How to create a website yourself?
Sooner or later, but many modern entrepreneurs are thinking about creating their own platform on the Internet. How to create your own website, what should it be like, how much will it cost to develop and can it be done for free?
Why do you need a website?
We often rush into action without thinking properly. Decide what you want from the site. This type of platform has many advantages over alternative platforms. The site can be used for educational, commercial, advertising, service purposes. On it, you can quickly publish short news or long reads, share comments or conduct polls.
In addition, the site is easy to place photos, galleries, videos, audio and documents. Make an online calculator on your site, connect an online consultant and an e-mail newsletter. The main advantage of sites is their cross-media, which allows you to lure and retain the user.
However, many tasks can be completed by creating a page on social networks. Website development will be more expensive and more difficult, so you need to imagine what kind of final picture you want to get. Before proceeding, study the types of sites:
1 Website business card up to 10 pages. He advertises the services of a specialist: for example, a designer, photographer, psychologist, mechanic, etc. Such a site is suitable for a small company, and for an online course. Of the advantages: low cost and speed of creation. Cons: low amount of search traffic.
2 Personal blog with articles by one or more authors. It differs from a business card in a large number of pages and articles. The theme of the blog can be anything. A visited site of this type can generate income.
3 Landing, that is, a one-page site, is used to sell a product or service. They have few articles, but beautiful design. Even a beginner can create such a site.
4 Corporate website of the company for the presentation of the brand and products: they are of high quality.
5 Online store for selling goods online. Usually there is a shopping cart, sometimes a blog. Most of the traffic comes from search engines.
6 Forum for users to communicate. With the advent of social networks, they have lost their relevance. It is easy to create, there are ready-made templates.
7 News site to cover current events. Periodically, such sites are highlighted in the news sections of Yandex and Google.
8 Information site on any one specific topic.
9 Service site: provides network services: file conversion, photo processing, listening to music, etc. Such a site can only be created by someone who knows a programming language.
How to create your own website for free: instructions
To begin with, we will deal with the basic concepts that we will need in our work.
Let’s start with the basic term: we will tell you what CMS is in simple words. Translated from English, this is “content management system. In fact, CMS is a special program that allows you to simplify the management of website content. Any CMS gives the user the opportunity to work through the control panel, and not write code.
The second concept necessary to start is a domain name. This is the website address that appears in the address bar. For example, kakzarabotat.net is a domain. In addition, you will need hosting – this is a service for hosting a site or on a server.
Understood the basics. Now let’s start creating a website using CMS.
Creating a website using CMS: instructions
There are different types of free CMS:
- WordPress is the most famous, and most importantly, free “engine" for the site.
- Joomla is also a free system, some consider it more secure than its counterparts, but also more difficult to work with;
- OpenCart – suitable for online stores and a little more difficult to use than analogues;
- Drupal and others.
After we have decided on the CMS, we select the domain. It can be located in a certain area. For example, if it ends with .ru, this is the current site. Also .ua is a Ukrainian site, .edu is a site related to education, etc. It is better to choose the .ru or .com format. It is advisable to avoid Cyrillic domains. The zone is the main thing you need to pay attention to if you are thinking about which domain to choose.
Choosing hosting
Choosing a hosting is one of the most important stages. Hostings are paid and free: the latter are not suitable for us, because. they do not support databases and suffer from interruptions. Moreover, the prices are quite low: now the minimum tariff will cost about 1000 per year. On REG.RU hosting, when registering a domain, hosting is given as a gift for several months, then access must be renewed.
Important: it is better to register hosting and domain with the same provider. When choosing a hosting, pay attention to reliability and uninterrupted operation, as well as:
- convenience, clear interface;
- online support service in the current language;
- price: the value must be in the market.
The next step is to connect the CMS. To do this, you need to go to your personal hosting account and follow the instructions. After connecting the CMS in wordpress itself, you can select and install a template: there are both paid and free versions. The next step is installing plugins.
What plugins to install
In order for the site to work and perform its tasks, you need to install plugins. In the WordPress dashboard, they can be found in the "Plugins" section – there we click "Add New". Each site needs plugins that perform the following functions:
- Caching to increase page loading speed (W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache)
- Protection against spam and obscene comments (Akismet)
- Collection of statistics and analytics (Google Analytics)
- Creating contact forms for visitors (Contact Form 7)
- Broken Link Checker
- Create beautiful and responsive galleries (Photo Gallery)
- Search Engine Optimization (Yoast Seo)
- Lossless Image Compression (TinyPNG)
- Create polls, quizzes and similar engaging stories (Forminator)
- Security Threat Detection (iThemes Security)