Web Development in 4 Easy Steps to Get you Started

Building a website for your business or creating a personal blog to share your thoughts with the world is easy. Almost no programming skills are required, although you need to learn the basics of web development. More specifically, you must become familiar with domain registration, web hosting, and WordPress. And you are going to learn all that today, here.

I know it is easy because I created so many websites by learning everything online for free. I am sure you can manage that too! And I suppose it will be easier because I have collected everything that helped me through the process in the lines below. Therefore, read on, and by the time you will finish reading, you will have a pretty clear view of how to start and where you are heading to.

As in other pages of this blog, I am recommending some products or services below that I have personally tried and continued using for my web development needs. I do not include anything unknown to me.

Jumpstart your web development career by registering a well-thought-out domain name

I have avoided building websites at free services such as Blogger (domains ending in blogspot.com). I suggest you do the same. You are creating something valuable. Why not keep that value to yourself?

Yes, I strongly recommend registering your own domain.

Besides, if you are creating a website for your business, your domain is part of your business. You would not rent a small corner in another company’s office to run yours, would you? You would rent a whole office to yourself. So, buy a domain!

Buying a domain is easy. You pick a domain registrar, open an account and begin buying domains. You will quickly see the point of registering multiple domain names for your business or blog, even with extensions like .net or .co. For example, I own both jimmakos.com and jimakos.com (noticed the typo?) and jmks.co for my URL-shortening service.

Nevertheless, restrain yourself from overspending.

Pick a reliable and affordable hosting company for your website

Now that you bought the sign (domain name) outside your office, it is time to rent the actual office where the sign will hang. This is the time when web hosting comes in.

Consider hosting like renting an office, where you will place all the furniture and equipment you will need to run your website. The more equipment you need and the more customers your website will serve, the bigger the office needs to be. Hosting companies offer a wide variety of hosting plans which makes finding a plan tailored to your needs a certainty.

In general, there are three types of hosting plans:

1. Shared hosting: you share a server with thousands of other customers. Like renting a 100-square-foot office in a skyscraper.
2. Virtual private server or VPS hosting: you share a server with a bunch of other web entrepreneurs. Consider that as if you are renting the whole floor of a skyscraper. You can even rent out small offices to other webmasters who are looking for shared hosting plans!
3. Dedicated server hosting: you get a whole server just for yourself, meaning a computer is somewhere operating exclusively for running your website(s). You guessed it; you get a skyscraper under your name!

After you decide which hosting plan suits you (for 99% of people visiting this page, it should be shared hosting), you must instruct your domain to load the website from the server you purchased. Do not worry; it is much easier than it sounds and definitely easier than hanging a huge sign outside of your office! Many domain registrars allow you to host your website with them, making the process entirely automatic.

Personally, I have used both shared and VPS hosting plans. I would recommend a shared hosting plan when you are starting out to keep your costs as low as possible. Once your idea attracts attention and your website gets some traction, it's time to upgrade. A telltale sign for upgrading your hosting is when your page's visitors experience slow loading times or your website is down!

Install WordPress with an attractive and practical theme

I have become a huge fan of WordPress – sorry Joomla. WordPress is a perfect content management system that will work both for your blogging and business needs. Do not be afraid to create a company’s website with WordPress. In fact, WordPress is great when you are starting out in web development.

Installing WordPress will not take more than 5 minutes. You now have power, water, and a telephone line in your office.

Your office looks dull on the outside, though. A mere sign on the door (domain name) is not enough to invite people in, no matter how cool it sounds. You need a stunning front. In other words, an attractive WordPress Theme that loads fast.

Finally, improve user experience with website tools

Now that you have an attractive office with all the necessary equipment installed, it is time to let the world know about your office. There is no better way to do that other than creating useful, mind-blowing content. Content is king.

Still, you can further improve your website’s functionality with the help of the tools I include further below in this article.

By completing the four steps I described, you should have a beautiful, fast, and practical website in a few days.

Yet, you are just beginning in the web development world. You have a lot of things to learn. I am still learning myself, despite managing more than ten websites at this time!

Web Development Resources

Some links below are affiliate links. By clicking on them, you not only help me pay this blog’s bills, but you also show your appreciation towards any helpful tip you read on my website. Besides, you don’t have to use the links if you don’t like. The price is the same whether you use the link or not.

You can find the latest five articles I wrote about web development here.

Personal Favourites

1. WP Engine: After a decade of hosting my websites elsewhere, I could finally relax by the time I moved over to WP Engine. It's expensive, but you get what you pay for. Only for WordPress-based websites.
2. Shortpixel: Time is money online, and ShortPixel cuts down the loading time of our images. No more do I have to manually reduce the file size for every image I include in my articles, as ShortPixel automatically generates web-optimized images on the fly.
3. WP Rocket: Speed is money, as well. A fast website not only keeps your visitors happy but also helps your website rank higher in search engines. I've tried all the top caching plugins for WordPress that can speed up my websites, and WP Rocker is my favorite by far.
4. Iubenda: I use them for complying with laws worldwide via their cookie solution and other services.
5. DigitalOcean: For any tech-savvy web developers out there. Setting up a server by myself to host my own URL-shortening service was probably the thing I'm mostly proud of to this day.
6. Themeforest: Most of my websites, including my personal blog, are built on a theme purchased from Themeforest marketplace.
7. ElegantThemes: I have sometimes used their beautiful themes on my WordPress websites.
8. StackPath: Before I hosted my WordPress websites with WP Engine, I used StackPath (then MaxCDN) to have my content cached and accessible closer to my end users for a better user experience.