Wix is the best website builder to launch a first website, thanks to its beginner-friendly and highly efficient set of features. Get started for free today.
Launching a website is a crucial step to running and scaling a business. The decisions you make in the planning stage determine whether your site will be a strong foundation to build trust and illustrate your unique selling proposition (USP) or if it’ll be an underachieving expense.
The good news is that creating a good website is easier than you think—provided you have the right guidance (and a strong internet connection). And that’s where this guide comes into the picture. We’ll walk you through the steps to launch a website using a website builder and build a digital presence within no time.
The 7 Best Website Builders for Launching Your First Website
With the right site builder, launching a website from scratch will become the easiest thing on your to-do list. We compared the best website builders on the market to help you make the right choice.
- Shopify – Best for selling products and services
- Wix – Best website builder for your first website
- Zyro – Best for keeping website costs low
- Bluehost – Best for WordPress websites
- Squarespace – Best website builder for creators of all stripes
- Weebly – Best for solopreneurs
- GoDaddy – Best for building your website from your phone
Launch Your First Website in 9 Easy Steps
The best websites are like your digital advocates that can convince visitors your business can solve their problem or meet a need they want. Here are the steps to launch your first website, even if you have no prior experience:
- Decide Your Website Goals
- Pick a Web Host and Domain
- Sign Up With Wix
- Answer the Displayed Questions and Prompts
- Choose and Edit a Wix Template
- Edit Your Website
- Build Relevant Web Pages
- Connect Your Domain
- Preview and Publish Your Website
Wix is our website builder of choice. With a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder and hundreds of versatile templates to suit your business, the platform makes website building easy and painless. Sign up with Wix for free right now.
Step 1: Decide Your Website Goals
Setting website goals will give you a blueprint to manage your time and resources, helping you create the best possible website.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Selling physical or digital products or services
- Providing company-related information
- Sharing updates and announcements
- Converting visitors into leads
- Highlighting customer reviews
- Growing online presence
Of course, you can have more than one goal for your business website. The only catch is to ensure your strategy accommodates each goal.
For instance, if you want to highlight customer reviews, figure out the answers to the following questions:
- Which clients do you want to reach out to to get the testimonial?
- What success parameters will you use to ensure the reviews highlight your USP?
- How will you collect customer reviews?
- How many customer reviews do you want to add?
Step 2: Pick a Web Host and Domain
Every website you visit is hosted on a server. It’s why choosing a hosting provider is necessary for launching your first website.
When selecting a web hosting provider, find out about the following:
- What’s the allowed bandwidth?
- Does it offer 1 PCI compliance to protect customer data?
- Is it easy to set up and upgrade?
- Does it have fast servers so that visitors can load your website quickly?
- Does it offer you a unique domain?
Next, when you’re choosing a domain name, keep the following in mind:
- Make it short and memorable
- Use SEO keywords to get more visibility
- Use a secure top-level domain (for example, .com)
- Avoid hyphens and numbers
Generally speaking, your brand name makes a good domain name (for example, quicksprout.com) because it is easy for people to remember. But if you want, you can get a little creative, especially if it plays into your branding.
Step 3: Sign Up With Wix
Using a website builder is the fastest way to create your first website. It’ll help you get up and running with little to no effort—and without coding knowledge.
The best website builders should fulfill the following criteria:
- Ease of use
- Customization capabilities
- Ability to earn money
Wix meets (and exceeds) these factors, which is why we highly recommend using it to launch your first website.
Here’s how to make a Wix account:
- Click on Get Started on the Wix homepage.
- Enter your email address and set a password.
- Though optional, we recommend answering a few follow-up questions to ensure your website meets your exact needs.
Once that’s done, you can either allow the Wix ADI to create a website on your behalf or use the Wix Editor to make and customize a website yourself.
If you choose the first option, that’s it. You’ll have a ready-to-use website set for your business. But if you don’t want to give up control and pick the second option, proceed to the next step.
Step 4: Answer the Displayed Questions and Prompts
Before using the Wix Editor, you’ll have to answer a series of simple questions. This includes entering your website name, highlighting your required features, and uploading your business logo.
Note that you don’t need to have all the website pieces in place at this stage. You can always go back and update them when you get a logo or decide on your brand colors.
Next, choose a theme to decide your site’s look and feel. Think about your ideal customers. What do you want them to think when visiting your site? How would they describe it? Once you’re clear on that, find a theme that matches the look and feel you want.
Step 5: Choose and Edit a Wix Template
At this stage, Wix will show you a few ready-made templates to choose from. Understand you don’t need a perfect match, as you can always change the features you dislike later.
If you don’t like the options suggested by the Wix AI tool, you can pick from its library of templates.
Wix offers hundreds of templates for free that are also categorized into popular niches. Some of these include:
- Business
- Online store
- Design
- Portfolio & CV
- Blogs and forums
- Community and education
- Landing pages
Hovering your cursor over each template will tell you whether it’s free or costs money.
Another option is to start from scratch, where you get a blank canvas and decide everything yourself. While this is something to consider, we recommend you go with one of the ready-made options.
Once you find a suitable template, click Edit.
Step 6: Edit Your Website
What you see on your screen right now is what your website page looks like if you hit the Publish button on the top right-hand side of your screen.
If you don’t like something, simply click on that template element, make the changes, and follow the displayed instructions. You can add text and photos and drag and resize elements, etc. There are dozens of ways to customize the template to ensure it’s exactly how you want your first website to look.
Step 7: Build Relevant Web Pages
Depending on your business and website version, you need different web pages. For example, if you’re a SaaS brand, you may want a ‘Solutions’ page showcasing your products and services. Similarly, if you’re running an ecommerce site, a ‘Collections’ page showing different product categories makes sense.
But there are a few “standard” web pages most websites include, such as:
- Homepage informing visitors what your brand is and what it offers.
- Product or service pages explaining your offerings. Consider making separate web pages for every product or service you offer.
- About page to tell your story, explain your business model, and build trust with visitors.
- Contact page to provide visitors with a way to get in touch.
- Policy pages to highlight the applicable legal policies your business follows.
To add web pages, click on the Menu & Pages icon on the top left-hand side of your Wix Editor.
Step 8: Connect Your Domain
Open your Wix dashboard, and click Connect Domain.
At this point, your website domain will be yourbusinessname.wixsite.com/mysite. If you want a more credible and legitimate domain name that doesn’t include the Wix copy, purchase a custom domain and subscribe to a premium Wix plan. If you continue using Wix’s free plan, you’ll be stuck with “wixsite” in your domain name.
Step 9: Preview and Publish Your Website
Once everything looks good, click Publish.
Congratulations! You just created and launched your first website. Remember, your first website is just the tip of the iceberg—you still need to test it.
Check user experience and navigation to ensure your website is working well. Identify and remove any broken links and images while you’re at it.
Final Thoughts About Launching Your First Website
Easily create your first website by signing up with Wix and choosing and editing one of its many versatile templates. Note that you’ll also need to sign up with a web hosting provider, preferably one that also offers a custom domain. Once that is done, you can customize the template to your liking and hit Publish.
Source: quicksprout
How to Launch Your First Website in 9 Simple Steps