How to Start A Business Website

Three Quick steps in this guide

  1. Choose a website building platform
  2. Choose your website address (www.)
  3. Set up and customize your website

1. choose the right platform

If you want to build a good, mobile friendly and functional website quickly, you’ll need to choose a platform (also known as content management system).

What do I mean by “content management system”?

Well, back in 2004 when I got started with web development, most sites were built using HTML (code), CSS and even Flash. These took a lot of time to learn and were tricky to master.

That’s why most people still think creating a website from scratch is difficult or requires a lot of coding and design skills – but that’s no longer true. In 2018, content management systems (CMS) like WordPress have made creating a website accessible to everyone.

To put simply, a content management system (or website building platform) is a user-friendly platform for building websites and managing your own online content, instead of using a bunch of loose HTML pages.

Most Popular Site Building Platforms in 2018

In recent statistics made by W3Techs, WordPress is the most popular content management system (55%) followed by Joomla (20%) and Drupal (11%).

Here’s why I recommend using WordPress to build your website

WordPress vs. HTML & CSS: Learning HTML from scratch can take 6+ months, let alone CSS and PHP. Having a basic knowledge of HTML can help you gauge things more quickly, but if you want to create a website within a day or two, learning HTML isn’t a viable option.

WordPress vs. Website Builders: Website builders are expensive and often very limited. They are good for one-page websites, but not more.

WordPress vs. Joomla/Drupal: Drupal is a very powerful platform that is popular with web developers and experienced coders, but it comes with a very steep learning curve that makes it a bad choice for beginners. Joomla is similar to WordPress and works great for online stores, but you’ll need at least a little bit of technical coding to make it work the way you want.

If you want more details, I’ve put together a pretty comprehensive comparison between WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

If for some reason you don’t want to build your site with WordPress, check out my Drupal, Joomla and HTML5 guides as well. They are all FREE to use.

But for beginners, I strongly suggest sticking to WordPress.

It’s the easiest platform I’ve ever worked with, but it’s flexible enough to suit everyone from small business owners, and freelancers to creative artists and bloggers.

Things to do before next step

  • Choose a platform to build your website. I’m recommending WordPress which is free to use and easy to understand. In this guide, I’ll be showing you how to create a site using WordPress, too.
  • At this point you don’t need to install/download anything. I’ll show you this in the next steps.

 

2. Get a domain and web hosting


In order to get set up your WordPress (or any other type of websites), you’re going to need two things:

  • A domain name (a web address like yoursitename.com)
  • Hosting (a service that connects your site to the internet)

The WordPress platform itself is free, but a domain name and hosting will cost you around $3 – $5 a month. However it costs less than a coffee, so it won’t break the bank.

Owning your own domain name looks far more professional than having your site on someone else’s domain (like yourbusiness.my-free-website.com), and it’s super affordable, too.

Plus, having your own hosting will also make sure your website loads quickly and won’t go down for hours at a time (pretty important for everyone who visits your pages.)

Where do I get a FREE domain name and hosting?

I’ve mostly used www.Bluehost.com as a web hosting and domain registrar.

They’re really affordable, have good customer service, and they’re currently throwing in a domain name for free – so it’s worth checking them out.

When you get a domain name, you’ll also get a personal email account(s): [email protected] – way more professional than a generic Gmail or Yahoo address.

Already have a domain name and hosting? Go ahead and skip ahead to step 3, where I’ll explain how you can set up your website.

Step 1: Go Bluehost.com

Remember: Since I’m using Bluehost myself, I’ve negotiated a special discount for ThemesDoc.com visitors (67% OFF).

 

Step 2: Choose Website Hosting Plan

Once you click “get started now,” you’ll be taken to a page to select the hosting plan of your choice.

I went ahead and selected their “basic” option, which is a great choice for new websites. Plus, at the moment they’re running a special discount of $2.75/mo (usually it’s $7.99/mo)

The “plus” and “prime” plans are great, but you don’t really need all the extra bells and whistles they offer unless there are millions of people flooding your site each day.

Save your hard earned cash and opt for the cheapest package to start out with.

 

Step 3: Pick a Domain Name

As an easy starting point:

  • If you’re making a website for your business, your domain name should match your company name. For example: YourCompanyName.com
  • If you’re planning to set up a website for yourself, then YourName.com can be a great option.

For this site (ThemesDoc), I chose ThemesDoc

Domain names usually end with .com, .org or .net, but in recent months, a huge amount of domain extensions (the end part of the web address, like .com) have come out, ranging from .agency to .pizza.

My best advice? Avoid the weird extensions and go with .com, .net or .org unless they perfectly describe what you have to offer – and even then, see if you can find a more common name.

If you’ve already got a domain name, just enter it in and click “Next” on the “I have a domain name” form.

If you aren’t ready to choose a domain right off the bat, you can do it at a later point in your website setup.

 

Step 4: Fill In Your Details

To create your account, just enter in your personal information on the “create your account” page.

You’ll need to add in your first name, last name, country, street address, city, zip code, phone number, and email address. Your receipt will be sent to the email address you enter here.

It’s optional to also add in your business name within this form.

 

Then, enter in your payment information to continue.

Step 5: Check Your “Package Information” and Finish Registration

The next step in registering for a Bluehost account is to select you plan and package.

These are the last steps you’ll go through before your account creation is complete, so pay close attention to the extra options available, like Domain Privacy Protection.

 

  • Domain Privacy Protection is only $0.99 cents more per month, and keeps your personal information under wraps such as your name and address.
  • If you want to keep your website and domain information anonymous, go ahead and spend the extra $0.99 per month. If you don’t, be sure to uncheck this box.

Step 6: Create Your Password

Once paid and registered, you’ll be able to create your password:

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