How to start creating your own website: a step-by-step guide for beginners

Today almost anyone can start a business – modernity gives us a wide platform for any idea to be realized instantly. But as it’s known even the best idea can be forgotten, with other unrealized but great ideas. How can you avoid falling into this trap and give your idea a good life? Creating your own website is a great opportunity to present your business project in the best way.

Developing a website for your business – is a painstaking and interesting process that will help you regulate the value and functionality of your idea. So why do you order the creation of your own website?

Your own website – is a convenient tool for staying in touch with your clients almost 24/7. It is also an important component of attracting new clients.

Businesses that have their own well-designed and customer-oriented website inspire confidence in the consumer and create the impression of a trustworthy company.

This is perhaps the most important purpose if you order the development of a website as a future platform for selling goods or services. Setting up an order acceptance or consultation that the consumer can automatically use while on the site will instantly increase your business efficiency.

A well-filled website will give a client complete information about the service or product you provide. Special offers are now always in front of your potential client’s eyes.

To improve your business, it is better just to set up analytics tools that will help you better understand your audience, its needs and behavior.

The main components of a website can be divided into three main categories:

This is the address of your website on the Internet. It’s better it can be simple and recognizable, so it is easier for clients to remember. Please note that it is advisable that the domain name contains the name of your company or project, and the domain zone (the part of the domain after the dot) indicates the type of site or its geographic location. For example, .com is more commonly used for general and commercial sites and .gov is more commonly used for government organizations.

Choosing a reliable hosting service – is a choice that will have a very productive impact on your website in the future. Hosting is actually a place on the server where all the information contained on your website is stored: texts, images, videos. Hosting ensures the availability of your website on the Internet. Why should you pay special attention to the choice of hosting? Because it affects the loading speed of your website, its stable operation and its ability to withstand possible failures or attacks.

Website design and structure are important components for creating your own website. They represent your business. When a potential client visits your website, the first thing he/she sees – is the image that appears in front of them. He evaluates everything in the smallest detail: from the color to the arrangement of elements on the page, he/she evaluates the content, how good the content is. In fact, this is the first impression that should make any ordinary person your regular client in the future. Convenience, aesthetics, and functionality of the design on the website you create are the key to its successful operation.

The choice of a website creation platform depends on your purposes, level of technical expertise, and budget for development.

If you need to create a simple informational website, blog, or business card, it is better to use such convenient platforms as Wix, Squarespace or WordPress.com. The first 2 platforms do not require any special technical knowledge. They are actually website builders that offer intuitive interfaces with drag-and-drop function. Such platforms will be budget-friendly, it will be a good start in website creation but they have limited customization options and advertising. Speaking of the WordPress platform, it is worth mentioning that it is self-hosted, which distinguishes it in terms of budget and technical ratio but in return allows to provide more flexibility in the process of website creation.

We also offer you to get acquainted with the CMS in practice, which also can be for creating an information website.

If your purpose is to create an online store, you should choose specialized platforms for online sales such as Shopify, WooCommerce (for WordPress) or BigCommerce. The peculiarity of such platforms is that you need more advanced specialists who have basic knowledge of working with hosting and plugins to create them. These platforms belong to the mid-budget segment. 

The WordPress.org platform thanks to its self-hosted platforms gives you more control and functionality over the creation process and also allows to create a unique website design. It is worth noting that you will need to pay for hosting and domain to use it.

If you need to create a corporate website or portal, you will need platforms like the already mentioned WordPress or Joomla. Thanks to these platforms, you will create a unique website with the possibility of deep customization. It is worth noting that such platforms allow you to set SEO parameters (meta tags, URLs, loading speed) that can help in the creation and promotion of your website.

And finally, if you are a designer, photographer or other creative person and need to create a website, a portfolio or a project, you should use platforms such as Behance ProSite, Wix or Squarespace. These fairly simple platforms with aesthetic design and ease of use will give you the opportunity to create your own website quickly and efficiently.

The average reader will notice that the WordPress platform meets many goals. Indeed it is a universal platform that will easily allow to create a business card, a corporate website and an online store. It is the most flexible CMS with a large number of plugins. It is also a fairly budget-friendly platform, which is certainly important when creating your own website from scratch. 

If we talk about more powerful platforms for creating websites about the platforms that are available, if you already have a specialists team with programming skills, then you should consider such platforms as CMS like Drupal or even write code in HTML/CSS/JavaScript. You can learn more about CMS platforms in the context of their comparison with cloud-based website creation technologies here.

As a conclusion, we note that today we have the opportunity to choose a platform for creating our own website, taking into account our technical and financial capabilities.

It is also worth noting that you can start creation with a simple platform if you have no experience, and then move to a more complex one when your needs grow. Testing demo versions of the platforms will also help you determine which one will suit you best. In any case, if you are hesitant or unsure about choosing a platform, you can always consult with web developers.

Launching a website – is just the beginning. To ensure that your website brings results, you need to take several important steps after its launch:

Make sure that all links, buttons, forms and other interactive elements work correctly. If you have a mobile version of your website, be sure to check it on a mobile phone. 

If necessary, use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to check and improve your site’s loading speed.

• Install Google Analytics or other tools to track user behavior (for example, Matomo).
• Set up Google Search Console to monitor the technical condition of the site and its position in the search results.

• Technical SEO: check if all pages are indexed by search engines. Add a sitemap (sitemap.xml) and a robots.txt file.
• Content: use keywords in titles, descriptions, texts, and URLs. Regularly add new content that is useful to your audience.

• SSL certificate: make sure the site uses HTTPS for a secure connection.
• Keep your content management system (CMS), plugins and themes up to date.
• Backups: set up regular backups of your website so that you can quickly restore data in case of problems.

Regularly check and test the site for technical errors, add news, articles, update information about products or services and maintain client interaction.

To conclude: regular work on the website will help to increase traffic, improve search engine rankings and turn visitors into regular clients.

You should entrust the creation of your website to a team that has the ability to fully meet your needs and wishes at all stages of creation. Our team at Skylex web studio specializes in turnkey website creation. Thanks to an individual approach to the client, each project meets specific business purposes. The Skylex team offers a wide range of web services, which becomes available when ordering a website:

• creation of informational websites;
• development of online stores;
• design and development of CRM and ERP systems;
• development of chatbots.

We accompany our clients at every stage of website creation. Development of prototypes, design and structure of the site, actual programming and most importantly testing – all these steps will be easy and comfortable for you. Our main task is to find individual solutions in the development process to make your website unique and recognizable. In the process, we analyze the client’s needs and fully meet the customer’s request.
It is worth noting that our company also deals with SEO optimization of your website to improve its visibility in search engines. 

In addition to basic services Skylex offers website integration with external services such as payment systems, messengers and CRM platforms. We also provide technical support after the website is launched including updates, troubleshooting and regular data copying.

Working with us – is to find a reliable partner in the creation and promotion of your business.