Have you recently begun to gain an interest in the web and want to create your own website? Or are you already familiar with it and want to create a responsive website that increases your conversions? In our beginner’s guide, we will review everything you need to know to create your own website.
Content
Chapter 4: Designing the Website
Chapter 5: Buying a new website
Chapter 1: What is a website?
Before we explain how to go about creating your own website, we thought about starting out the question “What is a website?”.
A website is a collection of content such as texts, images, documents and multimedia stored on a web server. This page can then be accessed via the web through a web browser. For example, when you visit seoexpertmelbourne.com.au, you are on a website, which surely your company also has.
It may also be worth knowing that a website can be named in various ways, such as website, website or site. If you are interested in profound understanding of the different terms, please read our guide, the terms webpage, website and homepage .
Chapter 2: Web Hosting
Once you decide to create your own website, the first step is to find a suitable hosting company. But what is actually a hosting company?
As we mentioned earlier, a website needs to be stored on a web server. Thus, through a web host you can rent a place on a server, which makes your site appear on the internet. You could resemble it with your computer’s hard drive.
When you choose to place your site with a web host, you will then be able to store your content on their server while helping you to operate and ensure your site is up. One big advantage of today’s web hosting is that many offer you to register domains.
How to choose the right web hosting?
Today there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different hosting companies to choose from. Something that makes it difficult to choose the right one. Below you can read about the most important points that you should consider before selecting a supplier.
Space
Something that you should consider is the number of sites you plan to build, as well as its size. For example, if you plan to build hundreds of different sites, you should invest in a supplier that offers you a large storage space and can handle a high traffic volume. The same applies if you plan to build very heavy websites with lots of multimedia content.
However, if you plan to focus only on one or a few sites that will consist only of text and images, space is equally important. Most web hosts offer standard packages of 10GB of storage space, which usually are very long. On these occasions, you should instead focus on how fast and stable the web hosting is. Something that could be good to control is how much “up-time” vendors can guarantee, which allows you to quickly sort out unreliable web hosting.
Domain
If you want a smooth experience, you should choose a hosting company that can also provide you with a domain name. That way, you need to choose two different providers for the operation and hosting respective domain.
Page speed
Another thing that you should check is the page load time or response time offered by the different hosting providers. Response time is the time it takes for the visitor to reach the server and download the page in the browser. This is something that is also particularly important from an SEO perspective because Google and other search engines are not particularly fond of sites with long response times.
Most internet users also do not like slow sites, so you risk losing many visitors if your website is slow.
Support
Choosing a web hosting company with good support may not be the first thing people think of, since their business page is down and they are losing revenue. Therefore, look for a supplier that offers support by phone and email. A good tip is to also contact the support before to see how helpful they are.
Technique
In the next chapter we will talk more about publishing tools and other software, but it is important to choose a supplier that supports the software you are working on. For example, it may be WordPress, Joomla, Episerver or MySQL.
Price
However, something that most people think about is the price. Of course, you want to get as cheap a web hosting company as possible. Keep in mind, however, that cheap is not always good. Also, find out if the prices marketed are inclusive or excluding VAT.
Before making a final decision, you should consider the above points in particular and then weigh the price.
Chapter 3: Publishing Tools
Once you have chosen a hosting company and registered a domain, it’s time to fill your site with content. Something you do using a publishing tool.
Today, there are more publishing tools than ever before, but what is actually a publishing tool and how do you choose the right one?
What is a publishing tool?
A publishing tool, or Content Management System (CMS), as it is also called, is a tool that allows you to publish text and image on the web.
The advantage of these tools is that they collect the most important features in one and the same place. Something that makes it easy for you to set up and manage a website. This also means that you often do not need any prior knowledge to use them.
Examples of publishing tools
As we mentioned a little earlier, today there are a whole lot of publishing tools to choose when to set up a website. Below, therefore, we thought about giving a few good tools:
WordPress
WordPress is today one of the largest and without a doubt the most well-known tool for setting up and managing a website. In addition, it is free. Initially, the tool was designed to create blog pages but has now evolved into a complete CMS.
Getting started with WordPress is easy and requires no special configuration. Something that is also good with this tool that lets you easily switch between different templates to change the look, install different extensions among much more.
For example, there are plenty of extras, or plugins as it’s called, which simplifies your search engine optimization work.
The possibilities of WordPress are basically endless and the tool can be used to build both blogs and smaller sites like webshops. A good example of a site based on WordPress is our own website that you are visiting right now.
Interested in learning more? Then read our WordPress Guide .
Joomla
Another popular tool is Joomla , which is ideal for a little larger site with a lot of content. This tool also includes a variety of features and can be used to build in principle all types of websites.
The basic installation offers what it takes to get started but builds on a very small core that is then expanded using desired modules that contain the features you want.
Shopify
A CMS that has become very popular among e-retailers in recent years is Shopify . This tool is very easy to use and has many similarities with WordPress. With the difference that it is customised for e-commerce, and you have to pay a monthly fee for the solution.
Like WordPress, it’s very easy to get started with Shopify and it does not require any special configuration. You also have the option to choose from different templates to change the look and install various additions. There are also ready-made payment solutions installed, making it quick and easy to get started with your own webshop.
I’ve used Shopify on a number of occasions myself and have only good things to say about this CMS.
We are experts in eCommerce SEO. If you have a shopify site and looking for SEO consult us.
Drupal
Drupal is a publishing tool that offers you great opportunities for custom customisation. Unlike WordPress and other tools, however, Drupal is snap complex and nothing for you to quickly get started with your site.
Umbraco
Umbraco is a CMS system with approximately 400,000 active users. The system offers relatively large flexibility and fits both small and large projects. However, as I mentioned earlier, there are few systems that can measure with WordPress, both in terms of flexibility and ease of use. The same applies to Umbraco.
EPiServer
Episerver is a Swedish-based publishing tool specially designed to be used with many users and develop a larger organization’s website. In short, there is no system that we can recommend for smaller companies or individuals who want to try to build their own site.
Despite this, you do not need any special software installed without all editing and publishing via your browser. When it comes to ease of use, Episerver also gets up high on the list.
Examples of additional publishing tools are:
- Mambo
- TYPOlight
- Squarespace
- TYPO3
- CushyCMS
- SiteVision
- SharePoint
- Dynamix CMS
- SEOCMS
- the pelvis
Selecting publishing tools
How, then, can you choose to choose the right publishing tool? Personally, I would recommend thinking about three things before deciding which CMS to use:
- What are my needs and what type of website should I build?
- Which tool will I get the quickest running and which is easiest to use?
- Which tool is search engine friendly?
For the vast majority, I would recommend using WordPress. The reason for this is that you can basically build any site with this tool, it’s easy to use and is also search engine friendly.
If, on the other hand, you plan to start up your own webshop, I would instead recommend that you use Shopify.
Chapter 4: Designing the Website
Once you have chosen a web hosting and publishing tool, it’s time to design your website. Today, however, it is not enough to design a website that is only visually appealing. Especially not if you want to succeed in the search engines.
Today, a website must be mobile-adapted, have a responsive design and the right link structure from the old website.
The website – the company’s digital home
Today, nine out of ten companies and organisations have their own website. Depending on what the company does, the pages are more or less advanced. For some, it is enough with a simple page with some basic information, other companies have more advanced features on their webshop, for example.
Whether you require an advanced or simple website, a new and modern side is your brand and face to your customers and business relationships. Make sure to do it right from the start!
Mobile home page
Today, more and more people are using their mobile phones to look for information and make online purchases. With this, it has become increasingly important with mobile home pages. Not least from an SEO perspective.
Starting April 21, 2015, Google will premium a mobile-adapted website higher than the non-mobile website. Since 9/10 makes a search on Google before deciding to make a purchase of a product or service, mobile home pages are a requirement to succeed with their online presence.
Responsive design
As we mentioned earlier, it is also important that your website has a responsive design. But what is really a responsive design and why is it important?
A site that has a responsive design should be able to be used on all types of devices and in any format. It does not matter if someone browses your site from a mobile, computer or tablet. It should be adapted to all devices and formats.
This is especially important from a user perspective, but also from an SEO perspective. Like mobile-powered websites, Google also praises those sites that have a responsive design.
If you’re interested in reading more about responsive, mobile and visually appealing websites, you can read our previous posts on great websites .
Chapter 5: Buying a new website
If you realise that you have watered your head then you can of course buy a new website. Even then there are a lot of things to keep in mind:
- How do I make the website user friendly and clickable?
- Will the new website be fundamentally optimised?
- Should you use old links on our new website? How-to?
- How much should you change in the old layout?
- What if I’m not satisfied?
- What happens to the support when the website is ready?
You have now gone through our entire guide to websites! This means that you should now have basic knowledge of what a website is, how you choose to choose the right web hosting and publishing tools, as well as how to design your website.
Need help building your website? Then take advantage of SEO Expert Melbourne!
