Mar 11, 2021
Checklist for Creating a Website from Scratch and Rank your website on Google.
Domain| Hosting| WordPress| SEO
Hello everyone. Today, in this article I’ll go through a Checklist for Creating a Website from Scratch and Rank your website on Google. Read the article till the end so that you won’t miss any crucial step before launching your website. I’ll show you what is really needed to launch your website and I’ll provide links and resources to my favorite recommendations to show you how to do each task step by step. If you read this article carefully without missing any step, I guarantee you that you will get one step closer from making a fantastic website and ranking on google if you do a little hard work. Alright here’s the checklist of tools and tasks you will need to do to get your website up and running.
If you want to learn how to start a blog and take part in this market projected to hit $6.8 billion in 2021, keep reading.
What is a website?
A website is a set of related web pages located under a single domain name, typically produced by a single person or organization.
Overview of the article
In this article, first we will see where to store your website, what will be your domain and what software will you be using to create your website. Then we move to how the website will look like including where to get logos and free images and lastly how to track your website and submit your new website to Google. Let’s go through each point in more detail.
Step 1: Web Hosting
First of all, you need a place where to store your website and this is what website hosting providers do. The most common option for beginners is to get a shared hosting from companies like Hostinger which I’m also using for my websites They have super easy page builders. In terms of price web hosting companies give really heavy discounts for the first year. You can get a good hosting plan from Hostinger starting from $0.99 per month. If you go with Hostinger you will be able to customize things and maybe later get a developer to help out with some more complex stuff. Also, there are also free hosting providers but I don’t recommend using them for so many reasons but if you’re not as fortunate as others are and you’re short on cash you can sign up for free hosting.
One thing you should check if your hosting provider includes as part of their plan is SSL certificate. Hostinger include one for free. With SSL you can get a padlock in a browser and without it you might see a warning page. In summary SSL basically encrypts the data between your server and users browser. Another thing you might want to consider is if you need a business email address. Most hosting providers have an email either included in the hosting or you can get it as an extra and they are usually about one to two dollars per email per month or you can also sign to G-suit which is basically Gmail for business you have your domain in the email but familiar Gmail layout and features. The Hostinger has an business email address included in its plan.
Things you get if you decide to go with Hostinger:
- Affordable Prices for a high quality
- Multilingual 24/7 Customer Support (20+ languages)
- 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
- Cloud Hosting plans powered by Google Cloud
- Extremely Fast Servers
- PHP 7.4 live on all servers
- Optimized for WordPress/Onboarding Flow
- 1-Click Installer
- 30-day Money-Back Guarantee
- Extra Security with 2-Factor Authentication
Some Technical Specs of Hostinger-
- Triple Layer Caching Solution
- Nginx and Apache dual web server architecture
- SSD RAIDs for maximum IO speeds
- Cloudlinux + LVE container per account
- Fully Managed
- HTTP/2 support
- Custom management Panel (hPanel)
- Daily backups
- Latest PHP version
- HA network setup
- Intelligent and AI powered Anti-DDoS solutions
- Out-of-the-box support for LetsEncrypt SSL, CLoudflare, G-Suite
- High Availability Hardware setup
Step 2: Domain Name
Now, no matter what web hosting you choose you will need a domain name. This is the second step on the checklist. A domain is basically what you type in your browser like youtube.com is a domain. The hardest part is to come up with a good domain name. Now-a-days, pretty much all web hosting providers and website builders include a free one-year domain if you sign up with them. So, you should be good if not then I recommend using namecheap.com as they have affordable prices and they offer free ‘who is privacy protection’. Without the protection your personal details will be publicly available in the various databases. You can get this protection at the website hosting providers too but it’ll cost you like $10 a year. If you like this article so far I would appreciate it sharing this article with your friends and families that will help this article to rank higher so you can help more people like you. Thanks for that.
Step 3: Website Building Software
Now, the third step applies to you only if you choose shared web hosting. You will need to use some sort of website management software. By far the most popular is WordPress. I think like 27% of all web sites on the Internet run on WordPress. It’s easy to use and it comes with free plug-ins for pretty much anything you need also you’ll find thousands of tutorials on YouTube about WordPress and it also has a page builder similar to wix, Squarespace where you can just click and drag and it’s on the page and you build the page that way. WordPress is free and most hosting providers have a few quick installations. All my websites are running on WordPress. I just don’t see why you wouldn’t use it.
Step 4: Website Template Design
The fourth step of the checklist for creating a website from scratch and rank your website on Google is to design your website. If you went with WordPress you will want to choose a website design in WordPress lingo. They are called Themes. Luckily, WordPress has thousands of them. Some are free and you can get directly in your WordPress dashboard or if you want a better looking and with more features you can choose them from a website like Template monster or alternatively you can build your homepage with the page builder like Elementor which is free to build basic stuff. If you choose a page builder service like wix or Squarespace you will need to build a website using the drag-and-drop elements or the templates they provide. Please spend enough time on the design as this will be your visitors first impression of your website. So, use other websites as a benchmark and try to make it easy for the people to navigate and read your content.
Step 5: Brand & Logo Design
The fifth step is to design your website look and feel which includes colors, fonts and logos. You can use websites like Luca where you answer a few questions and it will give you logo suggestions. This is not free though but a great way to get inspired about colors and the logo or alternatively you can use online software like canva to actually put together your own design. This tool is also useful later when you need to resize and slightly update your website images. If all this sounds too complicated you can hire someone on Fiverr to do the logo, fonts and colors for you. For example by searching for website branding you can get a ton of results with various prices.
Step 6: Content & Images
The sixth step is probably the most time-consuming. You will need to add the content to your website. That includes the elements on the homepage maybe an About or Contact Us page and then any other pages that are applicable to your website like services or article pages whatever you need. Now, the text you’ll have to write yourself if you need some inspiration on how to start with SEO optimized content topics you can go through youtube vedios. If you need images for your website here are few free and paid sources:
- Freepik.com- free
- Unsplash- free
- Undraw- free illustrations
- Pixabay- free
- GettyImages- paid
- Shutterstock- paid
I personally like the free pick one I’ve used them for some stuff but the other ones are also great and you might find high-quality pictures.
Step 7: Google Analytics
The seventh step is to install Google Analytics on your website. Some might say this is not a must but I would lean on saying “what you can’t measure you can’t improve”. With google analytics you’ll have basically tracking your website visitors such as: what pages they visited, how much time they spend there and what devices they use to visit your site. It’s really easy to install GA on your website. You just need to sign up for Google Analytics then grab the code or the ID and paste it on your site.
Step 8: SEO Check
The step 8 of the checklist for creating a website from scratch and rank your website on Google is ‘search engine optimization check’ or in short SEO check. You should double check that you have set up your website so that search engines like Google can find you easily and you haven’t missed anything crucial. But essentially you should check that your page have:
- Titles
- Meta description
- Also that your website is accessible by search engines and
- People on different devices/browsers and few other things
Step 9: Submitting site to google
Once you’ve checked your SEO, you’re ready for the ninth and last step which is creating a sitemap and submitting your website to Google. You don’t have to do this but it will tell Google to index your website quicker and you will be able to see your website in Google search results. It is a big step of checklist for creating a website from scratch and rank your website on Google. A sitemap is like a map of your website for search engines. It tells how pages are linked and how important the pages are in relationship to each other. Creating a site that sounds complicated but actually on WordPress you can just install a free plugin or you can use a free online tool to create a sitemap and submitting your website to Google can be done in Google search console.
Bonus for the checklist for creating a website from scratch and rank your website on Google:
Here are two bonus tasks you can do after launch. Once you launch you might have trouble getting people on your website. So, you need to invest some money in Google ads. This is the quickest way to get traffic on your website but obviously it comes at a cost. If you want to take your Google Analytics tracking to another level, then you can use Google tag manager to track clicks, scrolls and video starts on your website. also, If you want to be with us and learn more, join our telegram channel and Instagram page.
Disclosure- The above links may contain affiliate links. I will earn a commission when you may purchase or perform any action through these links.
Also, feel free to read our other articles.
