This is a simple guide to show you how to create your own web site with just 2 steps from a web developer.
A little about myself. My name is Jan and I am a web developer. I have been blogging, publish technical articles running my own designing firm and have been helping people to build websites since 2003.
Four reasons why you will love this website setup guide.
- Beginner Friendly
This is a easy to use beginner guide for anyone who is interested to build a website from scratch. - Fast Setup
This website setup guide is simple enough to show you how to setup a website from start to end in less than an hour. - Up-to-Date
I will show to how to setup a website with the latest technology. Hassle free! - Platform Specific
This guide will show you how to choose the right platform for your website.
Free Support
In case if you have any questions in setting up your website, feel free to shot me an email. I will more than happy to show you how to setup.
Okay! Now we are start our first step.
Step 1: Choose the right platform for your website
Before getting your domain name (e.g. xxx.com) and choosing the hosting company, first you should pick the right platform for your website.
Back in 2003 when people creating a website, they use traditional down to earth HTML, CSS, JavaScript and some other programming languages such as asp, php etc. There are no simple solutions without writing lines and lines of codes or requires technical skills.
Time flyes! New technologies and platforms become available for people who doesn’t know any coding skills still able to create their own website. These platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. They are called Content Management System (CMS).
A content management system is a user friendly website building and maintenance platform to help building a website and manage its own online content in a simple way, without touching a bunch of HTML pages, images and folders etc.
According to the W3Techs, 59.3% of the people are using WordPress as their desired website building platform. Joomla and Drupal are 6.1% and 4.9% respectively. As we see, WordPress becomes the most popular platform used in website building, there must be some reasons.
1. It’s Free! A lot of templates we can choose and easy to find from online
There are nothing more attractive than free stuff! WordPress cost nothing to download and install, loads of online forum helping people how to setup and providing free supports as well. Not to mention a huge community who offer awesome themes and templates, making WordPress to become the most popular CMS among the others.
2. User friendly! Ease to use
There is nothing more easier than using WordPress to create a website. It is definitely beginner-friendly, if you know how to use Microsoft Word to create a documents than you already know how to add your own content into the page. There are tons of free plugin you can download to help you customize and manage your WordPress website. With plugins, you can easily to create contact forms, subscription forms, search forms, image sliders and much more.
3. Never too small
WordPress is simple to use and install but it doesn’t mean it can only handle small websites. It can do a lot more than you think. From a small personal blog to hundreds of pages corporate website or even eCommerce, WordPress still has more than enough capabilities to handle it. WordPress is used by notable brand such as Facebook, New York Times, Google Ventures, BBC America, Sony Music, eBay, Best Buy, Marks & Spencer, ESPN, and Nokia.
4. Mobile friendly
Back in the day if we need to make a site mobile friendly, we have to create a separate site to make that happen. Thanks WordPress now we can easily to have a mobile friendly website without doing any extra works. You can now have a responsive website that can perfectly fit in different mobile devices, smartphone and tablet.
5. Huge support community
One of the reasons why people love to use WordPress is because of its endless support community. You can easily find answers to your questions from online support community. The more than 50% market share makes WordPress still has a huge group of supporting community.
Drupal
Besidies of WordPress, Drupal is another genius content management system. However, it does require more than beginner level of technical skills to make it works. This is probably the main reasons that limited Drupal getting famous among the beginner’s group.
Joomla
The second market share holder of CMS. Same issue as Drupal, although it is a powerful website building tool, it lacks of beginner-friendly capability that makes it way less popular than WordPress.
Conclusion
I have been using all three CMS but if for beginner, I will highly recommend to use WordPress and no other options because of the ease of use reason plus a huge support community make it free from other competitors. Whether you are a blogger, small business owner, or a freelancer, WordPress is where you should start with.
Next I will explain to you how to choose a domain name and register a domain. I will walk you through where to register a domain name and finding a spot to host your website.
Stay tune and I will show you the step 2 in the next time.
Cheers
