Domain names are website unique addresses on the internet and as such you must have one and it must be unique.
At a certain point in your business, not having a well-designed website becomes a big disadvantage. So what do you do? - Either you sit back, relax and outsource the job to technical people or you do the dirty work yourself.
In this step-by-step guide, we'll focus on the second alternative and walk you through the easiest way to do that with no-code tools and by the end of this article, you'll be able to setup a functional website by yourself.
STEP ONE: OBTAIN A DOMAIN NAME AND HOSTING
Ever heard of "amazon.com" or "wikipedia.org" etc. These things are known as domain names.
But first things first. Understand that your domain name, like every other domain names, is a combination of two things - a name and a domain extension, separated by a dot.
For domain names, you decide what name to use. With the extension, however, you have an extensive list to select from - some would be more suitable to your business than others. "facebook.edu" will be strange, don't you agree?
So for you to have a website, you need to;
- 1. decide and purchase your domain name, i.e. the domain name and extension of your choice.
How? - with services called "domain registrars" and for good reasons, I'll talk about "domain registrars" later.
Let's talk about the other part of step one - hosting.
See if you tell me you live at say 123, ABC street, XYZ town. When I get there, I expect to see a building that houses you at least, right? This is what the hosting does.
Hosting provides you the space or platform to house your website on the internet. Thus, domain name points at your hosting, and hosting shows your website. C'est fini.
So to have your website up and running, you need to;
- 1. decide and purchase your domain name from a domain registrar
- 2. decide and purchase a web hosting service from a web hosting provider
The easiest way (as we promised) to accomplish these two things is to do both in one single place - believe me. There are many online services that do both and below is a list arranged in no particular order.
So decide on whose service to go with, go to their website, search for your domain name, if it is available and you are fine with the price - please click on the buy button. Before checkout or right after checkout, you will be offered other services to buy and hosting will be one of them. Yes, buy the hosting and other services you may need!
However, if hosting is offered first, buy. As you go with the prompt, you'll get prompted to transfer or register new domain. Select register new domain and then enter your preferred domain (sometimes, the domains are free for the first year)
PS:Domains and hosting are not a one-time purchase thing. You pay annually or in some cases monthly.
read: Comparisons Between Domain Registrars..
read: Which hosting provider service should I use?.
Hello! My name is Ibrahim and if you are facing any challenges, please reach out to me. This is my area of expertise.
...Or connect with me viaSTEP TWO - INSTALL A NO-CODE WEBSITE BUILDER
In this case, we will recommend wordpress. It is the most popular no code tool out there. Other simple no-code alternatives include Wix, Joomla, Squarespace, Shopify and so on.
read: Top no code tools for website development
Installing wordpress will vary from service to service. Don't fret, every hosting provider provides a guide that will walk you through the installation process.
Some dedicated wordpress hosting may come with the latest version of wordpress installed. And all you would have to do is set-up or find-out your login credentials to the admin page where you would actually 'build' the website.
In most cases where it is not dedicated to wordpress, you most certainly will have to login to your cpanel (login credentials will have been communicated to you on hosting purchase), click on a wordpress installer and go with the prompt.
The video above will guide yout through the installation. Nonetheless, refer to your provider's guide.
STEP THREE - CHOOSE A TEMPLATE AND DESIGN
Wordpress is known to contain quite a lot of free templates. All you have to do is login into your wp-admin, click on "appearance" > "themes" > "add new themes". Browse through the templates. Select the one that may match your business. Click "install" and then "activate". The above video will guide you through navigating the admin page.
After installing and activating a theme, view your website. The look must have changed. Incase it does not look like what you expect, don't panic. Quite some templates don't work right out of the box. Just read through the documentation, follow the steps and you will be fine.
Once the template is set, move a few things around, edit the content as you please, check for spelling errors, cross your t's, dot your i's and then hit "publish" when you are done.
PS: the "publish" button pushes the changes you have made to the live website. So feel free to hit it at different phases of your creation.
STEP FOUR - OPTIMIZE FOR SEARCH ENGINES
You know as they say that the end of one man's territory is the start of another's. Well this is a similar situation.
Having a fully functional website is just the start. Some important work needs to be done afterwards. You need to make sure that your wordpress, themes and plugins are up-to-date and uncompromised. This is important for security.
Hello! My name is Ibrahim and from experience, I suggest business owners get help especially for SEO from experts. Please reach out to me for free consultation. This is my area of expertise.
...Or connect with me viaYou need to put your website in front on your potential customers when they search for something you can help them with - hence you need to be on the first search result page for keywords that your potential customers are googling (and binging).
The hard thing about this is, I can't tell you do this and then do this and you'll be number one. However, I can give you some tips that will improve your rankings overtime because that is how SEO works. In SEO, slow and steady is the only way to win the race. Do not trust anyone that tells you otherwise.
I have worked in a firm that specialize in putting websites on google's first page FAST. I can tell you BOLDLY that it does not end well. The longest any of our websites stayed on first page is 19-20 months and that happened once. On average, it is 8 - 12 months and then they get punished by google's algorithm. They can fall as low as the sixth page. How many times have you clicked to view the second page? - exactly! It no surprise that the firm folded up eventually.
Follow @kind_dibo
So to win the race slow and steady, here are some things you should do.
- help search engine understand the content of your website.
- Use important Keywords: Identify relevant keywords that your target audience is searching for and use them all around your website. But don't overdo this. If you think you might be overdoing it, you have OVERDONE it.
- Off-Page SEO: Build backlinks from other websites to improve your website's authority. This should be done strategically. Reach out to me for advice. No Charge applies!
- make sure your website is Mobile-Friendly.
- Keep your website's content fresh, up-to-date and fast.
- Analytics: Use website analytics tools to track your website's performance and make data-driven decisions. Understand what your customers are looking at the most on your websites and make more of that.
So as promised, By following these steps, you will create a professional website for your business BY YOUR SELF.