Master the Art of Web Creation in 10 Simple Steps: The Ultimate Guide

As social distancing measures and the shift towards working from home increase, many companies are turning to online platforms and creating their own websites. Currently, there are almost 1.5 billion websites worldwide. One reason for this growth is that launching a website has become accessible to almost anyone, thanks to numerous simple tools that require no coding skills.

Thanks to many website builders, creating a website has become simpler than ever, and you no longer need to hire a developer.

Having your own business website allows you to announce news, promote discounts and special offers, and share your location and contact details. You can also enable visitors to reach out directly through contact forms, showcase your services and products, generate leads, and much more. To guide you through the process, I’ve prepared a comprehensive step-by-step guide to help you create a professional website in just 10 easy steps. This guide covers popular platforms like Wix, as well as alternatives such as Squarespace, Weebly, and WordPress.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Having a clear plan before starting to build your website is essential. A well-thought-out plan helps ensure you include all critical elements that could be forgotten later. During this phase, focus on brainstorming and considering things like:

One effective approach is to create mind maps that visualize your entire website structure and content flow.

Here are some steps to help you effectively plan your website:

Remember, visitors often scan websites quickly, so your homepage should communicate your core message immediately. A compelling headline, a descriptive sub-headline, and a clear call-to-action are key to capturing their attention right away.

Creating a website quickly and launching it efficiently is crucial in today’s digital landscape. You don’t need to spend a lot to set up a professional-looking site.

Zyro is a website builder designed to help entrepreneurs and business owners develop a professional website swiftly so they can concentrate on expanding their business. If planning and designing seem complicated, Zyro offers templates aligned with current trends and best practices. With just a few clicks, you can add images, text, or customize menus to match your brand’s style. No coding experience is necessary.

Get started with Zyro today.

Your website’s identity starts with a memorable name and a strong brand image. According to Nielsen, over 500,000 brands compete across more than 2,000 product categories worldwide.

Standing out amid competitors can be difficult. It’s essential to establish a unique presence in consumers’ minds through distinctive branding elements and clear value propositions. A unique domain name and logo play a significant role in this process.

Many website builders, like Wix, facilitate easy customization of brand elements. For example, Wix manages both domain registration and logo creation. Most paid plans include a free domain voucher, and once logged into your Wix account, you can select and purchase your desired domain. If your preferred domain isn’t available, you’ll need to choose an alternative.

Once you find an appropriate domain, click “Get it” to start using it immediately. You can also use a domain you already own from providers like GoDaddy. A personalized domain increases customer trust and reinforces your brand’s credibility – for instance, an email like yourname@business.com appears more professional than one from free providers such as Gmail or Yahoo. In early 2020, there were over 366 million domain registrations globally, underscoring their importance.

When registering a domain, aim for one that is short, simple, memorable, professional, and evocative. Additionally, Wix offers tools to create a business logo quickly, which is vital as a key branding element that helps differentiate your business in the market.

To begin, you answer questions about your preferences, business focus, and personal style. These questions are also tailored based on your target audience, industry, and the media channels you plan to use to showcase your brand. Additionally, considerations include whether you’d prefer a transparent or non-transparent logo and your preferred image size. After completing these questions, Wix generates a custom-made logo suited to your business needs. This process allows for high customization, enabling you to modify colors, fonts, text, and size to match your branding. You also gain full commercial and legal rights to use your created logo. Furthermore, you can browse through a wide array of samples and templates provided by Wix to find inspiration and options.

Some of the best logos share common features, including:

Next, focus shifts to designing your website. Your site is often the first point of contact with potential customers; therefore, poor design can significantly deter them. A well-designed website, which influences 75% of perceived credibility and encourages repeat visits in 88% of cases, is crucial. You cannot afford to compromise on its layout and aesthetic quality. Many tools are available to help you build an attractive website without needing to hire a professional. Here are some key tips for effective web design:

1. Making your website user-friendly and compatible with mobile devices is essential. Visitors should find it easy to navigate and locate information. Furthermore, with approximately 70% of online activity happening on smartphones, optimizing your site for mobile usage significantly impacts user retention. Incorporating clear call-to-action buttons guides visitors toward desired actions, such as making purchases or signing up for newsletters. An example of an effective CTA button can be seen in this design:

2. Prioritize a clean, straightforward layout to enhance usability and aesthetic appeal. Avoid cluttered designs that can distract or confuse visitors. A well-structured site helps visitors find what they need quickly and easily, increasing the chances of converting visits into sales or inquiries.2. Customization Options.

Today’s websites must be highly customizable to meet individual business needs. Customization not only helps your site stand out but also sets your brand apart from competitors. Over time, aesthetic appeal has become just as significant as the content itself. Studies show that when given just 15 minutes, 66% of viewers prefer to see visually appealing websites over dull, ordinary ones. Therefore, a website’s design should delight the senses while also delivering essential information effectively.

Slow-loading websites pose a major challenge to online engagement. Research indicates that over half of mobile users—53%—leave a site if it doesn’t load within three seconds. This results in substantial revenue losses, with businesses losing more than $2.5 billion annually because of sluggish sites. Ensuring fast load times is crucial to retaining visitors, leads, and customers. Tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights can diagnose issues slowing down your website and suggest improvements to boost speed.

Adding engaging visuals to your website is vital to attract and retain attention, especially as audience preferences evolve. Data shows that visitors spend 88% more time on sites featuring videos. Visuals help spark interest and foster engagement, increasing the chances of converting visitors into customers. When designing your website, focus on easy navigation, direct access to the homepage, ample whitespace for readability, fixing broken links, creating a unique look, and using authentic personal images instead of stock photos. Thankfully, website builders like Wix provide access to pre-designed templates that are mobile-friendly and customizable with videos, animations, and scroll effects. Wix offers over 500 templates geared towards building flexible, responsive, and visually appealing websites efficiently.

Next, identify which pages your website must include. Planning your site structure carefully is crucial to align with your business goals. Although each business has its unique story and page needs—often differing from competitors—some pages are universally essential.

Your homepage is typically the first impression visitors will have. Research shows that most users spend about 15 seconds on a website before deciding to stay or leave. To make this brief visit impactful, your homepage should be engaging. Ensure it clearly states who you are and what you do, features an appealing design, and guides visitors seamlessly to other important pages through intuitive navigation. It should also reflect your brand identity with your name, logo, and unique brand elements, ideally visible without scrolling. Including key information such as your business name, logo, and brand character front and center increases engagement chances.

Your product or service page is where you persuade visitors to choose your offering over competitors. It’s about showcasing value and encouraging conversions. To craft an effective page, keep URLs clear and concise, use high-quality images, and include genuine testimonials—since 69% of consumers recommend brands they have positive experiences with. Also, provide brief, compelling descriptions of features, highlight your brand promises, ensure the page is mobile-friendly, and facilitate a secure checkout process. Don’t forget to communicate shipping details, return policies, damaged goods policies, and any free services to build trust.

The ‘About Us’ page offers a personal look into your business’s story and values. It’s one of the most vital pages because it helps build trust and connect with visitors. Use this space to share how your business started, your mission and vision, core values, guiding principles, and the problems you aim to solve. For example, Salesforce’s ‘About Us’ page effectively communicates its core aspirations and ethical stance, helping visitors relate to the brand on a deeper level.

Notice how they add a personal touch by speaking directly in the first person and showcasing images of their team members. This approach helps build trust and makes the website feel more approachable.

Fourth, the Contact Section is crucial for any business because it ensures your audience and clients can reach you easily. Your contact page should display essential details like your phone number, email address, mailing address, and social media profiles. Including multiple ways for customers to contact you improves accessibility and customer satisfaction.

Here’s a great example of an effective contact page:

A live chat widget can also be very beneficial, as it allows real-time communication and quick resolution of customer inquiries, greatly improving the user experience. The key is to be accessible and responsive, making your business easily reachable for your customers.

Fifth, maintaining a blog on your website is essential for increasing your visibility on search engines, establishing your brand’s niche, attracting followers, and driving more traffic. Your blog content should be valuable, helping readers solve specific problems or guiding them through particular actions.

Additionally, you’ll need to create various other pages and links to connect them logically. The specific pages necessary depend on your business model. Conduct thorough market research and analyze your competitors’ websites to identify which pages are most relevant for your site. Deciding whether to focus more on a full website or a blog can also influence your overall website structure.

Using drag-and-drop editors makes website creation much simpler and more accessible, especially for those with little or no technical skills. These tools eliminate the need for professional developers, allowing you to design attractive and functional websites yourself. For example, Wix offers an intuitive, user-friendly drag-and-drop editor that provides full control over your site’s design, enabling you to customize and tweak every aspect easily.

This feature-rich editor lets you experiment with various designs and attributes before finalizing your appearance. It’s particularly helpful if you’re building your site manually without coding experience. The platform also optimizes your website layout for different devices like mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, ensuring a seamless experience across all screens.The platform is designed to work seamlessly across various devices and operating systems.

Check out this detailed step-by-step tutorial for adding content using the intuitive drag-and-drop editor:

From there, you can pick the style of text—whether it’s a heading, title, or paragraph—and drag your selected text element onto any part of your webpage. You also have a wide array of customization options to edit and format your text effortlessly. Wix supports generous character limits per text box—up to 60,000 characters—giving you the freedom to include extensive content. These tools provide detailed control over various website elements, enhancing your ability to craft a professional and personalized online presence.

Additionally, Wix offers Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), which simplifies website creation by asking you a few questions about your preferences. Based on your answers, ADI swiftly builds a customized website, saving time and offering a modern, smart alternative to manual editing. You just need to specify details such as your desired features, functionality, and website name, and ADI takes care of the rest, generating a tailored website that you can fine-tune later.

While Wix ADI is quick and user-friendly, it has some limitations compared to the traditional Wix editor. It relies on a fixed set of questions and responses, which means fewer template options and limited access to the Wix app market. The number of embeddable applications and customizations is also more restricted with ADI. Conversely, the standard Wix editor provides extensive control over your website’s design, layout, and specific URL management, making it the preferred choice for those wanting full creative freedom.

The drag-and-drop interface of the classic editor remains unmatched for complete customization, allowing you to adjust every element with precision, from layout to specific features.

How to Obtain Free Stock Photography

High-quality images are essential for almost every webpage—from your homepage and sub-pages to landing pages, icons, and influencer sections. To keep your site visually appealing without stretching your budget, you can access a wide variety of free stock photos. Many websites offer stunning images in the public domain, which you can freely use without legal concerns.

Be cautious when selecting free images: only use those that are truly in the public domain or offered under licenses that permit commercial use. This prevents potential copyright infringement issues that could pose legal risks for your business.

Here are some of the best sources for free stock photos:

Many other websites also offer free images, ensuring a continuous supply of visuals for your projects.
Website builders like Wix provide access to thousands of high-quality built-in photographs, sourced from reputable sites.

Wix even allows you to create and edit these images directly within its platform.

To incorporate images from Wix into your website, follow these steps:

In addition to photos, Wix also provides options for adding videos to enhance your website’s appeal.

To add a video, simply select the ‘Page background’ option, and Wix will automatically embed the video without any hassle.

Beyond standard images and videos, some platforms, such as Wix, also offer clip art and other graphic elements.

For instance, Wix’s extensive library includes clip art related to themes like nature, sports, holidays, and more.

You can access fun icons, emblems, and shapes such as banners, rings, and stars directly through the ‘Add’ menu within the Wix Editor, making your design process more versatile.

Website optimization is crucial for achieving visibility online.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most vital aspects of building a website because it determines how easily your site can be found through search engines.

Without effective SEO, your efforts might not reach a broad audience, no matter how well-designed your site is.

Getting your website to rank well on search engines like Google is essential; statistically, over 75% of users never look beyond the first page of search results.

Therefore, appearing on the first page significantly increases your chances of attracting visitors.

Since the majority of online activity begins with a search, having your site optimized for search engines directly impacts your online presence.

However, ranking high is challenging because popular sites with many backlinks tend to dominate the top positions.

You can test this yourself by searching terms like “SEO guide” on Google and observing which sites appear first.

When aiming for higher search engine rankings, it’s helpful to analyze successful sites like Moz, which boasts a domain authority of 93 and over 18,389 backlinks. Moz’s strong presence makes ranking on the first page highly competitive, but getting there is possible with strategic effort.

So, how can you break into the top search results? Here are some practical SEO strategies to help you reach that goal:

Long-tail keywords are vital because understanding how users search is key. Data shows over 70% of online searches use detailed, specific phrases. Using such keywords can be more effective because they are less competitive, more targeted, and tend to have higher conversion rates. For example, focusing on long-tail keywords like “best vegan gluten-free bakery in Brooklyn” rather than generic terms increases your chances of ranking higher and reaching the right audience. Large companies like Amazon effectively utilize this approach, leveraging specific search terms to attract their ideal customers.

For local businesses, optimizing for local SEO is essential. This involves creating a Google My Business account, gathering positive reviews, and customizing your website content with location-specific keywords such as “best pizza in Detroit” or “CPA firm in Chicago.” Conducting market research using tools like Ubersuggest and Google Keyword Planner helps identify the most relevant keywords for your industry. Understanding what potential customers are searching for ensures you target the right phrases to attract local traffic.

Optimizing your website itself—known as on-page SEO—is another crucial aspect. Once you’ve identified your target keywords, incorporate them naturally into titles, headings, URLs, and throughout your content. Ensuring your site has unique, well-structured content makes it easier for search engines to understand and rank your pages. Key on-page techniques include high-quality content creation, proper meta tags, mobile responsiveness, fast load speeds, and strategic internal and external linking.

Off-page SEO expands your reach by building your website’s authority through external sources. Linking to high-authority websites, engaging with social media influencers, guest blogging, and earning brand mentions can significantly boost your search engine ranking. These efforts increase your site’s credibility and visibility in the digital landscape.

With the rise of mobile device usage—over 48% of internet traffic is via smartphones—optimized mobile experiences are now vital. Google’s mobile-first indexing prioritizes mobile site content for ranking, so ensuring your website performs well on smartphones is essential. Best practices include making your site accessible to Googlebot, maintaining the same content across mobile and desktop versions, and using correct URL structures to facilitate indexing. Fast loading times and a responsive design further enhance user experience and your SEO performance.

By integrating these strategies—targeting long-tail keywords, optimizing locally, refining on-page elements, building off-page authority, and prioritizing mobile usability—you can improve your chances of ranking higher and attracting more visitors to your website.

Page loading speed has been a crucial ranking factor in Google’s algorithm since 2018, directly affecting your site’s position in search results. Make sure your website loads quickly and operates smoothly to improve user experience and ranking. Setting up tools like Google Analytics helps you track important metrics such as page visits, bounce rate, and click-through rate (CTR). With most WordPress sites, online stores, website builders, or hosting plans, it’s straightforward to implement Google Analytics and Search Console and stay on top of your SEO performance.

Familiarize yourself with key SEO terms like sessions, bounce rate, and CTR to better understand your website’s performance and identify areas for improvement.

Google perceives images differently than humans do. While we interpret images visually, Google relies on descriptive text and relevant keywords to understand and display images in search results. Giving each image a clear and concise description with appropriate keywords increases its chances of appearing in image searches. Automated website builders often facilitate quick and easy ways to add descriptions to all images on your site.

Search engines use bots to explore every part of your website to understand its layout and hierarchy. A well-structured website helps these bots interpret your content more effectively, resulting in higher search rankings. Additionally, an organized structure tends to improve user engagement metrics, such as the number of pages visited, CTR, and time spent on your site.

Platforms like Wix can help simplify this process by providing pre-designed templates that ensure your website is organized and easy to navigate. Wix templates include intuitive menus and properly formatted heading tags, presenting your site as hierarchical and user-friendly. Beyond structure, Wix offers many built-in SEO features to boost your rankings, including:

Content plays a vital role in signaling search engines and improving your website’s rankings. Consistent, relevant, and valuable blog content can significantly boost your SEO efforts. When creating a blog for your small business website, ensure your content is original, updated regularly, and provides genuine value to your target audience.

Writing more detailed and comprehensive posts increases your chances of attracting traffic. Studies show that top-ranking blogs are typically over 2000 words, as they tend to be more informative and helpful. A good blog should address specific problems, offering actionable advice. To succeed, your content must be relevant, detailed, and engaging, leading to higher rankings and better user engagement.

Regarding blog length, an analysis indicates that the most visible articles on Google are usually over 2000 words long. Besides length, a high-quality blog should be actionable, practical, and include clear calls to action (CTAs), encouraging readers to engage further with your content or offerings.Buttons are a essential tool for turning your blogs into interactive experiences for your readers.

Here’s a great example:

Humans process visual information much faster than text — approximately 60,000 times quicker, in fact. Around 90% of all data transmitted to the brain is visual, which makes images a powerful addition to your blogs. Including relevant pictures can help your audience understand your message more quickly and make it easier to convert visitors into customers.

Website visitors don’t just want raw data; they prefer practical, easy-to-follow instructions. Writing blogs that walk readers through DIY projects or detailed procedures captures their attention and provides real value. This approach is especially effective for businesses aiming to influence leads and boost sales through content marketing. Well-crafted content not only attracts more visitors but also improves your search engine ranking by increasing click-through rates.

Wix simplifies starting your blog and enhancing your SEO. Setting up a professional-looking blog on Wix is straightforward, and adding one to your website requires just a few simple steps. To help you get started, here’s how to set up a blog quickly:

To maximize your blog’s impact, focus on creating engaging content, incorporating visual elements like images, and maintaining a consistent publishing schedule. These strategies will help attract and retain readers while guiding them toward taking action.Check out my comprehensive guide on how to start a blog in 11 simple steps with Bluehost.

Start with publishing your website.
Your audience can easily find your site by entering relevant keywords in search engines.
Platforms like Wix simplify the process of making your site live.
Just remember, you need to publish your website each time you make updates, or your changes won’t be visible to visitors.

Once you’re happy with how your website looks, head over to the ‘Wix Editor.’
Locate the ‘Publish’ button at the top right corner of your screen.
After clicking ‘Publish,’ you can preview your site by selecting ‘View site’ before making it accessible to everyone.
If everything looks good, click ‘Done.’

One of Wix’s strengths is its ability to publish portions of your website separately.
Unlike many other website builders that require you to publish the whole site at once, Wix allows you to publish individual pages—say, your Contact page—weeks after launching the main content.
This feature lets you update and publish sections as they become ready, keeping your site current without delaying the entire launch.
Just ensure no links are broken by pages still in progress, and you can hide or unhide pages as needed.

You can continue editing your site even after publishing.
Click ‘Edit site’ from the menu to make updates.
If you are not ready for your changes to appear immediately, hit ‘Save’; however, remember that saving alone does not update your live site.
To reflect changes publicly, you must click ‘Publish’ again.
For returning users, updates are usually visible right away, but for new setups, it may take up to 48 hours for your site to go live.

Setting up your professional email account is essential for effective communication with your customers.
Having a custom email address enhances trust, adds a professional touch, and reinforces your brand identity.

Wix makes creating a custom email account straightforward.
By utilizing Wix’s services, you gain access to your website and a personalized email address, integrated seamlessly with G Suite.
This integration allows your business to benefit from Google’s powerful tools.

In addition, the available business email addresses can be fully customized to fit your brand. For example, if your business is called ‘Imperio,’ you can choose a domain like ‘imperio.com.’ You also gain access to other Google tools such as Sheets, Drive, Calendar, and more. A professional email address enhances your brand’s credibility, helps build trust with customers, and signals legitimacy. Research indicates that invoices sent via professional email accounts tend to have higher open and click-through rates compared to generic addresses. This leads to quicker payments and improved cash flow, which are vital for business growth. Setting up your business email with Wix is quite simple. First, create your website following the outlined steps. Once your website is live—typically within 48 hours—you should select a premium plan. While Wix offers a free plan, it doesn’t support custom domains or business emails. Upgrading to one of their paid plans provides you with a professional domain and email. Then, visit the ‘My mailboxes’ section and connect your domain. You can create multiple email accounts by clicking the ‘+’ button until you reach your desired number of mailboxes. You can also add specific prefixes to your email addresses and choose a billing cycle—monthly or yearly—and your preferred payment method. After completing the purchase, activation generally takes about three hours. Once everything is set, you can start emailing clients, prospects, and leads immediately. This enables you to promote your online business and communicate effectively with potential customers.

What Are Some Wix Alternatives?

As online website builders continue to gain popularity, Wix faces many competitors. Some of the strongest alternatives include Squarespace, Weebly, and WordPress. Let’s briefly explore these options:

1. Squarespace

Designed for personal and business websites alike, Squarespace offers an all-in-one platform starting at around $16 per month. It’s well-known for its sleek, professional design templates and ease of use. With over 100 modern templates, Squarespace works well for creating beautiful websites, online stores, and portfolios. More than 3.7 million websites worldwide use Squarespace, supported by resources like webinars, forums, blogs, and extensive help guides to assist users in navigating the platform. Key features include customizable templates, free access to Typekit and Google fonts, the ability to add custom CSS, and a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.management.

The cost for plans ranges from $16 to $49 monthly when billed annually, with the options being:

Ideal for professional websites, starting at $10/month.

Weebly is another popular platform for building websites.

It offers customizable templates and e-commerce features to help grow your online presence. Essentially a drag-and-drop builder, it has added many essential functionalities over time. All paid plans include a free custom domain and a year of website hosting, saving costs. Its user-friendly interface allows anyone to create a website without technical skills.

Plans range from free to $26 per month when billed annually, including:

The world’s leading platform for website creation and management, with flexible customization options and a vast ecosystem of themes and plugins.Most Popular CMS (Starting at $4/Month)

Since its debut in 2003, WordPress has established itself as the most widely used content management system in the world. It currently powers about 34% of the top 10 million websites worldwide, making it a dominant choice for website creation.

WordPress.com offers a variety of built-in features such as Jetpack integration, SEO tools, analytics, reporting, and social sharing options. There is also WordPress.org, which requires users to provide their own hosting service but offers greater customization. With WordPress.org, you can use your own domain name and select any hosting provider you prefer.

WordPress offers numerous advantages, including high flexibility and scalability, access to over 50,000 plugins to extend functionality, and an easy-to-use dashboard. It also boasts a wide selection of themes to customize your site’s appearance. Many web hosts offer one-click WordPress installation, making setup straightforward. Being open-source, WordPress allows complete control over your website’s code, enabling extensive customization. You can also sell products online using plugins such as WooCommerce or BigCommerce.

Pricing varies depending on the plan. Basic options start at $4 per month for a simple blog, with plans going up to $45 per month for full e-commerce capabilities. Higher-tier plans include personal ($4/month), premium ($8/month), business ($25/month), commerce ($45/month), and an enterprise option costing $25,000 annually.

Comparing a great website to a mediocre one involves examining design, content, and functionality. An excellent website features an appealing, easy-to-navigate layout utilizing modern technologies like HTML5 and CSS3. Its content is well-organized, offering valuable information that visitors can easily access. A well-designed site uses high-quality images and videos and adopts responsive design principles to ensure compatibility across all devices.

In contrast, a mediocre website might rely on basic HTML, lack structure, and have minimal functionality beyond simple navigation. Its visual elements, such as fonts, colors, and images, often look amateurish or outdated. The content may be unorganized, with little internal linking, making navigation cumbersome. Functionality is typically limited to providing basic information without interactive features or engagement tools.

Assessing your website’s quality requires considering these various factors. A well-crafted site can significantly enhance user satisfaction and engagement, helping your business stand out among competitors. Thoughtful planning and execution can ensure your website not only looks professional but also delivers real value to visitors.

With online purchasing increasingly popular, every business needs a professional website to succeed. However, many fail to take simple but crucial steps for creating an effective site. Studies show that 38% of visitors stop engaging if a website looks unattractive, and 88% won’t return after a poor experience. Additionally, slow-loading pages—taking more than two seconds—drive visitors away.

Thankfully, numerous excellent website-building tools are available today, including Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, and WordPress. The process is straightforward: plan your site, optimize for SEO, set up your domain and hosting, build the content, and start attracting customers. For example, Wix offers features like SEO optimization, fast loading times, an intuitive interface, and seamless user experience.

Why not begin creating your new website now? For more resources, check out StepThroughThePortal.com’s extensive guides, including how to start a blog, reviews of top web hosting services, the best website builders, and ecommerce platforms to use in 2025.