How to Set Up Your First Website: A Beginner’s Guide to Web Development

Making a website is not as hard as you may be thinking. You can develop an excellent website even if you are doing so for the first time. If you are a beginner, this article will explain to you how to develop a website from the start to the end.

Forget the days when your website was your digital “fortress”; partnering with a reputable mobile app development company or utilising pre-made app templates to build your app in-house ensures that your customer engagement is not only modern but also compelling. The numbers don’t lie—over 5.2 billion people globally are connected to mobile devices, dramatically shaping consumer behavior. If your business isn’t keeping pace with this mobile revolution, you’re essentially sailing against the tide.

The ultimate objective of your website should be to take your brand to the next level. The website should have a user-friendly interface. Here are some of the web development tips that will make sure that you succeed as a beginner.

Get the Domain Name:

The first step in web development is getting your domain name ready. It should be the name that you will want to give to your website. A domain name can read something like ‘thewizardsite.com. In most cases, you will pay an annual fee to a registration company to reserve the right of using that name.

Remember, this is just a name like the one you use in registering for a brick and motor business. Once you have a business name, it does not imply that you have a shop or premise that will get together with it.

Some tips can help you to get an excellent domain name. It should have the keyword you are targeting for optimization. Once you have a business name, you should know the steps you need to undertake to register the domain name.

The process may vary from one host to another. Get to learn some of the precautions you need to undertake when registering a domain name. You should not find yourself repeating some of the mistakes that most beginners make during web development.

Sign Up for an Account or Choose a Web Hosting:

A web host is a brand that has several computers that are connected online. When you put your web page on these computers, all people globally will connect to your website and view it. You have to sign up for an account with a web host company to give your website a home.

We can compare the analogy of getting a domain name to what we see in the brick and motor world. We can compare it to renting a shop premise or office to your business.

So many issues come with choosing a good host for your website. You need to get someone who will give your real-time support if you have a problem with your site. Besides, a good web host should guarantee the security of your website. Besides, the best web hosting services host should guarantee you the security of your website.

You need to decide whether you will be using SSL for your website. The web address of websites that use SSL starts with https:// and not “HTTP://.” In the past, only website owners who were selling goods and services and were expected to collect credit card numbers were keen to use SSL.

The other group that paid close attention to the use of SSL are the ones who required their users to login with passwords. However, currently, it is like the entire website is moving towards a state in which everyone is going for SSL.

For this case, it is good to use it as you set up your website even if you are a beginner. It will help you to avoid the risks that come with loving the current site from HTTP to HTTPS. If you don’t do this from the onset, you may find yourself having to do it in the future.

Several advantages come with the use of SSL on your website. The most important thing is that you will have a secure website in place. There is no need to expose yourself to the risk of hacking on your site.

Most commercial web hosts will allow you to install SSL certificates on your website.  The price varies from one company to another. However, we have a few brands that will give you these certificates for free. Other companies will charge you once for installing these certificates.

In some cases, you may buy a commercial certificate that has recurring charges. I have seen some companies that impose a monthly fee on the certificate after you buy. Therefore, make sure that you are making an informed decision when choosing to get an SSL for your website.

First, make sure that it will give your website the maximum security that it desires. Also, it is good to choose a package that will provide you with the best service. An experienced web development expertise is in the best position to advise you depending on the available options in the region;

Once you sign up for web hosting, you will point the domain name to the location. It is not hard to do this as long as you are willing to learn.

Designing Your Web Pages:

Once you settle on your web host and domain name, the next step will be to create the actual website. You can still handle this step even if you are a beginner. There are several things you need to put into consideration when developing a website.

The first step would be getting something out onto your website. You can fine-tune it later once you get to understand the process of publishing a basic web page. One way is to use the; ‘What You See is What You Get an editor.

These editors allow people to design their websites visually without handling the technical details. The systems work like ordinary word processors.

The market has several commercial and free web editors that you can use. However, Microsoft Expression Web is among the best choices for those people who use Windows. Initially, this program was commercial, but Microsoft now distributes it for free.

The reason could be that the company no longer has an interest in the web editing business. It is highly polished and fully featured and has facilities that meet the needs of both experienced and new webmasters. The Expression Web Tutorial will guide you on how to use this program.

It will help you to design a mobile-friendly website that is fully functional. Therefore, the site will function seamlessly on both laptop/desktop and small screen mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. You can get all these instructions in the tutorial.

BlueGriffon is another free source editor for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. You can visit the BlueGriffon Tutorial for a comprehensive guide on how to use this program to develop your website.

If you prefer using a commercial program, you can get several tutorials on thesitewizard.com for the Dreamweaver editor. The features of this program are similar to the ones you get on Expression Web. The tutorial will take you through all the steps that you require to complete web development.

It will give you practical and theoretical foundations for creating and maintaining your website. If you don’t like all the above suggestions, you can access tutorials for more WYSIWYG website editors like KompoZer online. If all of them don’t fit into your bill, you can still find several options on thefreecountry.com platform.

Once you follow these tutorials, you are one step ahead in designing your website. The critical elements during web development are search engine visibility, usability, and appearance. These are real-world issues that you need to handle during web development.

Search engine readiness is an integral part of web development. Promoting your website in the search engine should not come after web development. It starts at the stage where you are designing your website.

Google is the most popular search engine all over the world, and you should also think about how you can improve your ranking in their system. Web pages come with so many other issues. However, the ones that we have listed above will help you to start off.

Testing Your Website:

Testing the website is an integral part of the web design cycle. You need to check all your web pages in one of the major browsers (Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, Firefox, and Chrome) as you continue with web development.

All the above browsers are available free of charge, and all you need to do is downloading the application. It will help you to tell whether the website is working as per your expectations. Also, test the site on your Smartphone to know whether it is mobile-friendly.

Also, you have to make sure that your site will work well with future versions of web browsers. You can do this by validating the coding for your pages. It entails checking the underlying coding on your website so that the CSS and HTML don’t have a syntax errors.

You should not have technical knowledge of CSS and HTML to validate your page. The market has several free web page validators that will help you to carry out this task. If the validators find out that your web pages have errors, it may be tricky to understand where the problem lies.

You also need the right knowledge to tell whether the problem is severe or not. However, some of the code validators will give you a concrete suggestion on how you can fix these comes. One of this software is ‘HTML Tidy,” and it can even fix some of the errors on your behalf.

It is good to go for such solutions because they will make your work easier. You can solve some of these web development issues on your own once you get the right technical knowledge.

Collect Credit Card Information to Make Money:

Most websites sell products and services to their target audience. Therefore, you will need a way of getting credit card information from the potential buyer. Consequently, you should know the process of accepting credit cards on your website. You also need to add a “Buy Now” button and order form, especially if you will be using PayPal.

It is also good to advertise your website to the target audience. Several strategies can help you to increase the revenue that you get from your site, and you need to choose the best. The most important thing is to make sure that your website has the highest level of visibility in your niche.

Get Your Website Noticed:

Once your site is ready, the next thing is to submit it to the search engines. It entails creating a webmaster account at the search engines and verifying that you are the owner of that website. It is free to submit your site there.

Submitting your website to the search engines does not bring the web development process to an end. You need to find the best ways to promote your brand. You can announce it on social media among the other places online. It means that web development is a continuous process.

I have also come across some people who use the word-to-word technique to promote their websites. You can even use newsletters to increase the popularity of your website. Several online agencies can also help you to create press releases so that more people can get to see your new website.

However, the key is to make sure that search engines can notice your website and rank it highly. An excellent starting point could be the Bing Search engines. Once your page starts ranking at the top of the Search Engine Results Pages, you will know that your web development efforts are on the right track.

Conclusion:

This guide will take you through the web development process, even if you are a beginner. After some time, you will discover that web development is not as hard as you thought. The most important thing is to get a highly functional website that will help you to increase your revenue.

Would you like to set up a website for the first time? Call for the best web development guide.

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