Stop what you’re doing and ask yourself, “Do I really need a website?” If your answer was anything other than “yes,” you should reconsider. Whether you’re the CEO of a large firm with thousands of employees or the owner of a small local mom-and-pop shop, you need a website to help potential customers find you online. If you own a company, failing to have an internet presence is a loss of revenue. That’s something you don’t want to happen.

Fortunately, you have access to a wide range of web hosting options. Choosing one is difficult because it depends on the service’s quality as well as its capacity to meet your needs. The Best Web Hosting Services is a great place to start because it features our top ten web hosts.

You also have a lot of options when it comes to doing the actual building and design of your site. You can hire someone to design and develop a website for you, or you can learn how to do it yourself (if you’re a beginner, The Best Courses for Learning How to Build Websites is a great place to start). You can either utilize an online service to produce web pages or use a desktop software program to do it. Use a plain text editor to design a site from scratch if you’re a coding whiz. Your ability to mix and match these options is determined by your talents, time, budget, and guts.

If you’re ready to get started, this article will show you how to use services and software to design your own website, even if you have no prior experience. Keep in mind that none of these tools can provide you with a successful website concept; it is entirely up to you. They also won’t train you to be a web designer, which is a job that isn’t the same as developing a website. Nonetheless, these services and software will alleviate some of the problems that arise from a lack of comprehensive CSS, FTP, HTML, and PHP knowledge. Let’s get this party started.

Blogging For Fun and Profit

A blog is a distinct internet subset that you may recognize from its recognizable appearance, which is a truncation of the antiquated-on-arrival word “weblog.” New content usually appears at the top of the page, with older posts appearing as you scroll down. Starting with a blogging service is an excellent way to go if you need to rapidly establish a simple website.

WordPress, a content management system (CMS) that runs millions of websites, including The New York Times, Quartz, and Variety, is a key player in the blogosphere. WordPress-powered websites are relatively simple to set up, personalize, and update on a regular basis—ideally on a daily basis. You’re not required to learn complex FTP tactics (though you can if you want), and there are a ridiculous amount of free and paid WordPress themes and WordPress plug-ins to give your site a nice look and a lot more functionality. Learn everything you need to know about WordPress in How to Get Started With WordPress, including the distinctions between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Though WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, it isn’t the only one worth mentioning.

Tumblr, a blog platform owned by Yahoo, is another extremely popular blog site that favors shorter, more graphic articles. Themes that offer your Tumblr blog a more traditional website look and feel are available. Making additional cash is a breeze with Google’s Blogger, which is tightly integrated with Google AdSense. Newer blogging platforms like Anchor, Feather, and Medium focus more on content and posting than complex design, yet they’re surprisingly easy to maintain.

These providers will host your content for free on their servers in exchange for a less-than-stellar domain, such as jeffreylwilson.tumblr.com. That may be acceptable for a personal blog, but it will appear too low-rent for a company that wants people to trust it enough to pay for whatever it is offering.

If you want a more traditional URL, you can get one from companies like GoDaddy or Namecheap. Depending on whether domain squatters are looking to sell a valuable piece of internet real estate, domain name pricing can range from incredibly low to highly high. You’ll want something succinct, but vivid and memorable. Please see How to Register a Domain Name for additional information.

If you want to use a domain you bought elsewhere, you may need to download the CMS and upload it to your own hosted platform, depending on the hosting service.

Don’t be concerned about how your site will seem on mobile devices. Mobile-friendly responsive design versions of sites published on these blogging platforms are frequently included, ensuring that they are appropriately structured for smartphones and tablets.