How to Create a Website in 2024: An Updated Beginner’s Guide

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I’ve been where you are. Keen on creating a website, but no idea how. Everything felt so overwhelming!

That was more than 10 years ago. Back then, it was still kind of difficult to put all the pieces together if you didn’t have any technical knowledge.

Luckily for you, it’s much easier to make a website today.

Now, before we get started with our step-by-step guide to website creation for dummies, let’s get one thing out of the way:

Do I need technical skills to make a website?

Do you need to be a computer whiz to make a website? Nope, not at all!

Sure, if you want to get really technical, you could dive into stuff like HTML, CSS, and other coding languages. But don’t sweat it if that sounds like gibberish to you.

The cool thing is you’ve got options. One of the easiest ways is to use a website builder. Think of it like using Word or PowerPoint. Just drag, drop, and you’re pretty much good to go!

These easy-to-use platforms offer a visual drag and drop editor, web hosting, and can even provide a custom domain name: truly a one-stop-shop!

Let’s get started now, shall we? Just follow these simple steps, and you will make your own website in no time!

How to set up a website in 7 steps

1. Identify the type of website you want to create

Websites come in all shapes and sizes. Here are the most common ones:

Type 1: Very small websites

An example of a very small website would be an online portfolio (find some examples here) or resume. These are typically used by copywriters, translators, or illustrators to showcase their work, contact information and an ‘about us’ page.

Usually these websites have around seven pages or less. It could even be a one-pager website, where you display all the information on a single page.

Online Portfolio template by Wix (‘Creative CV’)

This type of website doesn’t get updated much and is mostly static. You create it once, make sure everything works as it should, test the mobile version and then let it sit there. Traffic comes mostly from people directly typing in the URL or from local directories like Google Maps.

Time required: Setting up such a small website usually doesn’t take very long: a weekend should be enough for a decent-enough first version.

Ideal ways to create it: a website builder like Wix. For cheaper, slightly less powerful options, you can also check out Webnode and Strikingly.

Type 2: Blogs

If you like to share your thoughts frequently, you can also start a blog. This gives your visitors a reason to come back to your website and usually invites them to comment. Adding blog posts is usually done via a simple editor where you can upload text and images. A typical example would be a travel or food blog.

Squarespace blog template (‘Hester’)

A blog page can also be added to portfolio websites, but this has become less popular due to the rise of social media.

Time required: A small blog can easily be set up within a few days. The biggest time investment comes from posting regular content.

Ideal ways to create it: Squarespace or WordPress (there are even free blog makers)

Type 3: Slightly larger, business-focused websites

In this type of business, the website is usually an integral part of it, meaning that without the website, the business wouldn’t exit.

Shopify’s ‘Prestige’ Online Store Theme

The website might be the main marketing channel, for example:

• A food delivery service
• A membership program (e.g. online fitness course)
• A booking website for a vacation rental home
• Online consulting or coaching services

The website can even be the business:

• An Online Store
• A website comparing different products (like Tooltester.com)
• An online education website
• An online newspaper or magazine

Time required: It depends a lot on the design and functionality of your website. For example, using a website builder like Wix, you can create a site for your yoga business (incl. online appointments & payments) easily within a week, just using standard components.

However, if you want to build a bigger website with bespoke features and page templates, you will have to use a CMS like WordPress. Depending on your technical knowledge, we are now looking at a timeframe of at least a month. This will further increase if you need to hire a designer and programmer for certain tasks.

Ideal ways to create it: for regular (content)-websites, WordPress is usually a great solution. For online stores, Shopify or WooCommerce. But even Wix is worth checking out as they have many specialized apps for vacation rentals, restaurants, online bookings etc.

Smart Finder: Find your ideal website builder in 60 seconds

2. Decide on a platform and budget to build your website

After having identified the type of website you now have a clearer idea of the size of the project.

Let’s go over the most popular ways to start a professional website. There are many solutions, including website builders vs coding. Some are more flexible than others, and some are more complex.

Option 1: Setting up a website with a website builder

Let’s start with the easiest option: a website builder. This is an “all-inclusive” package, so to speak: A single platform will usually provide the following:

• The template design
• Drag and drop web editor
• Web hosting
• Domain name
• Email address
• Customer support

This isn’t only useful for beginners: it simply depends on the project. The good news is also that almost all site builders let you create a free basic website on a subdomain (e.g. yourname.sitebuildername.com). While I wouldn’t recommend using a free website professionally (since it’s ad-supported), it’s a perfect way to try it in detail before deciding if the cost is worth it.

However, if you want to take your business online, you should consider a paid plan. Prices start at around $8/month, but it includes all the essentials. Add around $1-6/month on top if you need a professional email address for your business website.

Let’s make this more concrete, though. This is how much you’d pay for an ad-free website with your own domain name:

Wix: $17/month (Light plan)

Squarespace: $16/month (Personal plan)

Hostinger Website Builder: $9.99/month (Website plan) - price goes up after your first payment term.

To better understand exactly how it works, please watch our step-by-step tutorial for website creation!

Pros:

Cons:

The most popular website builders are Wix (see tutorial), Squarespace (see tutorial), and Shopify (for ecommerce stores). You’ll find other website builders in our complete comparison. You can also check out our guide to choosing a website builder.

You can try the Wix website builder for free and for as long as you want.

Try Wix free

Option 2: Creating a website with a content management system

If you don’t want to use a website builder, you should look at content management systems (CMS). Even though they essentially work in a similar way as a website builder, they are more difficult to use.

That is because they are prepared to accommodate huge website projects (e.g. Typo3, Joomla! or Drupal). A typical user would be a larger enterprise, creating hundreds of pages while having a dedicated tech team working on the website.

Fortunately, there’s also one more CMS, which is much more accessible: WordPress. Thanks to hosting companies that offer a one-click installation, it’s not quite as difficult to set up. This is also one of the reasons why it’s the most popular CMS worldwide.

WordPress - the beginner-friendly-ish CMS

Let’s take a quick look at the pros and cons of WordPress:

Pros:

Cons:

WordPress Hosting

In this introductory video, we take a look at what you need to consider if you’re setting up WordPress.

You can sign up for Siteground here.

From our experience, the most recommendable hosting companies are Dreamhost (extremely affordable), Siteground (a bit more expensive but super powerful) and Bluehost (popular choice with 24/7 support). Learn more about the other cheap WordPress hosting companies we recommend. When signing up for one of these hosting companies, you can also directly register a domain name. Usually, the first year is free.

WordPress Themes

To get a customized layout for your use case, you’ll need to install a WordPress theme that matches your vision. Usually, you’ll find a few basic themes when you first log into your new WordPress site.

Fortunately you can find an enormous variety of specific themes for all sorts of industries that can be adjusted and customized. Cheaper themes are available on Themeforest, for example. To increase the chances your theme will be supported for years into the future, it’s important to check its ratings and that the number of sales isn’t too low.

Then there are also premium theme providers such as Astra. They provide a basic free version (mainly to test) as well as premium plans that include customer support and integrations with page builders such as Elementor.

Keep in mind: customizing a WordPress theme can be quite a bit of work. If there is something you don’t like, you’ll often have to modify the CSS or HTML (you or a programmer).

The hosting, domain name, email address, installation and level of support you choose will depend on how much you want to spend and your technical knowledge. It can be quite cheap if you do it yourself. Take a look at our pricing guide for typical website projects here.

Of course, that may not always be the ideal solution, especially when you’re busy running a business. In this case, you can also try to hire a web designer who can help you set up a WordPress website, for example.

Additional website features via plugins

An enormous advantage, especially for WordPress, is that you have thousands of plugins that let you add special features to your website that are not initially included. A typical example would be WooCommerce, a plugin that adds a complete online store.

By default, WordPress is designed to be in a single language, but there are plugins, like WPML, that let you translate the page. Another of my favorites is the Yoast SEO plugin, which lets you change the search engine settings (e.g. to rank higher on Google).

You’ll find more information on WordPress in our WordPress beginners guide.

Option 3: Hire someone to create your website

To speed up the website creation process, you can also hire a web designer or a web agency. You can find these through Upwork, Fiverr and 99designs. The advantage of these platforms is that you can vet your potential contractor by viewing their ratings.

It’s difficult to name a price here, although we outline a few of the costs in our guide to how much a website costs. If you are working with an individual contractor, you can expect $100-200 per page they create for you. For a small portfolio website with 6 pages and some design customization, I would calculate with costs of around $800-1,200.

Hiring an agency is more expensive. The advantage is that you’ll have access to people with different skills (designers, programmers, copywriters and SEO specialists). But since the agency needs to support a whole team, your costs are more likely to start at $1,500 for the portfolio website I described before. Assuming you want them to create a custom design, develop an SEO strategy and do some copywriting, the cost can quickly reach $3,000 or more.

Of course, you will also be able to find cheaper offers, just don’t expect too much customization at a lower price.

Most web designers will typically use WordPress, which is a solid and cost-effective choice. You’ll also need to pay for hosting, but there are plenty of cheap web hosting providers to choose from, which cost around $8-12 per month. Some contractors also put together a package for you where you pay a monthly or yearly fee that already includes web hosting.

To recap, let’s check out the pros and cons of hiring someone to build your website:

Pros:

Cons:

Option 4: Program the website yourself

This is the supreme discipline: opening the editor and starting to code. Those who need total liberty will have to make the page themselves. You do need patience for this, and for beginners, it is usually overwhelming (and sometimes frustrating).

A good place to start are websites like Codecademy and W3Schools, which have step-by-step tutorials for beginners. But expect a long journey before your website is ready.

Some popular development tools are NetBeans, Aptana Studio or Brackets. All allow at least HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and are free. Another option is Webflow, which is a visual source code editor.

Brackets screenshot

Pros:

Cons:

3. Register a domain name

A domain name is like the address of a website (e.g. www.mycompany.com), while web hosting is like the physical building where the website is located.

Generally you can register a domain name in two different places: a domain registrar (e.g. Namecheap) or your website builder (e.g. Wix) / web hosting company (e.g. Dreamhost).

Wix and Squarespace, for example, all have a free custom domain name included in the first year. The same is true for Dreamhost and Bluehost.

After the first year they charge slightly more than Namecheap, for example, but the added convenience of only having to deal with one company is normally worth it.

Usually, it’s best to get the .com extension unless you are strictly operating in one country, like Canada (.ca) or the UK (.co.uk). Of course, there are also many successful businesses that use one of the newer domain names like .me or .agency, for example.

Our own domain name

There is no shortage of registrars that sell custom domain names. We mostly buy them at Namecheap as they are, well, pretty cheap but the differences are not that significant as they range from $9-18 per year.

Let’s now look at an area that is closely connected to the domain name:

How to get a professional email address?

If you’re running a business, you likely don’t want to use a free Gmail or Hotmail address. Having a custom email address on your own domain name looks much more professional! And it’s pretty easy to get. Let me give you a few different options:

• Get it from your website builder or web hosting company: a few of them include email addresses at no extra cost (e.g. Webnode and Siteground)
• Get it from your domain registrar: Namecheap, for example, offers it for less than $12 per email address per year.
• If you love Gmail, you can try Google Workspace. It’s the most feature rich solution, but will set you back $6 per email address. This is also the solution most website builders offer (Wix, Squarespace, Jimdo etc.)
• Tip: For a completely free solution: Zoho Workplace, which includes up to 5 email addresses. It’s a little bit more complicated to set up but your domain registrar should be able to help you with that.

Once all the technical setup is out of the way, you can start focussing on building your website.

4. Plan the structure of your website

Just like it isn’t always a good idea to start cooking without following a recipe, at least if you have no experience, the same goes for creating a website. Here, improvising is not a good idea. Planning will help you decide what sections you need, the content that works best for you and how your website should be designed.

Mind map for an online shoe store

A good way to start is by creating a mind map with the ideas of what your website will need. The main items of this mind map can be used for your website navigation.

Tips for planning your website:

1. Use a paper and a pen and write down everything you want on the website. Brainstorming and creating a mind map are the perfect ways to organize your thoughts.
2. Take a look at other interesting websites both in terms of design and content. Note what you like and what you don’t.
3. Once you have a draft of what you want on your website, ask people you trust what they think. You’ll certainly find some interesting perspectives you can incorporate.
4. Create a list (e.g. in Excel) with all the pages that your website will have. Note down the title, what kind of content you’ll have, keywords, the purpose, the kind of page and their importance.
5. Bonus: If you want to position yourself well in search engines, this is when you should find out what keyword each page will have, and add them to the list in point 4. Read this SEO guide for more information.

Examples of pages that could be important for your business:

• An “about” page on the company and its history
• A page to present services or products
• A contact page (with a contact form)
• A blog with informative and useful articles for your customers
• A calendar of events
• A FAQ or a glossary

5. Choose a theme, customize your design and add your artwork

The way forward is now determined by your choice in step 2 (Decide on a platform).

If you’ve chosen a website builder like Wix, you’ll have a range of templates to choose from. These themes are generally arranged by category (shops, sport, portfolio, blog, etc.).

Once you’ve chosen your favorite template, creating your site is a pretty straightforward affair:

• pick your preferred color scheme and set up the general design
• Set up all pages you require (see step 4 - Planning of a website)
• Customize the copy and images (more on that in step 6).

Some of Wix’s templates

Wix is not the only site builder that is equipped with website templates. This is also the case with Squarespace, Hostinger Website Builder as well as Shopify, the best solution for creating larger Ecommerce sites.

If you went for a CMS like WordPress, you will need to choose a theme. There are free and premium ones. We have a dedicated WordPress tutorial that shows you where to get a WordPress theme and how to set it up.

Finally, If you chose to program the website yourself, you will need to create your design yourself or hire a designer and then create the CSS. But this method is generally reserved for companies or individuals who need a bespoke solution and have the right type of budget (or a lot of free time on their hands).

What about the website design?

However you choose to create your website, you will need to make some design decisions.

Creating visual web designs is no easy task. In fact, I’d say that online, there are more examples of terrible designs than good ones. Don’t let your website be one.

Just like bell bottom jeans were stylish in the 70s, they were ridiculous in the 80s and 90s. The same happens with web design. You have to remember that what was considered good practice 5 years ago, can now seem kind of old or out of date. Check out this article to know what practices to avoid.

Here are some tips to make a design your visitors will love:

1. Try to use a light (or white) color for the background.
2. Choose attractive colors that complement each other. Use Adobe Color if you need help.
3. Keep the design clean, simple, and leave white space between the elements. How to make readable text.
4. Don’t use too many fonts: one for the titles and another for the text is usually enough. This guide will help you choose.
5. Keep consistent style and format. The users should not notice any differences between your pages. Don’t create a Frankenstein.
6. Your website should also be perfectly adapted to mobile devices.
7. Any images you add must look professional. Don’t upload a selfie you took in front of a bathroom mirror. Keep in mind that today’s smartphones take very nice photos. If you plan right, you can get great headshots.
8. Less is more. When in doubt, go minimal.

You can find more design tips in our guide on how to improve a website.

Creating a logo for your website

A logo is crucial to getting that professional look for your website. Similarly to creating your website you can also DIY your logo with a logo maker. Or you outsource the logo creation to a professional designer.

Finding good artwork and images

A website that has only written words on it, looks boring and overwhelming. For that reason you’ll notice that website templates usually have placeholder images on them.
Now, most of the time it’s not a great idea to just keep them as they aren’t really customized to YOUR website.

But there are good alternatives too. Most website builders are connected to stock photo providers such as Unsplash or Creative Commons, which are free or Getty Images / Shutterstock, which are paid premium platforms. This is an easy way to add professional looking photos and illustrations to your website.

And even if your website builder or CMS is not directly connected to these stock photo providers, you can just directly browse said websites and get the images from there.

What’s more, you can find more professional-looking photos (starting $1) on a lot of other websites, like Depositphotos and Shutterstock. Here are some more free stock photo options.

Using AI to create images is a new option, with ChatGPT and Midjourney being two popular choices. However, I’d exercise caution with these tools, as the images they produce can often appear dull and lifeless. They should soon improve, though!

Make sure you understand the available image formats: .gif, .jpg and .png are the main formats. Plus, you have to optimize the size and quality of the image to the web standard browser. Everything you need to know about this topic can be found in this beginners guide to web graphics.

Likewise, it will come in handy to have an editing program to be able to edit and change the size of the images. The most professional ways to manipulate photos are Figma and Photoshop, but not everyone will be able (or will want to) afford them.

Alternatives are Affinity Photo and Acorn, which costs only a fraction of the price of the original and don’t require a subscription.

There are increasingly more tools you can use to create graphic resources simply and without having to learn to use Photoshop or Illustrator. For instance, you can use Stencil, Canva or Snappa.

6. Add content and start publishing

After defining the style in the previous step, we are finally ready to add content to our brand-new website.

Speak the language of your customers

Your potential visitors and customers need to be the full focus of your content strategy.

For that reason, you need to speak a language your visitors understand. Remember, they don’t have much time and won’t be happy if you throw cryptic jargon at them. So try to use a clear and simple language without much fluff.

Structuring and optimizing your content

On a website, we are generally less formal than in a book or a letter. We must help the busy visitor find the information they need.

Things you should do:

• Make it scan and skip-able: structure your pages using titles and subtitles because your visitors love to scan the content to skip to the most relevant sections. It feels just as good as skipping YouTube ads and Netflix intros.
• Short sentences with a generous amount of line breaks. This makes it easy to read.
• Bulleted lists: just like this one. Another way to consume content with little effort
• Effective fonts: as mentioned in part 5, our design section, use a reduced number of fonts (max. 2-3 different ones) that are easy to read on screen.
• Own your content: make it clear who is behind the website and generously use photos even if it makes you slightly uncomfortable. Also show relevant qualifications.

Things you should avoid:

• Using complicated language just to sound smart. This will drive visitors away from your website faster than a bullet train.
• Not using call to actions: too many websites lose business because their visitors are unsure of how to get in touch or initiate a transaction. You should make it as easy as possible! Use CTA-buttons, contact forms, online booking tools, live chat. Whatever works for you and your customers.

Find more tips in this article about how to write for the web.

Of course, if writing isn’t your thing, you can also hire a professional copywriter.

Outsourcing content creation

As with all website elements (design, logo etc.), you can hire a copywriting professional to create the copy for your website if you are not a natural-born writer.

The process is usually quite straightforward, you provide a brief, usually via their template, and later once the writer sends their draft you can provide feedback and request any necessary changes.

Top platforms for hiring a copywriter:

• Google search (usually “copywriter [add your industry])
• Upwork
• Fiverr
• LinkedIn
• Twitter (type your search and then click on ‘People’)

The good thing about copywriters is that they don’t necessarily need to be close to where you are. This job can easily be done remotely. Just make sure you hire a native speaker of whatever language you are going to produce.

7. Promote your website

If you’ve already created your website and published it, you can start promoting and optimizing it to increase visits and improve the overall user experience.

• Update your website: Websites are not books. Once published, they can still be updated. Make sure that you create new and relevant content when you have the chance and that you’re constantly updating the website. For example, imagine a restaurant’s website: if the menu changes, it should be reflected on the website as quickly as possible.
• Online positioning: To attract as many visitors as possible, you’ll have to further optimize your website’s SEO. This is not very complicated, but it requires time and work. Check out this guide for more information on which website builders are good for SEO.
• Web analysis: Your efforts in online positioning (above point) will be useless if you don’t measure your website traffic. That’s how you’ll know whether it’s working or not. The most popular website analysis tool is Google Analytics. And it’s free!
• Once you publish your website, you should register with Google Search Console to notify Google that your page exists and get information. Or at least send your website’s URL (address) to Google so that it can index it.
• Email Marketing: Another common strategy, especially for businesses, is to send regular emails to its visitors, so as not to lose contact. This is especially useful for online stores, small businesses, and bloggers. Email marketing is a science in itself. You can read this how-to guide to find more information on how to get started sending newsletters.
• Social media: Finally, most websites also have social media profiles (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.) for being able to interact with their target group beyond of the realms of their website. This works especially well for visual professionals, like illustrators, jewelers, or photographers.

Final words

Making your own website can be daunting. But with the right platform and some effort, it’s definitely manageable! I hope that this guide has encouraged you to get started.

In addition to this general guide, we also have a couple of industry-specific guides as well:

• Setting up a website for small businesses and entrepreneurs
• How to pick the best website builder for small business
• Guide for starting an ecommerce website
• Website builders for artists and musicians/bands
• How to create an online portfolio
• Creating photography websites
• Create a website with WordPress

If you have any questions on how to start, leave a comment below, and we’ll try to help.

The authors

Learn more about us

Robert Brandl

Founder and CEO

Hi, my name is Robert Brandl! I used to work in a digital marketing agency where I managed website and email marketing projects. To optimize my client's campaigns, I always had to find the optimal web tools. Tooltester offers this knowledge to you, hopefully saving you endless hours of research.

Inka Wibowo

Content Manager

Hi, I'm Inka! I started using website builders and content management systems over 10 years ago, when I managed websites for clients in my first marketing role. Since then, I've worked on hundreds of web and digital projects. Now, at Tooltester, I'm happy to be able to use my experience to help users like you find the right website builder for your needs.

Learn more about us