such as an email address, a first and last name, and the main text area for the query.
- Provide some of the topic options for the query so they can organize their query submission.
7. Make Website Mobile Friendly:
According to the Statista report for 2022, 58.99% of website traffic comes from smartphone devices. Mobile-friendliness has become more important and essential for all online business websites in this digital era. If you ignore this aspect of website design, you may lose a sizable portion of potential visitors who may become regular visitors in the future. Mobile friendliness is an essential factor for ranking on the SERPs.
You’re on the right track if your website is responsive according to the desktop, mobile, and tablet versions. Some of the additional ways to make your website responsive and user-friendly
Use the hamburger menu trick for mobile and tablet viewing for responsive menu bars. It saves more screen space by hiding the links under a three-lined button.
Make CTAs touch-friendly. This button is large enough for fingertip topping.
Optimize the page for scrolling. The screen was squeezed, as it is on mobile and tablet devices, and the user had to scroll down to see the site. Use a sticky navigation bar or add a “back to top” button to make it easy for the visitor.
8. Strengthen the site’s SEO:
After you complete the steps discussed above, your website will be complete. After designing, nothing is more satisfying than watching the numbers of visitors grow. There are some different ways to increase your website traffic. One way to increase your website’s traffic is to improve it with SEO. Search Engine Optimization is optimizing your website’s content so that it ranks high in search engine results pages (SERPs). But SEO requires patience and time to get better results. Here are some handy tips for you to improve your website content and improve the ranking in the top results:
Keyword Research:
Keyword research is one of the most useful SEO tips. It will help you find keywords that are related to your niche. Once you make a keyword list, analyze the list and pick the main keyword and then related secondary keywords. Place your keywords according to their strategic location on the site, i.e., URLs, Site Titles, and Meta Descriptions.
Analyze on-page SEO:
On-page SEO includes on-site content improvement. This will tell search engines what your pages include and what your pages are about. You must improve or change the URL, SEO Title, and Meta descriptions. The user will not notice these things physically, but they are an important element in the ranking factor.
Add alt text:
Add alt text to the images; it refers to the description you give your pictures. These are not visible to your visitors, but they are a strong indication to search engines about what the media is about. Alt text will help your visual content to appear in the Google search results.
Internal linking:
Internal linking is the best way to boost your website’s SEO. Through internal linking, it’s easier for Google bots to crawl and recognize your website. Adding links throughout the website’s design will also encourage the visitor to discover more ages and decrease the bounce rate.
For SEO, you can also regularly track your site’s growth and performance through Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
9. Launch the website after testing it:
Now that you’re ready give the site a final touch before launching it to ensure everything is in order and complete. Ensure that there’s no design-related issue that can affect the viewing experience of the site and test the site’s usability.
For website testing before launch, you can conduct A/B testing. A/B testing is a usability method where the designer creates two website versions and assigns them to different groups. They compare the results at the end of the research to see which seems best to finalize things.A/B testing techniques provide more data-driven insights into what works and what will not work on the site. After completing the testing and obtaining satisfactory results, you’re ready to launch your website to the public.
10. Track your site after launch:
Last but not least. After the launch of your website, keep track of the website performance and make tweaks when necessary. By doing these tricks, you can make sure that your site is working properly and that it is also maximizing its capabilities.
Google Analytics is the most popular tool for tracking your website’s performance. It provides certain website performance metrics.
Page Views: Page views show the number of visitors landing on your website.
Average session duration shows how many minutes a person stays on the website, and a good number for the duration on the site is between two and three minutes.
Bounce Rate shows the share of users who leave the site without taking action. The Bounce rate benchmark for an online store is 20 – 45% and for a non-eCommerce site bounce rate benchmark is 35 – 60%.
Audience graphics reveal the visitor’s demography, like age, gender, and interest.
Don’t Worry Google Analytics is free to use and only requires a Google Account login to get started right away.
Conclusion:
Website design seems like a daunting or difficult task, but there’s nothing impossible. With the knowledge and proper tools, you can create a professional website that is great for starting your online presence without hiring a professional website designer.
Whenever you want to create a website, keep all these characteristics in mind, and surely you will rock the site.
