How to Create a Website in 120 Minutes — Step-by-Step

How to Create a Website in 120 Minutes — Step-by-Step

This is why I consider the “naming my business” and “buying the domain” steps for creating a business to be the same step. That’s why I also use a domain registrar for buying domains and a web host for hosting. And if you know you want a blog or are planning on doing lots of content, start on WordPress. Ecommerce Sites If you’re planning on building an ecommerce store for your site, don’t use WordPress. It will do ecommerce, it’ll do simple portfolios, it’ll do massive content sites, it’ll do Fortune 500 marketing sites, it’ll do it all. WordPress is the tool that you’ll use to build your website. Once you’re done, it’ll look something like this: Step 7: Install a WordPress Theme Think of WordPress as the guts of your site, it’s all the pumping that makes your site work. Back to themes, are there other options? You’ll do this within WordPress. Every website has a few standard pages you should create: Homepage – Your WordPress theme usually has settings for this page.

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The easiest way to create a website for less than $100.

Creating a website used to be a massive project.

And expensive too.

Everything had to be built by hand and businesses needed to work with an online marketing agency that would charge them tens of thousands of dollars to build the site. If you wanted a professional-looking site, that was your only option.

Things have gotten a lot cheaper over the years.

Now it’s possible to get a polished site for less than $100. About $10 to buy the domain, $30–60 for a good template, and $5–10/month to host it. It’ll look so good that people won’t even realize that you built it yourself. It’ll look like some high-flying marketing agency built it for you.

Not only has it gotten cheaper, it’s also gotten a lot easier.

I’ve broken down the 9 simple steps to create your website from scratch. You’ll easily be able to run through these steps over the next 120 minutes.

Step 1: Pick a Name and Find a Domain

These are not two separate steps, unfortunately.

I really wish I could sit down, pick any name that I want for my business, and be able to create the site that I want around that name. Now that the internet is a couple of decades old, we all have to face the reality that most of the good domains have been taken.

Here’s how a naming session always seems to go for me:

  1. In a moment of inspiration, we think of an amazing name.
  2. We hold on to this name for months, maybe even years.
  3. It’s time to start the business, so we go to purchase the domain.
  4. The domain is taken.
  5. We try a dozen small variations of our original idea, all taken.
  6. No biggie, we thought of one brilliant name, we’ll think of another one.
  7. Backup idea #2 = taken.
  8. Backup idea #3 = taken.
  9. Backup idea #4 = taken.
  10. Despair sets in.
  11. We start considering names that we don’t actually like, hoping that anything is available.
  12. We come up with 2 or 3 options that we don’t like at all.
  13. Then we spend a week trying to come up with a name that’s both available and a name that we can live with.
  14. Finally, we find one.

Websites have also become so embedded in our day-to-day lives that it’s better to change the name of the business to match an available domain than it is to pick a poor quality domain. Through this process, I almost always end up with a completely different name than I originally intended.

This is why I consider the “naming my business” and “buying the domain” steps for creating a business to be the same step. I try to only lock myself into a name once I have the domain.

We put together an in-depth guide on buying domains here.

The good news is that the rest of these steps are a breeze once you have your domain purchased. It’s the first and hardest step.

Step 2: Register Your Domain

Real quick, let’s sort out the difference between a domain registrar and a web host.

A domain registrar is a company that specializes in buying (registering) domains.

A web host, on the other hand, specializes in running servers that host websites.

Every web host will desperately try to get you to also registrar a domain through them. The reason is that it’s a great upsell for them. They’ve spent most of their resources building out a hosting service, then they offer domain registration as a convenience, increase the price a bit, and collect a nice chunk of extra profit from you.

My philosophy is to buy things from businesses that specialize in that exact thing. Prices will be better and so will quality. That’s why I also use a domain registrar for buying domains and a web host for hosting. I never mix up the two.

We put together a detailed review of domain registrars here.

Step 3: Decide What Kind of Site You Want

Most guides on creating a website will push you into using WordPress. It’s the most popular and flexible website builder. And that’s usually a good recommendation.

But there are a few situations where I recommend different options.

Simple Portfolio or “Business Card” Sites

Many businesses need a simple website that tells people a few things:

  • Who the business is for
  • What the business does
  • Sometimes a portfolio that shows off some work
  • Contact info

This kind of site gives the basic info for the business, nothing more. If this is what you need, Squarespace is your best option for creating your website. It’s incredibly simple to use and will give you a professional site at a very low price. It’s perfect for small businesses.

Squarespace will try to convince you that they can handle everything. That’s not true.

They’ve created the simplest and easiest website builder out there. Truly, it’s a joy to use.

However, they completely lack all the advanced features that an online business needs. The ecommerce functionality is extremely limited, and I don’t know any serious online marketer that uses Squarespace for a content site. If your business an online business, Squarespace isn’t a legitimate option. You’ll hit the limits of its features too fast.

If you know that you want an ecommerce store from the beginning, start on Shopify and skip Squarespace. And if you know you want a blog or are planning on doing lots of content, start on WordPress.

Squarespace makes the most sense when you just need a clean, professional-looking site that gives some basic info on your business. It’s perfect for small businesses, freelancers, and artists.

Here’s another way to think about it: If you’re building a business that doesn’t live and die on its website, it just needs a…

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