Creating a website is overwhelming. Don’t worry, that’s completely natural when building your first website.
When we built our first sites, it was so complicated. And so many articles and YouTube videos on how to create a website made it seem a lot easier than it ended up being.
We’ve outlined all the specific steps below on how to create your own website. We included everything that we learned over the years from building hundreds of sites.
We’re here to help.
This page is a collection of 70+ guides.You won’t need to read them all in order to build your website. Browse through and read what’s relevant to your situation. This will save you countless hours of frustration.
Our General Take on Building A Website
Don’t get confused by all of the different options for creating a website.
WordPress is King
In most cases, we highly recommend to build your website with WordPress. It’s an open source platform that allows you to run your website with very little technical expertise.
Some of the biggest websites on the Internet are built on WordPress. TechCrunch, The New Yorker, Variety and MTV News, just to name a few.
It’s also the most popular blogging platform, so there are hundreds of thousands of smaller websites that use WordPress.
WordPress is used by 33.4% of all the websites, and has a content management system market share of 60.3%.
Much of our content is centered around WordPress because we use it for all of our websites outside of Ecommerce.
Here’s the guide on how to create your website on WordPress.
Shopify for Ecommerce
For Ecommerce, we like Shopify — which is an Ecommerce website builder that allows you to get an online store up and running quickly.
The reality is that creating and running an online store can be a huge pain. Shopify takes that pain away. That’s probably why they are growing so quickly, and so many great online stores are popping up on the platform.
Here’s the guide on how to create your website on Shopify.
The Dozens of Other Options
If you’re reading this right now, then you most definitely fall into the category of someone that should be using WordPress or Shopify.
In rare cases, it might make sense to create a website using Wix or a similar website builder.
In other (very) rare cases, it might make sense to have a custom built website.
How to Create a Website
Start with our guide on how to create a website in 120 minutes. Along with that, there are a number of useful guides to consider as you start working on your website.
How to Plan Out Your New Website
How to Buy The RIGHT Domain Name – A Detailed Guide
How to Develop Your First Brand Identity on a Budget
10 Trending 2019 Website Color Schemes
9 Places To Get Website Images (Paid and Free)
The Best Website Fonts That Go Together in 2019
13 Website Design Best Practices
7 Reasons Why You Do NOT Need to Hire a Website Designer
The 22 Key Elements of a High Quality Website
How Much Copy Should You Write on Your Homepage?
10 Contact Page Techniques That Make People Contact You
How To Create an About Page That Matters
How to Make a Wix Website in 6 Easy Steps
Some useful guides for optimization as your site gets up and running:
5 Easy Steps to Creating a Sitemap For a Website
Should You Switch Your Site to HTTPS? Pros and Cons
The Top 10 Principles That Boost Your Website Loading Time
Web Hosting
You need a web hosting provider in order to have a website.
We recommend SiteGround for most people. For advanced WordPress users, with high traffic websites, it could make sense to move to WP Engine at some point.
More about The Best Web Hosting Companies here.
Here are some additional guides to help you learn more about web hosting:
Everything You Need To Know About Web Hosting
The Best Web Hosting for Small Business
The Best Web Hosting for WordPress
The Hidden Costs of Website Hosting
Analytics and Reporting
An analytics tool is important if you want to know what’s happening on your website. It tells you how much traffic you’re getting, where it’s coming from, and what people do on your site. Google Analytics is the standard. That’s what we use for Quick Sprout.
Read more about why Google Analytics is the best.
Installing Google Analytics is easy. Consuming the reports is a bit more complicated.
Here are some guides to help:
The 2 Website Analytics Tools Pros Actually Use in 2019
Setup Google Analytics in 3 Steps – The Beginner’s Guide
10 Vital Customizations to Make in Google Analytics
A Guide to Google Analytics Add-on for Google Sheets
How to Track Your Leads with UTM Parameters
Building and Optimizing With WordPress
A WordPress website is basically made from what’s called a WordPress Theme and WordPress Plugins. All of the features of your website will come either from the theme or the plugins you install.
To help you get started, we reviewed all of the best WordPress Plugins across the most popular categories.
Here’s an in-depth review for each category:
Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
Best WordPress Security Plugin
Best WordPress Calendar Plugin
Best Google Analytics Plugins for WordPress
Best WordPress Directory Plugin
Best Membership Plugins for WordPress
Best Social Media WordPress Plugin
Ecommerce Websites
If the primary purpose of your website is to sell products, you’ll need an ecommerce website. We recommend keeping it simple and going with Shopify.
Read our full review on Shopify to see why.
Check out our review of the Best Ecommerce Platforms, to get a comparison to the other options out there.
Get the step-by-step on how to start an online store.
Our guide on how to create an Ecommerce website.
More useful guides on building an Ecommerce website:
How to Transfer Your Website to Shopify
Best Ecommerce WordPress Themes
Best Ecommerce Website Builder
How to Create a Trust Seal On Checkout Page
Starting a Blog
When you really break it down — most websites are blogs, and blogs are websites. They have become one and the same. The most popular blogging platform is WordPress, and that is also the same platform we use for any other website, blog or otherwise.
If you’re thinking about starting a blog specifically, and that is why you’re trying to figure out how to create a website…we have over 40 guides on blogging.
Here are the blogging guides specific to getting started, and building your blog:
Best Blogging Platforms / Blog Sites
Best WordPress Themes for Blogs
11 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started My First Blog
The Top 12 Tips for Running a Successful Video Blog
10 Lessons Seth Godin Can Teach You About Blogging
100 Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Blogging
Creating Your Own Website: In Summary
Creating your website might seem overwhelming at first. It really comes down to starting with these simple steps:
- Is your primary purpose to sell things on your website? If yes, then focus on Shopify, if no, then focus on WordPress.
- Use the guides on Quick Sprout to help you through the process. It’s a learning curve for sure. Taking the time to set up everything correctly will help you grow your business and your traffic much faster later on.
- Don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly via email with questions. We’ll help however we can.
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