How to build a website for exactly what you need

Ensuring a website aligns with your goals can appear tough when the possibilities are seemingly endless. After all, websites come in all shapes and sizes depending on specific needs, from selling products to sharing content. 

Even once you decide to make it happen, all sorts of intimidating questions can start running through your head. Do you have to know how to build a website from scratch? How do you make sure it has everything you need? Where do you even start?

The answer: this blog post. It will break every requirement down into manageable steps, starting with identifying your goals, going through all the things you need to create a site, finally ending with its launch. 

By the time you scroll to the end, you’ll know how to build a web site that successfully caters to your needs.

Define your website’s purpose and goals 

You probably have a rough idea of the type of website you want to create, even if you haven’t pinpointed specific goals just yet. You might be tempted to leave it until later, but that would be a mistake. 

Setting goals for your site upfront is essential for making the right decisions when building and designing it. Whether those goals are big or small, defining goals from the outset will prevent you from wasting time on areas you don’t need or falling down rabbit holes. 

The table below lists the most popular website types and should help you identify your goals.

Select a domain name and web hosting provider

After settling on your website goals, you need a domain name. When starting a website, it is the first thing you should do. Why? It’s the centerpiece of your digital identity for a start. 

Whether your website is for personal or business purposes, branding will likely factor in at some point. For consistency and recognizability, the name you use across social media sites and your email address should be the same as your website. If all goes well, people will come to recognize the name and associate it with you. 
So don’t be hasty when picking a domain. You must ensure it represents your brand and its core values for years to come.

Next stop: hosting 

Now, you need a home for your domain where you can start building the perfect site and store all the associated files and data. This home is a website host. 

There are a variety of options for website hosting, and choosing the right one will always depend on your particular needs. This is why the exercise of defining your website goals from the beginning is so helpful. You should already have a general idea of your website’s type, complexity, and traffic goals. This will help guide your decisions.

Here are the most popular hosting types and what kind of sites they’re ideal for:

• Shared hosting – great for blog, personal, or small business websites — especially for beginners. Servers are shared to keep things simple and affordable on shared hosting plans.
• Managed WordPress – also great for beginners who want a WordPress website but with many of the technical aspects taken care of — via different managed WordPress plans.
• Virtual machines – ideal for more advanced sites, like large e-commerce or education sites, you get more resources, control, and power by choosing virtual machine plans.
• Dedicated hosting – perfect for very large and content-heavy sites, you get your very own server and total control, plus added features through dedicated hosting plans.

Choose the right platform for your website

Now it’s time to build your website. These days there’s no need for creating a website from scratch, so don’t worry about your coding skills or (lack thereof). You have two main options: content management systems (CMS) and website builders. 

Choosing a CMS

A CMS is a tool that lets users create a website and manage and modify its content. They are often free and open source, with easy-to-use interfaces that allow users to customize to their needs, from templates and drag-and-drop functionality to plugins and widgets. This makes adding potentially complicated functionalities, like e-commerce, to your site easy. 

A CMS is also flexible and scalable. You can make it as complex or simple as you like and still have the possibility of changing it later. 

The three most popular CMS options are:

• WordPress – powering around 43% of all websites on the Internet, WordPress is generally considered the easiest-to-use CMS out there.
• Joomla – though highly flexible, Joomla has a high learning curve, so might not be suitable for complete beginners.
• Drupal – Drupal is seen as the most customizable of the three, but also requires a little more work to get up and running.

A commonly perceived negative of using a CMS is that it requires technical expertise. While it’s true that there sometimes can be a learning curve, there are even more simplified versions should you need it. For instance, managed WordPress hosting can cover things like initial setup for you, plus other ongoing updates and features. 

A good shared hosting provider should also offer ways to use a CMS like WordPress relatively simply. It’s a question of choosing the right provider and plan for you.

Website builders 

Like a CMS, website builders let you create a website with an easy user interface. Some popular options are Wix and Squarespace. Often, they have even less of a learning curve than a CMS. In just a few minutes, you can have domain, site, and hosting set up and ready to go. 

Sounds great, but there are some important limits to how you can customize, build, and grow. This might be fine for now but isn’t great if you want to scale your site down the road. And if you decide to move web hosts, you might have to start your site from scratch since some of the coding may be proprietary. With a CMS, you have the freedom to change things up however you want, whenever you want.

Of course, this is only a problem if you want more than a simple website with the option to build and grow later on. For some, a simple website is all they need. Think about where you see your site a few years down the line. If you plan on upgrading, a CMS is probably your best bet for starting up a website. If you don’t see yourself making many changes, a website builder could be the way to go.

Essential pages and features to include

Now, it’s time to start filling out your site with the information your users need. Depending on your website type, this can mean adding multiple pages or just one. How do you make a website have all the pages it needs? 

We’ll go through all the pages you typically see on different types of websites, but first, here are three key elements every website should have: 

• Homepage – the entrance to your site. Must immediately inform visitors what it’s all about. Smaller sites may also incorporate the points below.
• About – share your mission, story, skills, expertise, or other relevant details to appeal to potential clients/customers.
• Contact page – can include a contact form, email, phone number, physical address, social media handles, or newsletter signup.

Now, let’s get more specific, dividing each website type into must-have pages and optional elements. 

Small business 

• What you offer – Describe your products or services.

Potential extras:

• Customer/client testimonials – Present positive feedback and success stories.
• Frequently asked questions – preemptively answer queries customers are likely to ask.

E-commerce 

• Shopping cart – simplify the checkout process and provide popular payment getaway options.
• Products – create product pages and listings with categories and search functions.
• Delivery information – inform customers about shipping costs, times, and returns.

Potential extras:

• Customer support – include live chat, contact options, and help resources.
• Blog – share product use cases, trends, or tips to attract and engage buyers.

Portfolio 

• Your work – display your best projects with descriptions, case studies, or visuals.

Potential extras:

• Testimonials – include feedback or reviews from previous clients or collaborators.
• Services – describe what you offer if you’re available for hire.

Personal

Depending on your niche or the purpose of the site, this could be one page or several. Potential pages include:

• Blog – a place to publish articles and share knowledge about your topic of choice.
• Portfolio – If you have relevant experience or work to share, showcase it here.

Education 

• Admissions – tell potential students how to apply.
• Course directory – describe the classes and programs. 

Potential extras:

• Calendar – share upcoming workshops, lectures, and more.
• Educational extras – share links to libraries, learning platforms, or guides.
• Team – present the faculty and their qualifications.

Creating a site featuring all these elements and pages might seem intimidating, but if you’re using a CMS or website builder, you can often find templates for specific website types that make everything straightforward. This can range from specific blocks guiding you on what information to provide or adding specific functionality to your site, such as e-commerce shopping carts or contact forms.

Design your website for user experience

Design is much more than making your website look good, although visual appeal is certainly important. However, if your website is aesthetically pleasing but impossible to navigate, users are unlikely to stick around. Here are a few tips on how to create a website with user experience in mind. 

Think about your intended audience

Put yourself in the user's shoes. What do you want them to do when they land on your website? Whether purchasing a service or reading an article, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to do just that. Focus on:

• Choosing simple navigation with clear layouts and minimal clutter.
• Implementing a site structure with logically organized pages.
• Accessibility, with readable font sizes (16px or larger) and sufficient color contrast for text and backgrounds.

Take a mobile-first approach

More than ever, people browse the web on devices other than desktop computers. Instead of designing a site perfect for desktop and thinking about other devices later, it is best practice to take a mobile-first approach to ensure your site works on every device type. 

The easiest way to do this is to choose a theme that adjusts automatically to different screen sizes depending on what device the site visitor is using. You should also consider functionality that works well on mobile as well as desktop. For example, complex dropdown menus can be challenging to use on smaller screens. Menus such as hamburger menus tend to be more touch-friendly. 

Optimize performance during setup

Another key element of user experience is website performance, which refers to how quickly a site loads in a browser. With attention spans dwindling ever more year by year, a slow website may hinder your success. Here are a few things you can do to ensure a speedy site from the start:

• Pick a web host that guarantees 99.99% uptime.
• Compress images and use optimized formats that take up less space, like JPEG.
• Only installing plugins that are completely necessary.

Optimize your website for SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is something you’ll need to consider throughout your website’s lifespan, and starting before your website launch should help with ranking in search engines. Here are a few areas you should focus on to get started.

Keyword research

Keyword research is the process of finding out what queries your target audience is looking for in search engines. You can use these queries strategically throughout your site, informing both your on-page SEO and overall content strategy. 

On-page SEO 

This refers to how you can optimize various elements of your web pages to rank well in search engines. It includes:

• Headlines
• Meta descriptions
• Images
• Writing high-quality content

Other areas that help immensely with SEO that we’ve already alluded to are fast page speeds and mobile optimization.

Website launch and promotion

Before you launch your website, it’s essential to ensure everything is running as smoothly as possible. Ensure your site is running smoothly and all technical considerations are taken care of before you share it with the world. Once you’ve launched, it’s time to start promoting. A few areas to get started and attract visitors to your site include:

• Digital advertising
• SEO
• Social media 
• Email marketing

Be prepared for maintenance

The reality of having a website is that you can’t just launch it and leave it alone. You must maintain it regularly to keep it safe, performing well, and relevant. Some areas to keep an eye on are:

• Software – whether it's plugins or the platform itself, regularly updating your site is essential for keeping it secure and performing well.
• Content – To maintain audience and search engine relevance, you should regularly audit and update your content.
• Backups – regularly backing up your site ensures you don’t lose your website should anything ever go wrong.
• Performance – regularly check page speed loading times and see if there’s anything you can do to improve them, such as optimizing images.

Time to get started

Now you know exactly how to make your website, so it’s time to put this advice to the test. No matter your unique needs, this guide should help you get online in no time. And whenever you get stuck, you can refer back to it for guidance. So stop stalling and start building your website today.