Creating a website is seen as both complicated and simple. The answer to this question depends mainly on the complexity of the site you want to build. If you want a site with online booking or an e-commerce platform like Amazon, the task will be far more complex. On the other hand, creating a showcase website for your business is already much more accessible and straightforward. However, in reality, whatever site you want to create, the task is much more complex than you think. It is very easy to put a site online, but a site that will actually work without in-depth knowledge in the field is impossible without professional assistance further down the line. Even a simple showcase site must inspire trust in your visitors with a modern design. That brings together several different disciplines to offer a good experience to your visitors and convert them. There are also many other things to consider, such as the way the site is built — which must be thought through from the outset in terms of SEO (search engine optimisation) — so that your site will later be visible in search results like Google.
If you still want to venture into this task, this article contains everything you need. If you want to start building a website, there are now many solutions that allow you to do it without writing any code.
The different ways to create a website
You have almost certainly heard about lines of code. All the methods for easily creating a website are based on generating code automatically, without you having to write a single line.
Creating your website with a CMS
The most interesting approach is to start building your website using a CMS. A CMS automatically generates the code you need based on the tasks you carry out.
Site creation is therefore fairly quick and not laborious. Furthermore, it means you will not get discouraged since you can directly build what you want (or almost). Finally, all CMSs allow you to create and try building a site for free. The most well-known CMS is WordPress — and for good reason: it is the best. The second most well-known is Shopify, ideal for creating an e-commerce site, followed by others that are less well known, such as Wix, Squarespace, Joomla! and many more.
WordPress — the most well-known CMS
WordPress is unquestionably the best solution for creating any type of website. I invite you to consult our detailed article on why to use WordPress. Today it accounts for 60.8% of sites built with any CMS and powers 14.7% of the world’s top sites. Its name often gets a bad reputation among developers or people who do not really know what they are talking about. This idea is mainly due to people creating WordPress sites without any knowledge of the field, which results in very poor sites. It is also branded as poor in terms of security, when in fact the fault does not lie with the CMS itself but with human errors and bad plugins that administrators download without checking.
Large companies use WordPress, not just because it is simple, but also because it is extremely powerful. To name a few: the White House, The New York Times, Renault, Walt Disney, the official site of Sweden as well as Canada, Vogue, the University of Washington, TripAdvisor, and many other companies each larger than the last.
You will not find any other CMS more flexible than WordPress — not only because it is the most documented, but also because the community is the largest and most skilled. Do you want to create an e-commerce site? You simply download the WooCommerce plugin. And so on.
WordPress.org is open source — be careful not to confuse it with WordPress.com.
Wix — the easiest online site editor
Wix is very well known but not widely used (2.5% of sites built with a CMS). It is without doubt the simplest and fastest solution for creating a website. In reality, the reason it is the least used is for very good reasons. The CMS cannot provide good growth for your business — its software is far too limited, whether in terms of design, SEO or the business model it offers. If you want to conquer the web, there is nothing better than wasting your time on this CMS. With hindsight you will always end up either switching to another solution or abandoning the idea of having a website altogether. If you want to see what a CMS looks like for building a site, I strongly invite you to create an account — it only takes a few minutes to see what it looks like.
Webflow — the best online site editor
Webflow is simply the best CMS of all time in terms of design and the creation of increasingly complex animations, without touching a single line of code. You can visit our page built with Webflow to see what it looks like . In addition, they provide a wide range of completely free training courses on their site — to help you grow and conquer the web through your visual identity. The downside is that the software has a steep learning curve compared to builders like Wix. It is nothing more or less than software as complex as Photoshop — but for building websites. Once again, creating a site is never simple, so you might as well dive straight in with a CMS like Webflow. Their pricing model is also very good: plans start relatively expensive but the hosting quality is simply incomparable with that of its competitors. Another downside is that this complexity also shows in its flexibility compared to WordPress, where you can generally download plugins to do practically anything. However, if you love design and animations, you have found THE solution.
Shopify — the CMS for e-commerce merchants
Shopify is a very good solution for anyone who wants to create an e-commerce site — in other words, an online shop, whether for clothing or anything else. However, the pricing model is quite off-putting and SEO is very complicated on it.
Shopify is a solution designed exclusively for e-commerce sites.
Other CMSs such as Prestashop, Drupal, and others are only worth considering if you are building a large-scale e-commerce operation. As for Squarespace — the 4th most used CMS, ahead of Wix — it is interesting for many reasons, such as its simplicity and advanced design. In my view it sits perfectly between Wix and Webflow: simple with good design. But let us be honest — I think it is better to go straight to Webflow in that case.
Developing your site in pure code
Another option: it is entirely possible for you to develop your site purely in lines of code — and indeed that provides complete freedom. However, it will be very long, very laborious work, and it will generate even more design errors than using a CMS. To learn how to code a website, I strongly recommend starting with the courses from . To write lines of code, you can use code editors such as Atom or Sublime Text, among many others. However, if you want to create a showcase site or a standard e-commerce site, there is practically no benefit in this approach. If you want to code specific animations or tweak CSS to your liking, WordPress gives you complete freedom. Modern WordPress themes like Divi or Elementor also allow you to apply a “code module” to insert whatever you want in lines of code very easily, and they also allow full control over the CSS of each of their text, image and other modules, as well as the page’s global CSS. Which means you can do exactly what you want while also benefiting from the power of the CMS.
If you have a very precise idea for your project and in-depth coding knowledge, choosing to build your site by hand could suit you. Or simply if you just want to learn to code from scratch — this solution is obviously made for you.
Calling on a professional website creator
Without doubt the best solution of all.
Asking a professional to create a website for you will save you a great deal of time and money. Not only is your time money, but once your site is online you will need to promote it — for example using Google Ads, Facebook Ads and many others. You will therefore be spending money on advertising (a lot of money) for a site that in any case will not convert. It is also a matter of not wasting years with poor natural search engine optimisation and not being visible on Google for years when you could have been (it is 99.9% likely that you would wait your entire life). If you tell yourself that your site will only be shared to showcase your work, like a portfolio, and has no intention of being used for advertising or being indexed on Google — you are also mistaken. Unfortunately, if your showcase site is more off-putting than having no site at all, not only is it pointless, but you will also be destroying your brand identity. I do not know a single person who has not ended up getting professional help for the design of their site. I therefore advise you not to waste your money unnecessarily. There are too many reasons to list — it would unfortunately take several dedicated articles. If you wish, createur2site can support you in realising your project with a modern design that builds visitor loyalty, SEO-optimised from the ground up, and a perfect command of digital marketing tools such as Google Ads.
Note: digital marketing tools may appear very easy at first glance but are unfortunately far more complex in practice to achieve a real return on investment.
The steps for creating a website
Now that everything is clear, let us move on to creating your site from A to Z. Having a site in itself is not complicated. If you follow this guide, you will get your website!
Domain name — what is it and how does it work?
The domain name is what forms the foundation for having a website — you can find it in the address bar at the top of your browser on any site. The domain name is the name you want to give your site; for example, the domain name of our site is createur2site.fr. To get one, you need to purchase your domain name from what is called a registrar. Do not worry — it is relatively inexpensive: on average it will cost you around €10 / year.
Think carefully about the domain name extension you want. The extension is what follows your site name. Here, the extension of createur2site.fr is “.fr”. All of this together constitutes the domain name. The extension must be easy for your customers to find. For example, the “.co” extension exists, but when you share your site name people will easily confuse it with “.com” and will never find your website. Generally, if you are only interested in the French-speaking market, the best choice is the “.fr” extension. If you already have ambitions to be visible worldwide, opt for the “.com” extension. As for the name itself, it should reflect your activity or simply be your brand name.
You just need to go to check whether your domain name is available. If it is not, find another one!
Web hosting — the second step to having a website
Just like the domain name, you need hosting to have a website. Once you have purchased the footprint of your site (domain name), you will need hosting to contain the size of your site — that is, the place where your lines of code, the weight of your images, etc., will be stored. We wholeheartedly recommend Hostinger, which is the best hosting for its value for money. However, if you want to use WordPress, we only recommend Kinsta. To understand this, we strongly advise you to visit our dedicated article (see article link). To put it briefly, the choice of hosting is not to be overlooked, as it will largely define the speed of your site. According to data held by Google, one second less in site load time can lead to a 20% increase in conversions (meaning 20% more chance that your visitor will go through you). We also know that 53% of mobile users leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. We cannot recommend any other host.
Furthermore, your site speed also plays a role in being visible on Google.
However, if you choose a CMS such as Webflow, Wix, Shopify or others, these technologies will support you throughout the process — so no worries there. These CMSs also have their own hosting and registrar. This section therefore does not concern you. However, it is still possible for the domain name — and only the domain name — to purchase it from a registrar like Hostinger and then add it to one of these CMSs afterwards: but that is complicating things for no reason.
Remember, we saw that Webflow is an excellent technology because its hosting is the most powerful of all — by far. Now you can appreciate the impact of this fact!
If you have been following along, the only thing left to discuss is hosting for a hand-built site or for CMSs that do not have their own hosting, such as Drupal. If that is the case, let us start with Hostinger’s pricing plans. I recommend purchasing the standard hosting plan even if the domain is not free, since you do not need 100 websites. You can purchase your domain name later .
Following the plan selection, you will be able to see the first commercial strategy of the standard hosting plan (and even this is the best of the “budget” options):
You are free to choose €0.99 / month for 4 years, or simply go for 1 month or 1 year.
Installing and deploying your technology
CMSs such as Wix, Webflow, Squarespace and Shopify are very easy to set up and require only a few clicks. As for Hostinger, if you have purchased hosting to build your site by hand, you will now need to turn to OpenClassroom courses to implement this part.
As for WordPress, if you want to create a WordPress site via Kinsta, you will find their dedicated article . If you have read our article on Kinsta, you know it is what you need if you want to use WordPress. If you have any difficulties, technical support will certainly help! Once you have completed this process, you can move on to the next step!
Design, themes and templates
Now that your site is online, we can move on to the design part! CMSs will directly offer you the option to create your site from a template. For example with Wix:
Or Webflow, which offers paid templates (around $50 on average):
For WordPress, go to Appearance → Themes
The most well-known free theme is Twenty Twenty-One, but you can choose whichever you like:
It is nonetheless important to know that these themes are not very strong in terms of design and offer little flexibility. I therefore recommend opting for a paid theme such as Divi or Elementor (these are the two best).
You can browse the .
You can also — so do not hesitate!
WordPress — installing the famous plugins
If you have chosen WordPress, you will very quickly need to install a plugin — for example if you need an e-commerce site. In that case, go to Plugins → Add New:
Then type your keyword in the top right in “Search Plugins” and enter WooCommerce:
All you need to do is click “Install Now”. Then for each plugin you install, you will need to spend a little time understanding how it works.
Here is a short list of plugins you will most certainly need:
- SEO: Yoast SEO (or Rank Math)
- Cache management: WP Rocket and Perfmatters
- E-Commerce: WooCommerce
- Security: iThemes Security
- Contact form: Contact Form 7
- Image optimisation: Imagify
- […]
In general, if you need to add a feature to your WordPress site, search Google for the term along with “WordPress plugin” to find the plugin that could make your life easier!
Mindmap to structure your site (home, contact, etc.)
Starting with this step will allow you to properly structure the shape your site will take. You can use tools like mindmeister.com. Here is a mini example for a clothing e-commerce site:
You can then define the pages to create for your site, and the navigation that your menu and footer will include.
The ideal approach is to visit your competitors’ websites — which are normally already full of design thinking — to create your mindmap. You can also draw inspiration from them for your design and everything else.
Writing your content
Think about the content you want to put on your pages and think about reminding your visitors why you are better than the others. I invite you to learn about copywriting — the art of writing to attract your visitors and convert more effectively. Once again, you can take inspiration from your competitors, but I advise you not to get too lost in that either. It is also essential not to overlook this element if you want a website that actually works. The key is above all to make your visitors react by evoking emotions in them.
Here is a complementary checklist:
- Research the relevant information
- Capture attention
- Tell your story or the story of your product
- Highlight the advantages of your product
- Provide proof
- Answer objections
- Lead the customer to take action
Creating your visual identity
Now that you know the structure of your site and the ideas you want to convey in your content, you need to think about the image your visual identity will project — your identity as a brand. This goes through several processes, such as:
Creating the graphic charter
The graphic charter is a catch-all term for designating your site’s colours, font and logo. This part is essential to give an identity to your brand and therefore your site. As you can imagine, just like creating a website, this part is normally the domain of several professional disciplines. In any case, to create the graphic charter for your site, you can follow these steps:
Colours
The choice of colours for your site is very important. You can choose to follow your competitors or propose something that stands out — which is obviously the most interesting and most risky approach. There are several categories associated with colours: for example, red is typically used by media outlets for its impact on attention, orange for sport, yellow for energy, green for ecology, etc.
Modern website colour palettes today generally fall into one of two categories: minimalism, or colours with a geometric background comprising gradients of “trendy” colours such as blue, purple, pink and orange.
The most well-known and best tool is colour wheel for generating colour choices. There is also , which will be of great help when designing your site. Do not overload your site with different colours. You must also maintain the same coherence and logic across every section.
Font
Typography is something that is very underrated. It often happens that the most beautiful sites in the world are built primarily around a single unique typeface. It is perfect for conveying a message for your business and giving it an ideal brand identity. You can see that the font used in our main headings is absolutely not common and cannot be found anywhere else — not because nobody has discovered it, but simply because it is unique and impossible to find when you search for a font in software. To start out, a font like “Montserrat” is really ideal. Use a maximum of 2 different fonts on your site. In general, one font is used for headings and another for body text — but if in doubt, limit yourself to one font. Simply increasing the font size for headings is more than enough.
Creating the logo
Creating the logo is ultimately the cherry on top for your website. It will consolidate your identity. This task, like all the others, is absolutely not to be neglected — it requires in-depth knowledge of Adobe Illustrator and therefore generally a designer with a graphics tablet. Since you are reading this text, you are very certainly stubborn and attached to the idea of handling everything yourself for your site — when you could delegate this specific task to a professional or . The problem is obviously that you are limited to templates that can never ideally reflect your brand the way you would like. Furthermore, it is almost certainly not your area of expertise, so you cannot measure the impact of the difference between a generated logo and a professionally designed one. Just like logo generators or pre-made templates, you do not want your site to look like anyone else’s.
“Note: sometimes making mistakes is necessary in order to understand things.”
Creating wireframes based on the mindmap
This is the final step before tackling the real thing. A wireframe allows you to roughly sketch out the architecture of your pages — wireframing is part of the UI (“User Interface”) profession. Here is what it roughly looks like:
The UI must be thought through together with a UX or UX designer (another profession) so that this architecture is optimised by thinking about the user experience — again with the goal of optimising your conversions.
The design! Finally!
Now all you have to do is bring your site to life. You will combine all the previous steps and create a memorable experience for your visitors. Whatever anyone may say, the design, animations and experience you offer on your site will play the most crucial role in converting your visitors. When a site is exceptional, there is no longer any need to display a list of clients who have trusted you. This is particularly interesting when you are entering a competitive market and need to make your mark. Design tools like Webflow, or the Divi and Elementor themes, allow you to create scroll effects (albeit fairly standard ones) as well as a multitude of impressive animations to engage your visitors! I can already see you building a site that will quickly look like a mess, with animations everywhere, no coherence, and which will be more off-putting than a simple HTML page of text. That is unfortunately the reality.
The essential things to do after going live:
Did you think it was over? Now that your site is online and ready to conquer the web, you first need to make it known to others! A beautiful site that is not visible serves no purpose!
Set up Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Google My Business
First things first, the basics. Google Analytics lets you see what is happening on your site — whether in real time or not — displaying your site’s analytics data. Today, for any new account you will have direct access to Google Analytics 4, which also allows you to see clicks, scroll rates and many other things. You also need to call on a professional to create filters and ideally configure GA4 in order to achieve success:
As for Google Search Console, it allows you to analyse your site’s traffic based on Google search results. It also allows you to analyse the health of your site and a whole host of other SEO-related things:
And finally, setting up a Google My Business profile is essential to be visible in Google searches based on your company’s location.
Improve your natural search engine ranking
Setting up Google My Business is only a tiny part of optimising your natural search engine ranking to be visible on Google. SEO is the best way to achieve revenue figures that will make others pale with envy — and it remains “free”. Here are the most important SEO steps:
- Analyse keywords
- Work on your content
- Optimise your internal linking
- Use heading tags, meta title and meta description
- Netlinking & Link building
- Create a blog
You can find our complete article on natural search engine optimisation (createur2site.fr/en/optimiser-son-seo/) of over 5,000 words, which itself sometimes links to other articles of over 5,000 words.
Make your site known
Now that you know what is happening on your site and you have optimised it for natural search engine ranking, you need to make yourself known — especially since SEO takes a minimum of 1 year to show results. While you wait, you can simply combine SEO and digital marketing by making your site known via social media. Digital marketing consists of paying to be visible on Google — for example with Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads and many others — to show your magnificent site to the individuals you want to target. However, these tools are very complex to use for a real return on investment without extensive knowledge.
On social media
You need to be present on social media. You can handle this yourself or get help from a community manager — because once again, these tools are very beneficial especially when you know how to use them well. It is important to be present, but not on every platform. Prioritising 2 networks is much better than being present on 5 different ones and optimising each less effectively. You need to publish content, reviews and many other things regularly. This also depends on your strategy with these networks.
SEA — paid digital marketing
SEA consists of easily ranking your site on Google or social media by paying for advertising. You will therefore immediately gain visibility on these distribution channels.
The best tools for your marketing with the greatest return on investment — although this still depends on your activity — are Facebook Ads to be present on social media easily, and Google Ads to be visible in search results quickly.
FAQ on creating a website:
Creating a website for free?
Is it really possible? The answer is yes — you can use, for example, the free hosting and domain name offered by Hostinger (you can then switch to a paid plan later). You can then use WordPress, which is free in itself, and choose a free theme to design your site. Or simply use any other CMS that has its own hosting and registrar — such as Webflow, Wix and many others — where you can try building and publishing a website for free. Create a website for free — the 7 best editors.
A free site — good or bad idea?
Using free hosting and a free domain name will display the hosting provider’s or CMS’s advertising and will not allow you to appear professional — not to mention the quality of the hosting. Furthermore, using free themes or a low-quality CMS to design your site will not make a good impression on your visitors. You are very likely new to the scene, and if you do not offer your visitors a unique experience they will prefer to go elsewhere.
Building a site, and all the surrounding environments, costs money and requires a great deal of knowledge — although at createur2site we try to offer a relatively affordable starting price for a site that will actually work.
To be transparent, you would need to dedicate at least 1 full year to it full time — and even then, sometimes talent is also required to create something truly good. In the same way that you could learn to paint your own picture for your living room and spend years on it without achieving a good result. To get a good result, it is sometimes a matter of talent, and it remains a discipline that could be considered somewhat artistic.
How much does it cost to create a website?
If you find the right person or web agency, for a site that works you should expect to pay around €1,500 for a standard site such as a showcase site. For an e-commerce site, expect around €2,000 on average. For other types of sites, you will need to discuss with your site creator. However, whether it is a showcase site or an e-commerce site, SEO, SEA and other services could add to the total. It should also be noted that these prices relate to a decent design. If you want to make an incredible impact on the web, you will need to invest more to offer a unique experience — this can easily reach €5,000 per page.
What is the best website creation tool?
WordPress is the ultimate solution for its flexibility, combined with themes such as Divi or Elementor, which are ideal for building a quality website. Furthermore, WordPress is the most powerful tool compared to any other solution for optimising natural search engine ranking (SEO). To mention other CMSs: Webflow is unquestionably the best-performing CMS for creating a website with exceptional design, and is very interesting for a portfolio site. Shopify remains a very good solution for creating an e-commerce site, especially for logistics management, although Webflow and WordPress will offer better design performance for building your online shop.
Summary on creating a website:
If you have followed this article, creating a website in and of itself is very quick and easy. However, with what you will end up with, you will not be able to convey the messages you want without the knowledge to modify the visuals. This means that by generating a logo and using a pre-made layout, you will end up with the same visuals — and therefore the same messages — as everyone else. Since themes and logos are generic, you will convey generic messages. And to succeed on the web, especially as a new business, you need to be different from others and offer a unique experience on your site. If that is not the case, your prospects will prefer to go elsewhere and you will spend hundreds or even thousands of euros on advertising without generating any revenue. There are obviously a multitude of other parameters to take into account.