Whether you’re selling socks or software, there’s one thing it’s hard to go without: a website. Websites offer something that social media platforms can’t—a central headquarters on the web for your business. All roads lead back to the website. It’s the hub of everything your ecommerce business does online.
Building a website for the first time may seem daunting, but with forethought and a good site editor, creating a website is doable—even fun.
Learn how to plan, find the right hosting provider, assemble content, build site pages, publish, and optimize your home on the web.
How to create a website
- Set website goals
- Pick a domain name and hosting provider
- Determine the look and feel
- Map the site structure
- Add and customize pages
- Add functionality
- Test and fine-tune
- Optimize for search
- Develop a maintenance plan
Breaking down the website creation process into a series of steps can make the task less daunting. Here’s what you need to do to get your website up and running, and to optimize it for search engines:
1. Set website goals
Determine what type of site will work best for your target audience. Do you want the website to offer basic information about your business—what you do, where you’re located, and how to contact? Then plan for a simple website, often referred to as brochureware.
If you’re a content creator wanting to showcase work, plan for a blog or portfolio type of website. If you plan to sell products online, you’ll need to create an ecommerce website with a shopping cart and transaction processing.
💡Looking for ideas? Check out these 50+ best Shopify Stores to Inspire Your Own.
2. Pick a domain name and hosting provider
What’s in a name? On the web, pretty much everything. Your website needs a carefully chosen custom domain name, the address website visitors will see in the web browser bar. Think it through before going through the domain registration process. The domain name should reflect the name of your brand and be easy to remember.
You can obtain a domain name for a fee with a domain name registrar or get one as part of the package included with your web hosting provider. Some popular options include Shopify, A2 Hosting, DreamHost, and IONOS.
The website will need a web host to store its files and serve its contents to visitors on the network. Web hosts rent the space where you’ll store pages, data, images, and software components the website needs. The range of hosting options is vast—from totally free for limited hosting to low-cost shared hosting plans with more features to expensive dedicated hosting on exclusive hardware servers for high-traffic websites.
Most hosting providers include website builders, drag-and-drop tools, control panels to manage website settings, domain name services, email accounts, and compatibility with email marketing tools. Security is a vital consideration when choosing a host for your business site—pick a host that includes Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certification. The SSL certificate assures visitors that the content traveling between the site and web browser is safely encrypted.
🌟Need a domain? Find the perfect name with Shopify’s domain name generator.
3. Determine the look and feel
As you take the next step in the website creation process, think about how to make your website look professional, polished, and unique. What style are you aiming for? Minimalist, clean and modern, formal, elegant, stylish, trendy? Choose a combination of fonts, color palettes, and images to use consistently throughout the site. Think about your target audience and what’s likely to appeal to them. The site design should harmonize with your goals and brand identity.
Once you have a general concept in place, experiment with the website-building application and content management system (CMS) included with your hosting provider. These website builders come with themes and site templates—free and paid, which you can use to create your site pages. Many website builders have themes customized for an online store. Other themes are more appropriate for portfolios and blogs with layouts that look great on mobile devices and desktops alike.
4. Map the site structure
Website pages need to be visually appealing, but they also must be logically organized and easy to navigate when visitors browse. The next step in the web designcreation process is mapping out the structure of the website. Figure out what goes into the top navigation menu and how many levels deep the pages will go. Which will be the main pages at the top level of the site? Which will be the sub-pages? Do this before creating the page content.
Write down each page title you need and play around with the combinations. Don’t populate drop-down menus with too many choices—you don’t want them to feel cluttered. Once you’re satisfied with the logical layout and basic menu structure, use it to assemble the pages and plug them into the hierarchy.
5. Add and customize pages
Use your website builder to make a homepage, landing pages, FAQ page, blog, and product pages for each item you want to sell. A website is fundamentally a collection of networked pages, so you want to make sure each page is stitched to the others with hyperlinks. Every page should display the menus so visitors can easily navigate and not get stuck in a dead end.
Fill each newly created page with clean, crisp writing and eye-popping visuals. Use headings and subheadings to segment textual content into digestible chunks. If you don’t have much imagery at hand, you can download free stock images from Shopify.
Add header and footer elements to promote user engagement. In the header, place the top navigation menu, your own logo, quick access links, and calls to action (CTA). In the top left or top right of the header, add a search bar. This should appear on every page. You also can add a branded favicon to distinguish your site. It’s the tiny image that appears in the browser tab. In the footer, put need-to-know information like contact info, terms of service, and FAQ links.
6. Add functionality
If your purpose is to sell online, you’ll need to add ecommerce functionality. Establish a payment system for the products and services you offer. This software must be installed and configured to integrate with the new webpages. A web hosting provider like Shopify will have the tools to make these integrations happen.
Another key functionality that all good websites have is a site search field. This lets visitors find desired content when they can’t figure out where it is in the menu structure. All web pages and content should be indexed so they’re easy to find.
7. Test and fine-tune
Before publishing, conduct intensive quality assurance testing. Preview how the pages look to the general public on desktop and mobile browsers. Test all the pages for broken links and site speed. Do images load correctly? Are load times fast? If not, optimize images to make them load faster. Are there any dead-end pages? Does the shopping cart and checkout process work correctly? Is the site search bar working?
Once the bugs have been fixed and you’ve made sure mobile optimization is in good shape, launch the site and promote it. If you have an email marketing list already, send an email blast to announce your new site.
8. Optimize for search
People can discover websites through paid advertising and word of mouth, but most websites get discovered through search engine results pages (SERPs). This is why search engine optimization (SEO) is so vital: It boosts unpaid organic traffic to your website. To improve SEO efforts, do keyword research with tools like Semrush or Ahrefs. Then edit web content to include relevant keywords people are searching for so your site ranks higher in search results.
If you sell products and services locally, implementing a local SEO strategy can significantly improve your online presence and attract more customers from your local area. Local SEO strategy is designed to improve the visibility of your business in local search results and Google Maps. Your business will rank higher in the map pack—the featured business listings above organic search results.
9. Develop a maintenance plan
Website content can go stale pretty fast. Addresses and phone numbers change. Promotional offers expire. Product lines come and go. As the dynamics of day-to-day business fluctuate, the website needs to keep pace.
Keep the site up to date by scheduling weekly checkups. Iterate through another round of testing and take note of which pages need to be freshened up. Do this on a fixed schedule. Use SEO tools like Google Search Console for search analytics and optimize your website content so search visibility performs better on search engine result pages.
How to create a website FAQ
Do I need to know how to code to build a website?
You can become a website creator without much coding knowledge or web development expertise. Using a free website builder with website templates is enough to get a good-looking website online. When you need to make customizations to a newly created page, some knowledge of HTML coding does help, but it’s not essential.
How can I create my own website for free?
Many platforms, like WordPress, Wix, and Weebly, will let you build a free website using templates and widgets. They take care of the hosting and security. Most web hosting services also have no-cost or free trial web hosting with user-friendly site builder tools, control panels to manage website settings, and the infrastructure you need to go online.
Can I build my own website?
To build a website from scratch, you first need to know what you want your website to achieve. You can then use site-building tools that help website owners create pages and go online.
