How to Build a Website in 2021

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19coders

17 min readJan 12, 2021

Affiliate Disclosure: DreamHost maintains relationships with a few of our beneficial companions, so in the event you click on via a hyperlink and buy, we might obtain a fee. We solely advocate options we imagine in.

This previous 12 months was a doozy — bathroom paper shortages, wildfires, homicide hornets, and, oh yeah, a world pandemic. Things can solely get higher in 2021, proper? Your resolutions may embrace truly studying the ebook to your Zoom ebook membership, calling your mother, or strolling off your new quarantine baking passion.

But how’s this for a New Year’s Resolution: Build a profitable web site from the bottom up.

During the previous 12 months, a lot of each day life moved on-line. Plus, with so many individuals needing further money, 2021 is a nice time to begin a facet hustle, increase your small enterprise’s operations, or transfer your brick-and-mortar retailer on-line to higher serve a post-2020 world.

Sounds like a lofty aim however, belief us, you’ve bought the makings of a champion.

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Building a web-based presence is like working a marathon. Those exhausting 26.2 miles require long-time endurance constructed over months of coaching. Marathoners practice one step at a time and full one mile at a time.

This information is your coaching plan.

As your trusty net host and digital coach, we’re right here to preserve you on observe as you construct, develop, safe, and promote your new website. We’ve damaged this web site exercise plan into objectives and duties to full every quarter all through 2021, however be happy to work at your individual tempo. You do the sweating, and we’ll be proper with you (six ft away, in fact) with step-by-step directions, water cups, and cheese-tastic motivational indicators.

Build Your Website
Grow Your Website
Secure Your Website
Promote Your Website

Sound good? You made it via 2020, a marathon of a 12 months. We know you are able to do laborious issues.

So tie up your Nikes, pull in your fitness center shorts, and let’s get to work!

First Quarter: Build Your Website

Step 1: Decide on Your Mission

Ready to race proper off the beginning block into constructing your web site? We love the passion. But earlier than even reaching the beginning line, you want to get in some warm-ups and conditioning to set up a stable basis. Every good web site begins with a considerate plan. Open a recent new digital doc (or seize a pen and paper in the event you’d want to go old fashioned) and full the next workout routines.

Find Your Purpose

Why would you like a web site in the primary place? What do you hope it is going to accomplish? Ask your self, “What is the aim of this web site?”

The prospects are countless — however you want to spell out what you need and who your target market is. Write down what you determine; you’ll use this function to information every thing else you do that 12 months.

Set Goals

Time to dive deeper into the reflecting and set some particular objectives to your web site. Grab your pen (or prepared your typing fingers) and, beneath your web site’s function, jot down a few objectives. There are a number of choices.

These objectives ought to accomplish your web site’s function and drive the remainder of your plans.

Don’t lose sight of your end line — and don’t be afraid to regulate your objectives over the approaching months.

Outline Your Content

You most likely shouldn’t bake a cake with out a recipe. Likewise, you possibly can’t construct your web site till what parts you want to make it a success. So go forward and description your content material to be sure to hit your objectives. Consider these parts:

Start along with your web site’s menu. What ought to its choices embrace? And in what order? Rank what’s most vital to you — and your objectives — on the prime.

Do you need to embrace a weblog? This will likely be useful for SEO (website positioning) — extra on that in a minute — encourage engagement and group, construct your fame, and set up you as an skilled.

If the weblog is the cornerstone of your website, take a while to define (or, for overachievers, write) your first few posts and plan some subjects you may write about over the following 12 months.

The About Me web page is your home to inform your story and describe your corporation. Don’t skip out on this opportunity to join along with your prospects.

Do you want a spot to describe the services or products you’re promoting, both on-line or in your bodily retailer? If your goal is to drum up enterprise instantly from the online web page, that is important. Think about classes and subcategories of merchandise, and contemplate the way you may describe or promote them to your web site guests.

What is included on the homepage? Your contact data? Maybe, though that would simply be its personal web page. A memorable photograph? Definitely.

Another homepage must-have: a name to motion (CTA). Your CTA ought to invite guests to do one thing, comparable to try your choices, join your publication, or delve into your weblog.

Step 2: Choose a Domain and Platform

Ready. Get set. We are inching nearer to launching your web site, however earlier than we will get going, it first wants a title and a place to reside.

Pick a Domain Name

Basically, a area is what you kind into the bar on the prime of your browser to level to a particular web site. For instance, to discover us at DreamHost, you kind in dreamhost.com. A site consists of two components:

The top-level area (TLD) — In dreamhost.com, the “.com” half is our TLD. The extra frequent TLDs embrace .com, .internet, .org, .information. You may even select one thing jazzier, like one of many new TLDs: .social gathering, .website, .pizza, .limo, .retailer, and extra. At least for now, although, .com continues to be the most typical TLD.
The second-level area (SLD) — In our area title, that’s “dreamhost.” This is the key phrase that can function the handle to your web site. Make certain it’s particular, descriptive, and memorable in order that prospects can simply discover and keep in mind it.

Jot down a dream area and see whether it is accessible for buy. If you possibly can’t discover (or afford) your first-choice area title, we’ll assist you to discover different nice choices.

Pick a Hosting Plan

The area title is your web site’s handle, and internet hosting is the bodily area (spoiler: a server) the place your web site lives. The internet hosting plan you select to your web site will affect many issues — like how briskly your website masses and how much upkeep you will have to do.

DreamHost presents a number of nice choices to cowl a number of hosting wants (not that we’re biased about this in any respect, ahem).

For newcomers, we advocate shared internet hosting. It is reasonably priced, quick, and meets the wants of any fundamental web site (and consists of a free area registration!). You can at all times improve as your web site grows.

Ready to Build a Website?

We’ll make certain your web site is quick, safe, and at all times up so your guests belief you. Plans begin at $2.59/mo.

Choose a Platform

To construct your web site, you’ll want to decide a platform — and there’s no content material administration system (CMS) higher, in our opinion, than WordPress. And 75 million web sites agree with us. Like any highly effective device, there’s a studying curve to WordPress, however the open-source software program is free to use and fairly beginner-friendly.

Step 3: Design and Launch

OK — with a set of objectives, a content material define, a area, hosting, and a platform picked to your new web site, it’s lastly time to get constructing!

Build Your WordPress Website

Head over to DreamHost’s WordPress internet hosting web page, decide the plan that’s best for you, set up WordPress, configure your settings, and begin constructing your web site. Pull out the checklist of objectives and content material define you made in the first step, and use them to information you in selecting a theme that matches your model.

Learn About Web Design Trends and Best Practices

No, you don’t want to change into a design skilled in a single day. And by no means concern: Those WordPress themes we simply talked about are lovely and can prevent from main design blunders. But listed here are a few fundamental pointers to preserve in thoughts as you get began in designing your website:

Keep issues fast and simple. From homepage copy to navigation choices, assume quick and candy.
Don’t concern the clean area. Don’t really feel the necessity to fill each nook and cranny; elegant vacancy can go a great distance.
Keep your menu entrance and heart. Keep it simple to discover or danger dropping guests.
Mind your typography. What you say issues as a lot as the way you say it — and what it appears like.
Pick a shade scheme that matches your model. Color communicates, so decide ones that match the ethos of your web site.
Make it accessible. Expand your viewers by ensuring your web site is usable by everybody, together with people with disabilities.
Use templates. When you join a DreamHost plan, you’ll have the choice to embrace WP Website Builder along with your account. This device makes it simple to use customizable and professional templates to design a lovely, absolutely practical WordPress web site. To show simply how versatile this device is, we put collectively a tutorial collection that demonstrates how you should use WP Website Builder templates to begin health blogs, meals blogs, pictures blogs, actual property web sites, and restaurant websites (to title a few)!

If you lack the talents (or time to be taught the talents) to design a web site — and have some wiggle room in your price range — contemplate hiring a skilled designer to assist you to customise your website’s look.

Related: 10 Web Design Lessons from a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Launch!

Go forward. Send your web site out into the world. Take a fast victory lap — you’ve earned it! But don’t lose your momentum; the work has solely began.

Second Quarter: Grow Your Website

So now you will have a web site. Yay!

Time to beef it up with some power coaching. That’s proper. Once your website is up and working, flip your consideration to attracting extra guests and bringing in some earnings.

Step 4: Monetize Your Site

Ready to carry in the massive bucks with a weblog or on-line retailer? Let’s get you arrange.

Review your choices. Take a have a look at the services you’re promoting. Is there anything you possibly can add, particularly to entice again previous prospects? Have you considered including a web-based course or premium for-pay content material to your weblog?
Add some adverts. Include a little bit of delicate, tasteful promoting in your WordPress weblog to carry in some extra income.

Related: 25 Legit Ways You Can Make Money Online

Affiliate advertising. Incorporating affiliate hyperlinks in your weblog or web site is one other manner to add to your income stream. Basically, you’ll promote one other model’s product and supply hyperlinks to their website. If your readers click on and make a buy, you’ll get a reduce of the sale in thanks to your referral.
Investigate e-commerce options. How are you planning to promote and settle for fee in your web site? You’ll want to get that squared away earlier than selling your on-line retailer. If you’re utilizing WordPress, we advocate Woocommerce (a lot so, that we’ve even bought internet hosting only for Woocommerce customers). Study up on the world of e-commerce and decide a web-based fee gateway (be careful for sneaky transaction charges).

Related: How to Build an Awesome Online Store with the OceanWP Theme

Step 5: Adopt website positioning Best Practices

Once your website is constructed and prepped to be monetized, you’re prepared to reel in the visitors with website positioning.

website positioning is a group of methods web site homeowners can (and may!) use to seem nearer to the highest of the outcomes on search engines like google.

Think about it: When you seek for one thing on Google, you most likely solely scan the primary few entries earlier than clicking — and so will your purchasers. Since Google bases its outcomes rating on a number of components, it’s important to do the next:

Brainstorm key phrases related to your website. What search phrases do you assume (or hope) would most certainly lead readers to your web site? Use Google’s Keyword Planner to analysis and uncover new key phrases.
Optimize your weblog posts. Plan content material round these key phrases and ensure to use them in your posts and headings — however watch out and inventive along with your placement to keep away from creating content material that sounds pressured. If you need assistance getting began, try these website positioning instruments.
Keep it recent. Regular updates and new content material provides you with a search-ranking increase. But don’t be afraid to clean up and repurpose outdated content material.
Create a sitemap. Sitemaps, that are principally a hierarchical checklist of all of the pages and content material in your website, assist Google’s search engine crawlers see and join the pages in your website, making it simpler to current related data in search outcomes.

Related: The Internet’s Most Successful Bloggers Share Their Top Tips

To get began, try our newbie’s website positioning information. Once you’re prepared to transfer on to extra superior ways, you’ll need to contemplate investing in a devoted website positioning device — SEMrush is a answer we really feel comfy recommending.

It comes at an reasonably priced value with all of the options you want to assist develop your visitors: key phrase analysis and content material audit instruments, a highly effective backlink analyzer, and easy-to-read competitor insights.

If this appears like one thing you’re in, we’ve labored out a free two-week trial with SEMrush so you possibly can see if the device is a good match to your website with out a long-term dedication!

Step 6: Take Care of the Details

Now that your website has been up and working for a whereas, it’s time for some spring cleansing. Let’s make certain your web site is up to par and straightforward to entry for all of your potential prospects.

Clean and Polish

Start with a few routine maintenance duties, and set reminders to do them once more in one other six months:

Go Mobile

Take a have a look at how your website appears on the small display. If your web site isn’t optimized for cellular — that’s, if it doesn’t look nearly as good and cargo as quick on cellular gadgets because it does on a pc — you’re lacking out. Responsive design issues in 2021.

Many potential prospects use telephones or tablets in place of a dwelling pc, and a few store on the go. Plus, your Google search rankings may harm in case your web site isn’t mobile-friendly. Pull your web site up in your smartphone, and make any mandatory modifications.

Review Your Traffic

If you haven’t already, set up Google Analytics onto your WordPress web site. Google Analytics is a plugin that tracks and analyzes key knowledge about your web site, together with:

Page views: At a look, this stat will reveal your hottest pages and posts in the previous day, month, and 12 months.
Unique guests: Using IP addresses, Google Analytics will observe what number of distinctive guests your website attracts.
Bounce price: Sometimes guests will click on away out of your website after viewing just one web page; this stat will let you know the way usually that dreaded “bounce” occurs.
Session length: When somebody visits your website, how lengthy do they stick round? Check this quantity for the reply.
Traffic supply: You may instantly see a rise in visitors to a explicit web page, and Google Analytics will assist you to pinpoint what hyperlink is sending the guests.

Studying these statistics will assist you to discover modifications to make to draw extra guests and encourage them to keep longer (and hopefully make a buy).

Related: Learn How to Grow Your Website with Google Analytics

Third Quarter: Secure Your Website

Time to work on endurance. You need your web site to stick round for the lengthy haul. Now it’s time to beef up your safety practices and shield your knowledge.

Step 7: Tighten Website Security

When it comes to safety, you possibly can relaxation simple at night time: you’re already heading in the right direction to conserving your data and buyer’s knowledge protected with WordPress and DreamHost. But there are a few extra steps you possibly can take to tighten up safety.

Switch to HTTPS. The “S” in HTTPS stands for “safe,” and it’s (shock) the safer model of HTTP, encrypting your knowledge as it’s transferred out of your web site to a person’s browser. Add that all-important “S” by getting an SSL/TLS certificates (supplied totally free with all DreamHost internet hosting plans).
Enable a firewall. You most likely have a firewall in your pc, defending you from undesirable assaults. And, in the event you’re one in every of our prospects, fortunate you: DreamHost consists of a built-in Web Application Firewall (WAF) to supply your web site comparable safety.
Use two-factor authentication. This would require you to signal in to your website with a code that’s first despatched to your cell phone. While it may be a little bit of a problem in your finish, this step goes a great distance in conserving your website safe. Use a WordPress plugin like Two-Factor Authentication.
Add an SSL safety certificates. At DreamHost, we would like you and your web site’s customers to really feel assured about their knowledge and monetary transactions. We additionally need you to have the ability to give attention to constructing your web site’s following — that’s why we provide SSL/TLS certificates free with all of our internet hosting plans!
Back up your website. Hackers gonna hack. Even with all of your efforts to safe your website, safety breaches and different disasters are nonetheless a chance. So make certain to often backup your web site. That manner, if the unthinkable occurs, you received’t lose all your digital property.
Scan for malware. Hackers can actually mess issues up to your web site by putting in malware, which might mess with the code and steal safe knowledge. Scan your website often to make certain it’s clear. DreamHost prospects can join DreamShield, an add-on that can robotically scan your website for malware.
Pick a robust password. Don’t make it simple for simply anybody to stroll into your digital entrance door; select a password that’s lengthy, unusual, and used solely to your web site.

Step 8: Speed Things Up

Nothing is extra of a drag than a sluggish web site. Keep your web site up to pace by:

Installing a caching plugin for sooner load occasions. The “cache” is the place your pc shops just lately used data, such because the information of a just lately visited web site. A caching WordPress plugin pulls knowledge from the native cache as an alternative of reloading it absolutely each time, thus dashing issues up.
Optimizing your photographs. High-res photographs can take an extra-long scorching second to load, however there’s no want to sacrifice high quality.
Testing your pace. Even if it looks as if your web page is loading usually, get in the behavior of often testing your pace. Simply kind your URL into Google’s PageSpeed insights for fast evaluation and ideas to get a sooner rating.

Related: 12 Reasons Why Your Website Is Slow (And How to Fix Them)

Step 9: Prepare for Trolls

By the time you’ve reached this step, you’ve most likely bought followers. But as your website builds a group, it is going to additionally entice a few of the slimier creatures lurking in the anonymity of the online: spammers, trolls, and merciless commentators. Keep these ideas in thoughts as you take care of the underbelly of the online:

Don’t feed the trolls. This is rule №1 when it comes to trolls. Don’t interact; it is going to simply feed the hearth.
Understand the distinction between trolling and disagreement. Not everybody who disagrees with you is a troll; normally, they’re authentic readers with a totally different viewpoint. Feel free to defend your self and your arguments, and be open to altering your thoughts — and reminding aggressive commenters to play good.
Establish a commenting coverage. Spell out to your readers the way you anticipate them to behave, what the results are for violations, and clarify that trolls are usually not invited to the social gathering.
Block or delete. If a trolling submit will get too out of hand, don’t be afraid to step in and shut it down.

Fourth Quarter: Promote Your Website

Congratulations! You’re formally three-quarters of the best way via this marathon [splashes water on face]. Don’t lose that momentum; proceed robust and regular to the end line. Think of all of the orange slices awaiting you. To get there, your subsequent process is promotion.

Step 10: Advertise

You’ve bought a good thing going, and it’s time to inform the world. Advertising, even for the newbie web site proprietor, is a no-brainer that may be easy, efficient, and reasonably priced. Try your hand at two fundamental varieties of focused promoting:

Pay-Per-Click Advertising: An excellent website positioning technique will organically transfer you to the highest of the search outcomes. With Pay-Per-Click (PPC) adverts, you’ll take issues extra into your individual fingers by paying to land atop the search engine outcome pages (SERPs). The better part? You solely have to pay for premium placement if somebody clicks in your hyperlink. You select the key phrases you need to carry up your advert, and you’ll set and restrict your individual price range.
Social Media Advertising: Facebook is a well-oiled, data-collecting machine, and you should use its energy to goal promoting instantly to your perfect viewers. You can create a Facebook advert that reaches customers based mostly on particular information comparable to age, gender, pursuits, and so on. As with Google Adwords, you’ll set a price range and pay for clicks. Get on Instagram and leverage your feed and tales for some nice free promoting to your model. Follow this information to slim down which social media platform it’s best to use for your corporation.

Step 11: Market with Email

Email is likely one of the greatest instruments your e-commerce website has for locating new prospects, bringing again earlier ones, and sustaining relationships.

Learn the Basics

Study up on e-mail advertising, a tried-and-true advertising technique that includes accumulating e-mail addresses as a manner to share content material and construct relationships with present and potential prospects.

Collect Email Addresses

You can’t ship any mail in the event you don’t know the place it’s going. But don’t be spammy and shady about it; create opt-in types instantly in your website inviting guests to subscribe. Try providing one thing in change for an e-mail handle, comparable to a low cost off a first buy or entry to a free e-book.

Create an Email Newsletter

Email newsletters stay top-of-the-line methods to join along with your prospects, so create one and make it the middle of your e-mail advertising technique. Use it as a manner to showcase your voice and your model, share information and upcoming occasions for your corporation, and introduce new merchandise (however don’t be too pushy). Send it out often, loaded with recent content material, after which solicit suggestions.

Want to Build a Website?

Join our month-to-month publication for ideas and methods to develop your on-line presence.

Bring Your Customers Back

Beyond a publication, what different varieties of emails will interact your prospects? Always ship buy receipts and ensure to welcome new subscribers. Consider reaching out to previous prospects to announce gross sales, share reductions, and invite them again to the fold.

Step 12: Get Creative

Now that you just’ve lined your bases with promoting and e-mail advertising, dig deeper and get a little inventive in extending your web site’s attain. Try out these promotion concepts:

You’ve made it to the end line! You’ve labored laborious, and your web site is actually one to be happy with. Now, hit the showers, champ.

And in the event you haven’t launched your website but, we’re right here for you. Start off on the correct foot with DreamHost’s shared internet hosting plan. It’s probably the most reasonably priced manner to make all of your web site goals come true — critically, plans begin at simply $2.59/month — with out sacrificing high quality and efficiency. Create your web site at this time!

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