How To Make A Website In 2024

Q: How much does it cost to create a website?

On a monthly basis, your website can cost $10 to $5000 per month. However, there’s not one single answer to this question. Every website is unique and requires different components. The cost of website building totally depends on your website requirements, pages of your website, design complexity and functionality.

Q: How to make a website for free?

You can make a website on a free platform like wix.com . However, If you are serious about your business and online career you should always consider spending a few bucks on a good domain, hosting, and plugins. A self-hosted website gives you freedom in so many ways. You can easily monetize your website. You will have full control over your website. You can redesign or update your site as per the trends at any time.

A free, step-by-step guide for making a website in 30 minutes or less.

Last Update: September 12, 2024

Introduction

Discloser: ElegantEspace is supported by readers like yourself. We may earn an affiliate commission when you purchase through our links . Commissions do not affect our editors’ opinions or evaluations.

In today’s digital age, a strong online presence is the cornerstone of success, whether you’re an entrepreneur, a creative professional, or simply passionate about sharing your voice with the world.

Welcome to the gateway of limitless possibilities – where your ideas, dreams, and visions come to life. It all begins with creating a website.

In this dynamic and comprehensive guide, we’ll embark on a transformative journey to demystify the art of crafting a WordPress website from scratch.

Whether you’re a tech novice seeking to embrace the digital realm or a seasoned developer looking to fine-tune your skills, this article is your roadmap to creating a stunning and functional online platform that stands out in the vast digital landscape.

For a comprehensive understanding of WordPress in the context of website building, check out our exclusive guide on WordPress.

Having said that let’s get started.

5 Simple Steps To Make A Website

1. Define Your Purpose and Goals

2. Get a Domain name

3. Get Hosting

4. Install WordPress on the Server

5. Customize and Tweak Your Website

Theme
Page
Post
Menu
Blog section
Comment Modification

Step 1: Define Your Purpose And Goals

Before you start building your website, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of its purpose and goals. Ask yourself:

What is the primary goal of your website? (e.g., blogging, e-commerce, portfolio)
Who is your target audience?
What content will you publish on your site?

A clear vision helps define the purpose of your website. It answers questions like, “What is the website’s main goal?” and “What content or services will it provide?”

This clarity ensures that your website has a specific focus and doesn’t become a disjointed collection of ideas.

Failing to establish a clear purpose and vision will be the reason for the failure of your blog, business or online venture.

Step 2: Register A Domain Name

Every website needs a domain name to run a website.

A Domain name is the physical name (URL) of a website that people type into a browser’s address bar to visit the particular website.

Without a name (also known as a domain name), your website cannot function.

It’s important to follow specific rules and guidelines to ensure your domain is memorable, user-friendly, and aligned with your website’s purpose.

Here are some essential rules to keep in mind:

Keep it Short and Simple: Shorter domain names are easier to remember and type. Aim for a concise and straightforward name that doesn’t require users to guess how to spell it.
If you’re setting up a business website, your domain name should match your company name, for example, YourCompanyName.com
If you’re planning on making a personal website or a personal blog for yourself, then YourName.com is always a great option.

Always, adhere to specific guidelines when selecting a domain name and avoiding unnecessary complexity.

Where To Register A Domain Name

The nonprofit organization ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) oversees the entire domain name system.

It allows third-party companies, known as domain registrars, to sell and manage domain names.

Some top domain registrars are NameCheap, Domain.com, and Godaddy.

You can get a .com, .net, .org, .co.uk, .ca or .in domain name from namecheap.com

The domain registration process is simple and you will get access to your personal domain instantly.

Use this free tool to check if your desired domain name is available:

Check Domain Availability

Do not dwell on it too much – you can always buy another domain name (if needed). So get one before it’s taken.

Step 3: Get A Web Hosting Account

Web Hosting is a place (server) where all the files and data (the content of your site) of a website are stored.

Just as you need a physical space for a store, your website needs a place to live online so that people can visit it and see what you have to offer. Hosting companies provide this space and the tools to keep your website running smoothly.

While it might seem like all web hosts are basically the same, there are huge differences in speed and reliability.

Be cautious, there are several bad hosting companies out there that own the server and have significant drawbacks. The most common problems are:

Downtime
Slow site
Security issue
Hidden charges
Worst customer support

That is why you should always choose the best and most reliable hosting company for creating a website.

The hosting service I am using to run this website is FastComet. Its pricing starts at only $1.75, and I recommend that you consider it.

Why Fastcomet?

FastComet is considered a good hosting provider for several reasons:

Reliability: I have used several host providers and found that Fastcomet is one of the best hosting companies to host a website.
Speed and Performance: FastComet lives up to its name by providing fast and reliable hosting services. They use SSD storage (up to 300% faster than traditional Hard Disk Drives) and have data centres in strategic locations worldwide to ensure quick loading times for websites.
Excellent Customer Support: FastComet is known for its customer support. They offer 24/7/365 customer support through live chat, ticketing, and phone. Users often praise their helpful and responsive support team.
Free CDN: They offer a free content delivery network (CDN) to improve website speed and reduce latency for visitors from different parts of the world.
Free Website Migrations: FastComet offers free website migrations for new customers, making it easy to transfer your existing website to its hosting platform without any hassle.
Security Features: They provide robust security features like free SSL certificates, daily backups, and a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to protect your website from threats and data loss.
Scalability: FastComet offers a range of hosting solutions, including shared hosting, cloud VPS hosting, and dedicated servers. This means you can easily scale your hosting as your website grows.
Transparent Pricing: Their pricing is transparent, with no hidden fees. They also offer a 45-day money-back guarantee, so you can try their services risk-free.
User-Friendly Control Panel: FastComet uses cPanel, a user-friendly control panel that makes it easy to manage your hosting account, domains, and website settings.
Domain Name Registration: Along with hosting you can easily register your domain name with fastcomet.

Of course, you are not bound to go with Fastcomet. You are free to choose any suitable and reliable host provider for your WordPress website.

In this guide, I’ll use Fastcomet to build a website (simple, easy and very cost-effective).

So, without further ado, let’s get started…!!

First thing first, Open the Fastcomet website in a new window and follow me.

On the home page, you need to click on the “start now” button.

Upon clicking you will be scrolled to the hosting plan column. There you will get four options:

Starter
Essential
Plus
Extra

I suggest getting started with at least an “Essential Plan”.

When you start getting millions of visitors to your website or planning to launch more than 1 website then switch to the higher plan (You can downgrade or upgrade it anytime).

On the next page, you will get an option to enter a new domain name.

If you have already purchased a domain name then click on “I already have a domain name” and move forward to the next step.

Lastly, you will have to provide the account information ( to make a hosting account with Fastcomet ).

Fill in all the details then move to the next section.

In the “Product Information” section reverify the hosting plan, data centre near to your location and for how long you want to register your website.

The higher you choose the better price you get.

To get the best value, I recommend you go with 12 months.

Uncheck all the add-on options, you don’t need them.

Scroll down and make the payment.

If you want to pay with PayPal, click on “Paypal” or else pay with “Credit Card“.

Once completed, you will receive a confirmation email with login details of the cPanel of your hosting account, a place from where you will manage your account settings and install WordPress.

Step 4: Set Up Your WordPress Website

After getting your domain and hosting, it’s time to install WordPress on the server.

Installing WordPress

So far so good.

As I previously stated, almost every reputable and well-established hosting provider offers one-click WordPress installation.

Since we have signed up with Fastcomet, we will get a one-click WordPress installation.

To do so:

1. Log in to your Fastcomet hosting account.

2. Go to the control panel (cPanel).

3. Look for the “Softaculous Apps Installer” section and click on the “WordPress icon” followed by the “install” button.

4. Next, you will be asked to choose the domain name under which you would like to have your WordPress installed.

P.S: Be advised that you do not need to create a separate database for your script before installing it via Softaculous.

The auto-installer will create a new database and user for you during the setup process.

5. Next, enter your website’s name and description. Then, create a username and password that will be used to log into your WordPress site’s backend.

Tick all the checkboxes and hit the install button.

WordPress installation will begin and it will take a couple of minutes.

If you encounter any difficulties while setting up WordPress on Fastcomet, you can count on their highly responsive customer support team to assist you, and they offer this service completely free of charge.

No need to do anything here, wait until the installation is finished. Upon completion, you will get a success notification.

Now Test Your Website

The easiest way to test your website is by typing your domain name into the web browser.

With WordPress correctly installed, the thing you’ll see is a very basic website like this:

If this doesn’t look too attractive, don’t worry, you’ll soon learn how to change the design to something more appealing.

Step 5: Customize Your Website Design

1. To log in, go to – https://yoursitename.com/wp-admin ( Replace yoursitename.com with your actual domain name ).

2. Enter the username and password you previously entered while installing the WordPress

After logging in you will be redirected to the WordPress dashboard, which looks like the below screen.

The dashboard might confuse you and you may feel a bit overwhelmed but don’t worry, I will walk you through every step.

Just follow me.

Choose The Perfect Theme For Your Website

To do so, head to the sidebar of the dashboard, hover the cursor on “Appearance” and from the drop-down click on “Themes” followed by “Add new“.

You will get access to over 2,000 free themes. Browse it to find your desired one.

Use filters or search with specific keywords to find the theme that suits your website.

Things To Be Consider While Choosing A Theme

1. Simplicity: It will be great if you choose simple themes.

These themes would be easy to navigate. Better to avoid fancy and bulky themes.

2. Responsive design: A significant number of web traffic is generated from smartphones and tablets.

Make sure the theme you are choosing is mobile-friendly.

3. SEO Friendly: Always go with SEO optimized theme because it plays a crucial role in the overall SEO ranking factor.

4. Light-weighted: A light theme helps the website to load fast. A site that loads in under 2 seconds ranks better in the search results.

The theme I use is Astra – It has all the quality and is the fastest-growing theme of all time.

I have assumed that you have installed the Astra theme.

Moving forward, Once you find your desired theme, just click on “Install” followed by the “Activate” button.

To check the preview of your website, hover your mouse to the top left corner of your WordPress dashboard where you see your site name.

From the drop-down, you will get an option to visit the site, click the right button of the mouse and open it in a new tab or window to view your site.

Add New Pages To Your Website

It’s very easy to add new pages to your WordPress website.

Pages are the essence of your website. It’s hard to imagine a website without any pages on it, right?

To add new pages

First of all, go to the sidebar of your WordPress dashboard and click on the “Pages” option followed by “Add New”.

Once you click on “Add new” a text editor will open which looks very similar to Microsoft Word, where you can add titles, text, images, tables, charts and much more.

Ok, let’s break down ( 1-3 ) for better understanding.

1. Title Area: Write the title of your page. Make sure you are adding the primary keyword in the title.

2. Content Area: Here you can write the content of your page. You can also insert images and videos into your content. Just click on the “Add Media button” to insert them.

3. Additional tools: In this section, you will find so many options. Here you can add featured images, adjust the page layout, and publish or preview the page.

If you want to add new page elements – click on the “+” icon that’s in the top left corner of the editor interface.

Any block you select there will be added at the bottom of your page.

You can edit it freely, and change the properties of the text, plus there are colour settings in the right sidebar. Do whatever you want.

As always, remember to click on “Publish” when you’re done.

However, if you want to make your website more attractive with animation and eye-catching designs you can install the Elementor page builder.

Menus are the most important layout of any website. It helps your visitor to navigate your site and its content smoothly.

There is no point in creating a website if your visitor will not be able to find the content of your site easily.

So, be careful while creating it because bad menus can lead your visitors to leave your website immediately.

To add a newly created page to the menu ( navigation bar ) follow the below steps.

1) On the sidebar of the dashboard click on “Appearance” and select “Menu”.

2) Locate the page you have created and add it to the list by clicking the checkbox next to it and then hit on the “Add to menu” button.

For reference check the below screenshot.

How To Add A Blog To Your Website?

WordPress is so rich that you can make a blog section on your website within a few minutes.

First of all, create a new page and name it a “Blog”, leave the text box blank and click on the Publish button.

You have a blank page that redirects to https://yourdomain.com/blog.

Next, you need to assign the page you just created as your Blog page.

For that, go to Settings and click on Reading. From the Post Page drop-down list, choose the blog page you just created and save the changes.

Once done, add it to the menu. In the same way, we added the page in the previous step.

After that start writing your blog post.

To create a blog, click on “Post” in the admin panel followed by “Add new”.

A text editor will open where you can add Post titles, text, images, lists, videos, alignment, and hyperlinks.

Once you finish writing your blog post, add it to the category you have created.

Congratulations! You have successfully created your website. Now it’s time for some basic setup.

WordPress Basic Setup

How To Update The Website Title and Tagline?

This is a very common question that comes to mind.

Can I change my website name ( Title ) and its tagline?

Trust me guys, it is very simple and you can change your website title and tagline at any time.

To do so, go to “Settings” and select “General”, where you will see an option to update or change your website title and tagline.

Once you have made the changes, click on the “Save Changes” button.

How To Disable Comments For Posts and Pages?

To disable the comment feature on your website follow the below steps.

1) In-text editor at the top right corner, you will see a dropdown “Screen Option”. Once you click on this, a few options will appear.

2) Enable the “Discussion” checkbox, and then the comment section will appear in the sidebar of the text editor, from there you can enable or disable comment on that specific post.”

In this way, on that particular post/ page, no one will be able to comment.

3) To disable comments on every new page or post by default, go to the admin panel “Settings >> Discussion” and uncheck “Allow people to post comments on the new article”.

Almost every WordPress theme has a sidebar on the right side, however, in some cases, it will be on the left side.

To customize the sidebar (technically known as a “widget”) follow the below steps:

1) Go to the sidebar of the admin panel and click on “Appearance” followed by “Widgets”.

2) From there you can drag and drop available widgets to the different boxes of your sidebar, you can also completely remove the item you don’t want.

How To Set Up a Static Front Page?

1) Go to “Settings” followed by “Reading”

2) Choose the static page you want to display as the home page under the “HomePage” option.

How To Install a Plugin on WordPress?

A plugin gives additional features to WordPress themes to expand or increase their capability which doesn’t come built-in.

Just like installing themes, plugins are also very simple to install.

Go to the sidebar of the dashboard.
Click on “Plugins” followed by “Add new” and start searching for the plugins you need.
Once you find the plugin of your choice, click on install and it will be ready to use.

However, before installing any plugins, I would suggest you read this article carefully.

Things you must know before installing WordPress plugins.

That’s all you will need to start a website.

Quick steps: How to make a website

Go to Fastcomet and setup your CMS
Choose the best suitable theme like Astra
Add Pages and Post ( if you have a blog section )

If this guide was helpful to you, do support me by sharing it. If you need any assistance or help comment below I will definitely help you with that.

Frequently Asked Questions On Starting A Website

Why is WordPress so Popular?

1. WordPress is free and easy to install: WordPress is free software. It means you are free to download, install, use and modify it to match your needs.

Almost every good host provider has a one-click installation option. You don’t need any coding experience for it. The installation will be done with a simple click.

2. Themes and plugins: Not only WordPress is free, But you will also get so many different options of themes and plugins which can be used as per the website requirement.

Whether you want to make an e-commerce website, a blog or a social networking site, you will get all kinds of themes absolutely free. With Plugins, you can enhance the functionality of your website.

3. WordPress is SEO Friendly: WordPress is very SEO friendly. It is written using standard compliance high-quality code and produces semantic markup.

This is why WordPress sites tend to rank higher than others in search engines.

4. Responsive layout: What does it mean for a site to be responsive?

A responsive site adjusts its layout according to the devices ( like mobile phones or tablets ) we use, no need to hire a web developer for that.

Of course, there are other CMS platforms you can choose

1. Drupal is the second largest CMS platform after WordPress – having its own plugins, utilized by big corporations with a vast website and high traffic loads.

But if you are new to web development then it will be a bad choice.

Because it is designed for complex website development with high traffic loads and has a very steep learning curve.

2. Joomla is somehow similar to WordPress but you will be needed a little bit of technical knowledge to make it work the way you want.

It is easier to handle as compared to Drupal but not better than WordPress for beginners.

So, if you are a beginner, I strongly recommend sticking with WordPress.

How much does it cost to create a website?

On a monthly basis, your website can cost $10 to $5000 per month.

However, there’s not one single answer to this question. Every website is unique and requires different components.

The cost of website building totally depends on your website requirements, pages of your website, design complexity and functionality.

How to make a website for free?

You can make a website on a free platform like wix.com.

However, If you are serious about your business and online career you should always consider spending a few bucks on a good domain, hosting, and plugins.

A self-hosted website gives you freedom in so many ways.

You can easily monetize your website. You will have full control over your website. You can redesign or update your site as per the trends at any time.

How to make a website using html?

If you are a master in HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, etc., you can start making a website on localhost and then upload it to the global server.

However, if you are totally new and want to learn from scratch then head on to w3school and learn to create a website using HTML and CSS.

Can I do SEO on my own?

Absolutely yes! You can do SEO yourself.

With some research and lots of practice, anyone can learn how to do SEO for their business.

You have to keep updating yourself with the current working SEO techniques to beat your competitors.

Even a small amount of knowledge can make a big difference.

How I can submit my website to Google?

By using the Google search console you can submit your website to the Google platform.

Check out this detailed post on how to add a WordPress site to the Google search console.

How to make money from website?

There are several ways to make money from a website but make sure you are using legit ways.

A few of them are:

1. Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
2. Start Blogging To Earn Money Online
3. Sell Your Own Digital Products Like eBooks or Online courses
5. Become a Freelancer
6. Earn Money by Flipping Website
7. Start Dropshipping
8. Photography Website
9. Start an e-commerce website, etc

I have written a comprehensive article on how to money online check it for complete details.