How to Quickly Create Your Website -
Free and Without Web Development Skills
By Lesley Haught
These days there is a website for everything on the internet. Shopping for stuff, ordering food online, making reservations, booking tickets, communicating with people across the world - you can do it all with a single click. Building a website from scratch is also a lot easier than it used to be a few years ago. It is no longer the domain of technical experts and web designers. Today, almost anyone can build a website in minutes thanks to the many website builders available online. Here are a few simple tips that would help you design your own website without having to write a line of code:
Find your Niche
First and foremost, you need to figure out your calling. You cannot just randomly develop a website and expect to be a celebrity online overnight. Strive to find your niche, something you’re good at and then let the world see it. Your niche can be anything from writing to cooking to teaching and even giving financial advice to people - the internet has a place for everyone. Once you have your field ready, start creating content. At the end of the day, it is the quality content that garners the most views no matter how aesthetically appealing your website looks.
Domain Registration and Hosting
A domain name is how other would identify your website online, of course, it is important that you have an innovative yet easy to remember the name for your website. Most website builders offer you free domain registration services, you can also purchase a domain name for better control and accessibility over the name. Business web hosting, on the other hand, is the process via which you can connect your content to the main server. You can either go for shared Hosting Services or self-host the website yourself if you have the technical expertise for it. We usually recommend beginners to opt for the shared or cloud hosting options.
Choosing the Right Platform
Figuring out the right platform for creating the website is perhaps the most difficult and daunting tasks of the process. The website builder is the foundation of your website, you cannot afford to mess it up. Listed below are some of the best and most reliable platforms you can make use of.
Weebly is among the easiest and most flexible of free website builders on our list today and for all the right reasons. With an intuitive drag and drop interface, a dashboard loaded with the latest editing tools, an archive replete with attractive templates, graphics, and several other third-party extensions, Weebly is what we call the ultimate web development solution for professionals and amateurs alike. Here you can build blogs, portfolios, web pages, e-stores, contact forms, and almost every other web platform.
Wix is another easy website builder that has caught our eye. This advanced yet user-friendly platform comes with its AI framework and an interactive interface. The ADI or artificial design intelligence frame does everything for you, just the way you want to. All you have to do is put in your preferences and tell the ADI assistant what to do and it’s done. You can also choose to build a website the old school way, i.e. using code. Wix offers its users the freedom to tweak the meta tags, URL links, CSS stylesheets, and core HTML code if you know how to.
An excellent guide that takes you through building a customized website from the ground up with the help of Wix ADI is available at How to Create a Website in 4 Easy Steps.
WordPress is a platform that has become synonymous to blogging. An open source and free website builder software, WordPress is the best place for first-timers to start from. And you can build more than blogs here, the site builder supports portfolios, web pages, stores and more. The WYSIWYG interface allows you a preview of the website before you actually publish it. Add to that other cool features like a live in-house editor, SEO tools, CMS tools, Google Analytics support, and a wide range of themes and templates and you’re sorted. There are also several external apps and plug-ins that you can check out.
Site123 is one of the best free website builders online that is clutter-free, easy and time-saving. You can create a website, host it online and also market it, all for free. It takes but three steps to get your website up and running. All you have to do is register, choose a template, customize it and then publish. The point and click interface comes with all the standard tools for inserting text, images, and videos, customizing the content and make real-time changes to it. Site123 is compatible with mobile devices as well. However, to avail the advanced services you need to sign up for their services.
Web Development Tools
Other than website builders, there is various other web development that you can use to create functional and professional quality websites in a jiffy. The tools that we have discussed below are free and require no coding skills or technical experience.
Template Stash has the best collection for attractive templates and readymade layouts which saves you both time and effort. The themes are divided according to design, ease of customization and functionality. From e-commerce to art and from fashion to photography portfolios you get everything here. Most free website builders come with their own templates, however, with Template Stash, you get a wider range of options which are flexible, versatile and mobile-friendly.
Carrd is a compact, comprehensive and convenient platform where you can curate all the web building elements and design a page any way you want. The interface is perfectly suited for one-page websites, blog, and stores. All your content can be arranged and edited in but one place. Also, Carrd even creates a mobile-friendly version of the site as you publish it, thereby adding on to your online reputation. And contrary to popular belief, the one-page framework doesn’t mean you have to compromise on the functionality of the website. The dashboard has all the features you’d need for a responsive and robust website.
Create a stunning portfolio website with Pixpa. This resource's easy, drag-and-drop website builder enables you to create your own beautiful portfolio website without any coding experience. Choose from fully customisable, stunning website themes to showcase your work. Your mobile-ready, online portfolio website comes with all the features and tools you need to grow your creative business.
Bubble is for the more tech-savvy users who want to shift their website to the mobile platform without having to give up on their performance and visibility of the website. The tool allows you to add text and graphical content to the page, add custom buttons, integrate maps, and do all other things without having to write a line of code. It is a one-stop platform for people who want to build a mobile-friendly version of their website and expand their viewer base online.
What Next?
Check out How to Create a Website in 10 Steps, a helpful guide on how to set up a website, including actionable tips and insightful information on the best tools for beginners.
Choosing a website builder is but the first step to building a website, you need to get a domain name, host it on the server and then gather an impressive audience base before you even think about monetizing the content. Remember, you don’t magically become a success overnight just because you have a website now. There are thousands of websites popping up every day. To ensure that your content doesn’t get lost in the plethora of information, strive for a high SEO rank, share it on your social media, try to collaborate with the bigshots of the industry, get featured in review sites, have a few after-sale services like newsletter options to keep your audience.