If you’re wondering about how to build a website (even for free), then this article will be helpful for you.
Have no idea where to start? That’s perfectly normal, to be honest.
You’re not alone as for most people, building a website online is still a bit of a mystery.
For most people (including us a few years ago), creating a website is something that only IT geeks are capable of doing.
These coders lock themselves in basements, have no friends, and wear thick glasses. Right?
Right??
Well, that was the old school stereotype that most people had for coders (including us a few years ago when we struggled to get started – we confess!)
I’m not sure if it’s because of the media, movies, whatever. But that’s definitely not how a lot of websites are actually built nowadays, and that’s definitely not how coders behave!
You don’t need to be an IT geek to learn how to build a website from scratch today.
You don’t even need to know code (a bit will help, but not a necessity and it won’t hold you back), you don’t need to manage hosts / servers, and you don’t need to have a lot of money.
Here is a quick snapshot of some of the website builders nowadays that can help you build your website – without having to learn how to code or breaking your bank account.
| How To Build A Website | Drag& Drop Website Builders |
|---|---|
| Recommendations |
If you’re not familiar with them, keep reading and we’ll show you how to you can create a website in less than a day, and a list of basic items you need to get started.
And don’t worry, the surprising part is that entire process won’t cost you very much.
HOW A LOT OF WEBSITES ARE BUILT NOWADAYS
Technology has advanced tremendously over the past few years. The internet has grown faster than ever before.
Facebook has taken over, Google is king, and normal folks like yourself can build your own website for free.
More and more people are creating websites online as a way to express themselves and get in touch with others. Businesses cannot afford not to have websites as a way of reaching more potential customers.
If you want to build a business, or if you already have a business but haven’t built your website yet, you’re falling further and further behind.
But is building websites easy? What is a good website builder? What do you need to get started? How much does it cost to build a website?
In the past? Very challenging.
Today? Not challenging or super expensive at all.
Think about it. Facebook made it easy for you to connect with hundreds, if not thousands of people. Smartphones make it easy for you to surf the web on a tiny device.
It’s not that hard to believe that building websites can also be easy, right?
There are a lot of website creators that have emerged over the past few years that enable you to build websites without knowing how to code.
They programmed the website building software so now you literally just have to use your mouse and drag a slideshow, a block of text, images, videos, into the website. You can then insert your own text, upload your own pictures, insert your own videos (such as YouTube), and click publish. That’s it.
Weebly.com (Click to see)
I know it sounds ridiculously easy.
After all, we’ve been taught that if something is too good to be true, it’s probably not, right?
Well, that’s a good rule of thumb, but not always the case.
In terms of learning how to build a website from scratch, this is definitely not the case.
For sure you will have to invest time into creating your own content and setting things up. But the days when only super tech geniuses can make websites are long gone.
HOW TO BUILD A WEBSITE: YOUR STEP BY STEP GUIDE
Just to show you how easy it is to make a website I have listed the steps below:
- Choose a website builder – you’ll want an ecommerce builder if you plan to sell online
- Sign up for a free trial (or jump straight into a premium account!)
- Think about & choose your domain name (aka your website address)
- Choose a professional, ready-made template to customize
- Customize your website design by dragging and dropping text & media
- Preview & test your site to make sure it looks & works the way you want it to
- Publish your site & share it with the world!
Follow the steps above and you’ll be online in no time at all!
CHECKLIST: WHAT YOU NEED TO BUILD A WEBSITE
Before we dive into what drag & drop website builders are all about, I know you’re just itching to know what exactly you need to make a website!
No – you don’t need to be good at coding, or math, or coming up with an exotic formula to send a rocket ship into space (though that would definitely help further science!)
Here are the 9 things you need to make a website:
- Domain name
- Business email address
- Website building software
- Website hosting
- Website template design
- Logo
- Highly quality images
- Image editor
- Google Analytics
Keep in mind that these are just the basic items you need to create a website, and you can expand this list as you become more comfortable with the process.
It’s not that intimidating, right?
If you’re still a bit unsure whether you can do it, especially if you feel that you’re not the creative type (such as designing a logo, picking good pictures, etc), we have a dedicated, comprehensive “What You Need To Build A Website” guide that covers all of the checklist items above in detail.
The bottom line is – don’t let these thing intimidate you. Remember, technology nowadays makes it easier for you to build a website.
ARE ALL WEBSITE BUILDERS GOOD & EASY TO USE?
All website builders are built differently – each has its own pros and cons. Some are easier, some are more challenging.
I think the general guideline is that the more sophisticated and powerful the builder is, the higher the learning curve. That makes sense, right?
So for instance, WordPress is a very powerful website builder. It is flexible, advanced, and can almost be programmed to do almost anything you want as a website.
However, the learning curve to become proficient with using WordPress is rather steep. You will most likely have to invest quite a bit of time to learn how to use it well, and perhaps you will have to pay some freelancer or WordPress expert to help you set up your website.
Then there are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), drag and drop website builders. These are the ones that do not need you to know any code to get a website up and running in a little amount of time.
(The following promo video is from Squarespace – Click here to see Squarespace)
These builders are ideal for people who don’t have the time to learn code (life is busy, right?) or don’t have the budget to hire someone to help build a website.
It’s great for people who enjoy DIY (Do-It-Yourself).
WHAT ABOUT WEBSITE DESIGN AND TEMPLATES? MY SITE HAS TO LOOK GOOD!
Website builders nowadays give you a really good selection of design templates to choose from.
Let’s face it, the majority of us don’t know how to design well, let alone coding up our own web design!
So what do website builders do? They create design templates so you can use them for your website, allowing your site to look good.
Think about them as “clothes” for your website. If you don’t like one set of clothes, just change to another one to give your website a completely different feel.
Click to see some beautiful free website templates for you to use
Almost all website builders give you these templates for free, and hands down, using these design templates will give your website the biggest visual impact in the least amount of time.
You don’t need to touch any codes whatsoever!
In fact, if you are just starting a new business, we HIGHLY recommend that you don’t bother with hiring a website designer – for good reasons (see our arguments here).
Drag & drop website builders (see our recommendations below) give you really good looking design templates to give you a head start already. There are more important things to focus on while your business is still young than hiring a professional (and potentially expensive) designer.
POPULAR DRAG & DROP WEBSITE BUILDERS
If you don’t want to learn how to code, or if you don’t have a large budget to hire freelancers to help you build a website from scratch, there are a few good website builders that you may want to test out to see if they can help you out. You just might enjoy using them, too!
Here are a few website builders that we recommend to help you build a website:
- Wix.com – see our review
- Squarespace – see our review
- Weebly – see our review
- Jimdo – see our review
All of them have their own pros and cons, and some of them are better at certain things.
When we started making websites ourselves, we researched for days as it was hard to figure out which one best fit our needs.
There was so much information out there that it overloaded us, and pretty much paralyzed us in terms of choosing which website builder to use.
So we decided to test a lot of them. After investing hundreds of hours in using many different website builders ourselves (gosh those days were painful!), we’ve compiled a few different guides / resources so to help make your research (and life) a bit easier:
At the end of the day, there really isn’t a “one website builder fits all” type of solution.
We recommend that you narrow down your search to 2 or 3 website builders, and just invest a day to trying them out. It’s almost like shopping for a car (except MUCH cheaper). It makes a lot of sense to test drive a few of them just to see if they work out for you.
All of the website builders that we recommend are free to sign up, or at least they have a free trial period where you can give it a test drive.
WHAT ABOUT E-COMMERCE WEBSITE BUILDERS?
If you are thinking about building an online store, there are e-commerce website builders for you as well!
The best of the bunch that we recommend is Shopify if you need a very comprehensive e-commerce solution.
Their themes are great, and they have a very powerful App Store to add more powerful tools to your store.
Shopify is great if you have many products that you want to see online, or if you already have a physical store and you just want to start selling products online.
They have a Point of Sale system where you can take advantage of using iPads to run your physical store while having all the inventory, sales records, fully integrated with your online store. If you use Shopify, there is no need to separate both your online and offline store anymore.
If you don’t need too many advanced tools and only have a handful of products to sell, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly and Jimdo are also excellent candidates to consider. These are great e-commerce solutions if you are selling unique, boutique products, photographs, art, or just anything that are not mass produced.
WHAT ABOUT DOMAIN NAMES, HOSTING, SECURITY EMAILS?
One of the best things about these growing website builders is that they take care of a lot of your concerns so you can focus on just learning how to build a website, creating content and growing your website.
They provide all the hosting services for you so you don’t have to pay for it separately.
They also take care of all the security upgrades for the hosts so you don’t have to bother with all this techie stuff. They ensure that your website is always up and running, and doesn’t get hacked.
Hosting by Shopify for your Ecommerce Store (click to see more information)
As for domain names, you can either purchase your own custom domain name through the website builder, or you can purchase it on your own through registrars such as GoDaddy or NameCheap.
Some website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, Jimdo and Webs will give you a free custom domain name if you sign up to their premium plans.
Keeping your own domain name requires you to pay an annual fee and the yearly investment is roughly around $12 for most people. So signing up to their premium plans will save you the domain name fee, which will effectively lower your yearly investment in the website builder if you sign up to their premium plans.
Just bear in mind that when you purchase a domain name from a website builder or through separate registrars, you own the domain name and can take it to wherever you want.
This is a very common question we get (and certainly one of our own question when we first started as well!) so hope this clarifies things a bit for you.
A lot of you also wonder about how to get your own custom email address. Not all the website builders provide email services built into their platform.
If you see our comparison chart, you’ll see that Jimdo, GoDaddy and IM Creator provide email services if you subscribe to their premium plans.
If you decide to use the other website builders what don’t offer email services – fear not. Google’s G Suite (using the friendly Gmail user interface) can also help you create your own email address for a few dollars a month.
In fact, Wix, Squarespace and Weebly all partnered up with Google to offer you this customized email addresses. Google’s G Suite email service is integrated with these website builders so setup is straightforward.
