Creating a website without having a clear vision and the required skills might be daunting. Most people think they need to know coding to be able to build a website. However, many tools and platforms allow you to create a website without coding.

If you know how to develop a website by coding, that’ll be an advantage. But it doesn’t mean you have to build it by yourself. You can start from scratch, even build the layout yourself, but then you’ll have to design, add content, and optimize it to rank on search engines.

Regardless of your technical skills, here, we’ll lay out 5 essential steps you should go through to create the best-performing website from scratch. Keep reading to find out more.

What skills do I need to create a website?

If you want to create a website free, you’ll have two main approaches ahead of you:

  • Learn how to code, which is a complex and time-consuming approach.
  • Get help from free website-building tools and platforms, which is the easiest approach to creating a site.

Most people think learning how to code and develop a site will be much cheaper than using website-building tools. However, developing a website needs constant maintenance and hard work, while site-building platforms do it all for you. Overall, you’ll have to set aside a budget for server hosting and other potential expenses that might come along.

Although using a website builder doesn’t need any particular technical skill, you still need to learn how to use its admin panel. If you already know how to use Word, PowerPoint, and social media, you can figure out how to use the website builders’ panel pretty easily.

How to create a website without coding in 5 simple steps

If you decide to create a website with or without coding, the following steps will be helpful for you. Using this guide, you can create your website without coding in less than three hours. By coding, it’ll take a bit longer based on your skills and performance.

However, before going through the essential steps, you’ll need to answer one question:

  • What type of website do you want to build?

This question will identify your visions, goals, and how you want to earn a living from the site. After figuring out the answer, follow these steps to build your site from scratch in no time.

1.   Find the best platform based on your purposes and budget

Figuring out the type of website you want to build will help you have a vision of the project size and how big of a budget you will need. Based on that, you can choose the right platform and tools to make your job easier.

Let’s review a few examples to understand the process better.

Website builders

If you plan on going online and taking your business to the next level, a website builder can help you achieve your purposes much faster and more easily. Almost all website builders provide a template design, email address, and customer support for your site, in addition to allowing you to customise the domain name, web hosting, and the overall layout of the site to your liking.

Each website builder is specifically good for a certain project type. For instance, if you want to take your physical store online, Shopify can be your best option to make the process easier. On the other hand, Wix can help create a portfolio site to show your experience and skills better.

So based on your business type or purposes, with a little digging on the Internet, you can find the platform that best fits your needs. Keep in mind that you may need to pay for site builders’ paid plans to access more features and tools to progress more in your field of expertise. 

CMS creators

CMS or content management systems are best for websites focusing on blog pages. For instance, if your business type is mostly based on online tutorials and how-to instructions. Although content management systems have a more complicated user interface, they offer more customization features. 

WordPress is the most popular CMS worldwide, offering free most of its features. It is also easier to work with compared to other CMS tools. Although free, you’ll need to download and use plugins to access most of WordPress's features. These plugins sometimes cost a lot, so you should consider unexpected expenses in your business schedule. You’ll also need a technical expert to make changes or customize your blog’s design.

However, if you are uncomfortable using it, you can always find many other content management systems to meet your needs.

Coding

As the last option, you can learn to code or hire someone to develop the layout and backend of your site. To cut expenses, you can use free designing tools to work on the front end yourself. This option is the most expensive compared to the other two; however, you can build your site completely based on your desire.

Learning to code will cut your expenses, but it might take time. On the other hand, working with an individual developer can cost around 800 to 2000 dollars, based on the number of pages you want. You can also hire an agency to develop your site, raising your expenses to at least $1,500. Working with an agency may cost a lot more, but you get to work with different specialists and create every little aspect of your site without worry.

2.   Choose a unique domain name.

The next step to creating a website without coding or developing it yourself is to find a unique domain name and register it. A domain name is an online address which helps your target audience to find you better. It starts with (www) and follows with (.com, .net) or other extensions.

The important part is to choose a name that best suits your business type and describes your brand identity. For instance, web hosting services usually add a “hosting” or “host” word to their domain name to best demonstrate their services. If available, you’ll have to pay yearly subscriptions to have your desired domain name.

Many website-building tools, like Wix and Squarespace, offer free domain names for the first year. However, you’ll need to pay to keep the name after that. You can also use free tools like Namecheap to pick a domain name, which costs far less after a free trial's first year. That way, you’ll have to work with more than two companies to build your site, which may be a bit inconvenient. So, it’s up to you to decide which option you would like to use based on your budget.

3.   Plan your strategy

Improvising your way through things may be comforting and helpful for you. But it’s not a good idea to build a website from scratch. You’ll need a clear plan to find your way through your online business.

So, before launching your business, create a mind map based on the following factors:

  • The website designs
  • Required contents
  • Competitors’ way of progress
  • The number of pages
  • What to add to each page
  • The overall and specific layout
  • The keywords and SEO strategy

Use Excel or just a paper and pen to write down everything you’ll need to improve your site step by step. We recommend writing the important parts in bullet points, so you know exactly what needs to be done. One way to ensure your plan will be useful during your journey to creating a website is to ask your friends or colleagues what they think about your draft. Then, optimize it based on their opinions and start with more confidence.

4.   Add contents

If you have an online store, add a product page and the required descriptions, features, and more to inform the audience about your business’s unique values. On the other hand, regardless of your business type, publishing blog content helps your potential customers recognize you as a leader in your industry.

It also helps optimise your site for search engines and rank better on the result page. With that being said, you’ll need to pay attention to a few elements while adding content:

  • Brand voice: Understand your brand identity, then choose a suitable brand voice to use in all your content. Your brand voice must be easy to understand and familiar to your audience. For instance, if your target audience is Gen Z, having a funny brand voice will help them engage with you more. In addition, keep yourself updated on the new slangs Gen Z use, and try to add them to your content. Overall, don’t use complicated idioms. It will only confuse your audience.
  • Mobile-friendliness: Most website owners only care about desktop displays when optimizing their site. However, nowadays, most searchers on Google use their smartphones to navigate through different pages and surf the Internet. As a result, making your website mobile-friendly must be one of your priorities to attract more users and increase your site traffic. Not only that, but you can view your website from different devices, like tablets, as well as different operating systems, like Android and iOS, to ensure it’s compatible with all kinds of devices.
  • Font: Use a simple Font throughout your content. Also, don’t use more than 2-3 fonts across your site. Usually, one font for titles and another for body text is enough. Choose a font that is easy to read on screen.
  • Readability: Making your content as quickly read as possible is the most important strategy to attract potential customers. One way is to use bullet points across your content. Moreover, keep your sentences short, less than 20 words, so that users can keep reading without being distracted. Line breaks can also help with readability, so be generous about it.
  • SEO: As mentioned before, optimizing your site for search engines is as important as optimizing it for users. The first step to achieve that is to find unique and relevant keywords for your brand, product or services and each content. Then try to add them to your content. However, avoid keyword-stuffing or Black Hat techniques, or Google’ll ban you. Add keywords naturally wherever possible.

5.   Grow your site by promoting it

Now that you have created your site planed a strategy, and optimized it, you successfully finished the easy part. You must go through the hard and time-consuming part of promoting the site over different platforms. 

If you don’t know where to start, here are a few tips to help you get going:

  • Sign up for the Google search console
  • Create profiles on popular social media
  • Plan for Email marketing

Last but not least, you’ll need to monetize your site by selling products/services or advertising.

Bottom line

Creating a website without coding is far easier than you would think. All you need is the right strategy and suitable platforms. Set up your goals, then plan to achieve them. Regardless of the type of website you need, a huge site or a small one to show your CV, you can create it using one or two building and designing tools. Just stick to the plan, and your site will grow.

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