How to create your first website?

1 – Choose a website creation platform;

There are many tools that can help you create your first website without being a programmer. Among the tools we can cite:

• WordPress ,
• Wix,
• square space,
• or Weebly.

These platforms offer predefined site templates that you can customize with your own texts, images, and colors. Most of them also offer free or low cost versions. This can be ideal for people on a budget. In the following we will see 10 tools that you can use for your website

1 – Create your first website with Wix;

Wix is an online tool that gives you the ability to design your website or e-commerce platform. As a special feature, it allows you to create a website in a few hours thanks to its “Port and drop” functionality. So, whether you are a web enthusiast or an expert, all you have to do is create your account and get started. We take a look at some pros and cons of Wix together.

Why use Wix to build your first website?

• You can have a website without spending a single penny. Indeed, Wix has a plan that is 100% free. Thus, you can create your site and publish without having to spend money.
• A “carry and drop” feature. You can create your website in Wix by uploading and dropping the components. Thanks to this feature, you don’t need to be a developer to manage your website.
• Wix offers technical support for all customers with a paid subscription. To this end, if you subscribe to one of the monthly plans, you can contact Wix at any time if necessary.
• It offers free hosting. Unlike self-hosted solutions, you don’t have to worry about your server’s security or maintenance. All of these aspects are handled by Wix.

Some Disadvantages of Wix

• Wix is not very flexible as a solution. If you are a business or individual who likes to push boundaries, don’t choose Wix. Indeed, you have access to a website design interface. But, you cannot customize beyond the features that Wix offers.
• The platform is not suitable enough for SEO. When it comes to SEO, you need to optimize the code or improve certain aspects of the site. Considering that Wix does not give you access to all codes, you may find it difficult to fully optimize your website.
• Some Wix plans do not offer the option of having a transactional website. – Unless you subscribe to the Business or E-commerce plans, you cannot sell on your Wix site.
• The free version of Wix uses the subdomain. In other words, you don’t have the option of getting a custom domain name. As a result, you might have less visibility or not easily build your brand.

2 – WordPress;

WordPress is also a web solution that allows you to create your website for free. WordPress comes in two flavors; namely, the “Com” version and the “org” version. WordPress.com is the version managed by the company Automattic Inc. and WordPress.org is the free version of WordPress managed by the community of developers. Each of its versions have their advantages and disadvantages. To this end, the choice of one or the other strongly depends on your skills, your willingness to manage the platforms and more importantly your short/medium/long term objectives. Given the fact that we are talking about website creation without hosting, we are focusing on the SaaS version.

Earnings from WordPress.com

One of the particularities of WordPress.com is that the technical aspect, the security and the updates are entirely managed by the supplier. Indeed, the platform is hosted by Automattic Inc. By subscribing to the services of WordPress.com, you are subject to their general conditions.

Why Use WordPress.com to Create Your First Website?

• You don’t have to worry about security, updates and the technical aspect of your website.
• WordPress.com helps you with any issues with your WordPress server
• There is a free version if you are a beginner. To do this, all you have to do is create your account, choose a design and you’re done.
• You get access to WordPress.org features for free
• No need to break your head with the management of the web server.

Some limitations of WordPress.com?

One of the biggest issues with the “.com” version of WordPress is flexibility. Here is a list of cons:

• First, the features are limited; unless you subscribe to paid versions
• Secondly, for the free versions and some paid versions, you must have the WordPress.com signature at the bottom of your pages.
• Third, you receive forced advertisements on your site. Indeed, WordPress sends advertisements on a recurring basis on the web pages of its users,
• Then, the free versions of WordPress.com are in the form of a subdomain; which is not very professional. If the name of your site is, for example, tommy, you will have a site link of the style tommy.wordpress.com.
• You do not have the right to monetize your site or blog unless you subscribe to the appropriate version.
• Unless you have a paid version*, you cannot install your own extensions or themes.
• You have limited access to source codes

If you want to know more about what WordPress.com offers; including prices, I invite you to consult the page https://wordpress.com/pricing/

3 – Weebly

Weebly is an online presence creation and management platform. Indeed, it helps to create websites, blogs or online stores. It is equipped with website creation and web content management software. Its technology is based on the principle of drag and drop, which therefore allows you to customize your site without programming. Weebly offers a free website building tool. This tool notably gives the possibility of enriching a site by adding objects found elsewhere on the net (photos, videos, etc.) by simply “dragging and dropping” (click and drag). However, the website allows its users to use a subdomain name if it is available. In addition, users can thus buy a domain name directly or use an existing domain name via a redirect.

The advantages of Weebly

The Weebly platform offers a large number of benefits that should not be overlooked, for example:

• Site speeds seem fast: indeed, Weebly scored an A on Bitcatcha’s speed test. This is not surprising all the same, when you know that it is intended to host an e-Commerce site.
• Design Flexibility and Themes: Weebly has been offering a multitude of templates to its users for a few years now, however, they adjust the availability of these templates quite frequently, which means that the creator cares about the smallest details of their product.
• The editor is simple and easy to use
• The Weebly mobile app – create and manage from your mobile device : it’s a one-of-a-kind app. Nevertheless, the Weebly mobile app is nothing more than what it suggests, i.e. an app that works on your mobile device and allows you to edit its site there.
• The Weebly App Center: different with the Weebly mobile application, the App Center offers you additional options to increase the capabilities of your website. It’s something every site builder should have, because it helps separate the core business from the extended functionality.

The disadvantages of Weebly

Weebly certainly has advantages, this platform also has several disadvantages, including:

• No domain choice for free subscriptions
• Limited blogging tools
• Paid support services
• Square doesn’t work everywhere

4 – Squarespace;

Squarespace is a website builder designed to help creative minds and even website owners create amazing sites. With this builder, you don’t need any coding knowledge, the only thing needed is some time. You’ll also have a beautiful website, complete with features such as integrated e-commerce payment tools, a custom domain name, and SSL certificate protection. Squarespace can be seen as a feature-rich and even flexible solution for website design, however, when shopping for a product among a large number of competitors like Shopify, Weebly, and WordPress, budget is likely to be a consideration. crucial. However, the good news is that you can take advantage of a fairly wide range of Squarespace packages.

The benefits of Squarespace

Squarespace offers a wide range of qualities, including:

• It has a CMS with magnificent templates available : although the number of templates from the American publisher is limited (it barely offers 60 templates), it still allows you to create beautiful and visually pleasing sites.
• Complete and responsive customer support: One of the advantages that should not be overlooked is that it offers a very responsive live chat.
• Improved payment methods: One of Squarespace’s strengths is that it has been able to diversify its payment methods. If the CMS used to only offer Stripe as the only payment option, it now allows you to make financial transactions with PayPal and Apple Pay, which is an advantage for your online store and your customers.
• A perfectly optimized site : it provides you with fairly effective tools that will help you get your site up on the first pages of Google.

Cons of Squarespace

Squarespace also has disadvantages that we will subdivide into two main points:

• Squarespace is a difficult tool to handle : the major drawback of this CMS is at the level of ease of use, we deplore here the fact that it is not really easy to handle.
• Poor value for money : Another of the disadvantages of Squarespace is in terms of value for money. By making a comparison to all of its features, we will not say that it is the cheapest editor.

5 – GoDaddy;

GoDaddy is an American company founded in 1997 and specialized in the management of domain names on the Internet as well as the provision of web hosting services, this company offers several services and allows, among other things:

• Create a modern and professional website with ease, thanks to the hundreds of specific templates available to you, so you won’t need any technical knowledge.
• Take the guesswork out of it with GoDaddy InSight and AI-powered advice, tailored to your business.
• To be visible on the sites most frequented by your customers to take advantage of our integrated tools dedicated to SEO, social networks and email marketing.
• Add an online store to sell physical and digital products, manage your inventory and allow your customers to book appointments directly from your site.

The advantages of GoDaddy

GoDaddy offers several benefits, among these specificities, we will mention a few:

• Quick and easy setup to get you up and running in less than an hour : Speed is what users are looking for, and GoDaddy understands that because it’s quick and easy to setup.
• Very responsive support and very available 24/7: since obviously, we hate having to wait more than 15 minutes before being connected to an advisor to chat online, GoDaddy indeed solves this problem, its support becomes very reactive.
• GoDaddy is compatible with PHP 7.4: This programming language significantly increases performance and therefore affects the loading speed of the site.
• 99.9% uptime guarantee : the host promises that your site will never go down due to server downtime (excluding scheduled maintenance downtime), and if it does happen, they will refund you .
• A free domain, Office 365 email, Webmail and more

Cons of GoDaddy

• Limited in terms of performance optimization: apart from compatibility with PHP7.4, GoDaddy does not have any software or configurations to increase the loading speed!
• Few truly functional free options
• The surprises of the renewal

6 – create your website for free with Webflow;

Webflow is an integrated professional drag-and-drop tool for designing websites with best practices as responsive websites. The service it provides allows businesses and independent professionals to design and publish websites without requiring programming. Features such as social media plugins, contact forms, or even animated interactions can be created through the web application. Unlike most website builders, which fundamentally aim to allow non-technical people to publish websites as easily as possible, Webflow is therefore aimed at professional and aspiring designers wishing to reduce the cost and time. associated with development and technical assistance.

The advantages of Webflow

Webflow has several benefits, among these benefits we can mention:

• 100% custom design: Webflow is currently the only CMS on the market to offer real design customization. Indeed, unlike CMS like WordPress or Shopify, Webflow gives our web designers and developers total flexibility on the visual rendering of your site. This allows you to really stand out with a unique result.
• Secure for you and your visitors: truly, thanks to Webflow, your site structure will be clean and stable, and not subject to malicious attacks. Since WordPress is an Open Source platform, anyone can develop plugins on this platform and offer it to millions of people. These plugins are now at the center of WordPress security vulnerabilities, as some malicious developers use them to access and hack website content.
• Naturally optimized for SEO : Unlike WordPress, you won’t need to install a plugin on Webflow to have SEO. It is easily done.
• An ultra-easy to use back office : Webflow really makes the difference in its ease of management once your site is delivered. Indeed, thanks to an easy-to-use back-office, Webflow will allow you to modify the content of your site (texts, photos, links, blog articles, products, etc.) by yourself. Therefore, you do not have to seek the intervention of a developer.
• Unlimited functionality with Webflow integrations.

The disadvantages of Webflow

Webflow does not only have advantages, it also has disadvantages including:

• The major downside here is the complexity of Webflow. Webflow’s complexity is a double-edged sword. This is because this is precisely what allows it to position itself among many other website creation tools. Simultaneously, it is criticized by some experts
• Another main downside is that Webflow SEO is a little harder to use than other CMSs.
• The interface becomes relatively complex, since it becomes very rich from a functional point of view. Webflow is therefore explicitly aimed at “pros” (web designers, agencies, startups, etc.)

7-Elementor

Elementor is free software, under GPL 3 license available in free version and in Pro mode. It aims to make it extremely simple to design and maintain WordPress pages as a ported and dropped visual process. This is called a page builder. Elementor can also be viewed as a design tool for WordPress that allows you to visually design your website using a simple drag and drop editor. Once you have installed the Elementor plugin, you can therefore design your WordPress pages and blog posts using Elementor instead of the default WordPress editor (sometimes called Gutenberg editor).

The advantages of Elementor

The main benefit of using Elementor is undoubtedly its ease of use. Indeed, it allows non-technical people or novices in website creation to create layouts as well as attractive designs, as well as quite complex pages such as: forms, animated graphics and integration of videos. Other advantages of Elementor are summarized in the following points:

• Elementor is free
• This page builder is wildly successful
• Hundreds of add-ons to enrich the page builder
• Compatible with many WordPress themes
• It does not leave a trace after deactivation
• Very useful widgets
• Endless customizations
• An unprecedented community
• A builder theme feature
• Downloadable designs
• A template library
• A review of your actions
• Easy to handle

Cons of Elementor

Although Elementor has several advantages, it does have some disadvantages that should not be overlooked: installing this plug-in makes the page load heavier and thus causes possible display problems. Indeed, Elementor can have an impact on the speed of your website, consequently making it slower, which can therefore affect your SEO.

Other web design tools

• mailchimp
• website 123
• website builder

2. Choose a domain name

Your domain name is the web address that people will use to find your site (for example, “www.yourdomainname.com”). You can purchase a domain name through domain name registries like GoDaddy, NameCheap, or sometimes even directly through your chosen website builder.

How and where to choose a domain name?

Here are some things to consider when choosing your domain name:

• Availability: Make sure the domain name you want is available. You can check the availability of a domain name through an online service like Whois.
• Extension: There are many domain name extensions, such as ”.com, “,”.net”,”.org”, etc. Choose the one that best suits your site and your audience.
• Easy to remember: Choose a domain name that is easy for your audience to remember. Avoid names that are too long or difficult to spell.
• Brand: If you already have an established brand, you should use your brand name as the domain name if possible. This will help people remember your site and find it naturally.

Once you have chosen a domain name, you will need to register it with a domain name registrar. A domain name registrar is a company that registers and manages domain names for website owners. There are many domain name registrars on the Internet. Examples include GoDaddy, NameCheap and 1&1.

3. Select a template and customize your first website

Once you have chosen a platform and a domain name, you can start building your site. Pick a template that matches your site’s style and topic, then start customizing it by adding your own content. Most of these tools are based on the principle of “drag and drop” , which means that you can add, delete and move elements on your page simply by dragging them with your mouse. Platforms like WordPress (for example) offer several designs that you can use for free or at an affordable cost. If you choose other solutions, you will also have access to a model bank.

4. Create quality content

Write clear, concise and engaging texts for your site. If you sell products, make sure your product descriptions are detailed and engaging. If you blog, be sure to regularly post new content that is relevant to your audience.

Here are some tips for writing quality content for your website:

1. Be clear and concise: Make sure your content is amply comprehensible and readable. Avoid sentences that are too long or words that are difficult to understand.
2. Be consistent: Make sure your content is consistent and ideas are presented in a logical way.
3. Use headings and subheadings: Headings and subheadings help structure your content and make it more readable. They also allow readers to quickly understand what your article is about.
4. Use reliable sources: If you use data or information from other sources, be sure to cite your sources appropriately and verify that they are reliable.
5. Use images and media: Images and media (like video or audio) can help make your content more engaging and easier to understand. Be sure to choose quality images and include them appropriately.
6. Have your content proofread: Before you post your content, have it proofread by someone you trust to make sure it’s free of spelling and grammatical errors. You can also use spelling and grammar checking software.

5. Optimize your site for SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a set of practices that will help you make your site more visible on search engines like Google. This includes:

• the use of relevant keywords in your content,
• optimizing your title and description tags,
• and creating links to your site from other websites.

6. Launch your first website

Once you’re happy with the look and content of your site, it’s time to launch it! You can usually do this by clicking a “publish” or “launch” button on your chosen website building platform.

7. Promote your site

Once your site is online, it is important to promote it in order to attract visitors. This may involve:

• share the link to your site on social media,
• to send emails to your contact list,
• or use online marketing techniques like PPC (Pay-per-click) or content marketing.

Remember, creating a first website is an ongoing process. You will need to update regularly. Contact us and we will help you create a site at an affordable cost.