Wondering how to build a website?
Start with “WHY”.
Building a website requires a lot more than just figuring out a domain name & buying hosting.
Building a website is a three-step process:
- Step 1: Why do you want to build a website? Discovery process
- Step 2: How to design a website? Design process
- Step 3: How to build a website with WordPress? – Development process
According to Simon Sinek’s golden circle, almost all organizations know WHAT they do and some know HOW they do what they do but very few know “WHY” they do what they do.
Figuring out how to build a website is an easy part, however, understanding “WHY” do you need one is a tad more challenging and one that perhaps will have an overbearing influence on the success of your entire website project.
According to Simon Sinek’s golden circle, almost all organizations know “what” they do and some know “how” they do what they do, but very few know “why” they do what they do – except for the most successful ones, who start out with this question in mind!
Step 1: Why Do You Want to Build a Website – Discovery Process
People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it. Simon Sinek
When you have a crystal clear “WHY” you’ll have a point of reference for everything you’ll do in the process of building a website. Your choices of what to include on your website become more lucid and uncomplicated.
Your clear “WHY” help you stay motivated for your website project, make all your future decisions super easy, and help you keep developing your website with a purpose.
Your “WHY” will help you keep your website simple, unambiguous, and less distracted, which will help your buyer and customers to buy from you or join your cause.
Google’s WHY
Dropbox’s WHY
Dropbox’s Story
Facebook’s WHY
Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.
Step 2: How to Design a Website – Design Process
A clear “WHY” works like a destination address in your car’s navigation system.
Once you have your “WHY” fashioned, you’ll be able to clearly plan how to build a website that will present your organization’s “WHY” to the world.
Ever wondered why Google’s home page has a white blank page with a logo and prominent call to action to search only?
This is because they have regimented clarity about their “WHY”.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company and which according to CNBC is worth upwards of $739 billion as of May 2018, could very well have added many bells and whistles to its homepage but chose not to do so.
Ask yourself “Why”
Simply because keeping your website undecorated such that it not only works for you but also your website visitors, is much harder than adding all the fancy features that today’s technology has to offer.
Search Engines Market Share
Google is dominating the search engine market, with a 92.62% share as of Jun-2019.
This phenomenal success surely is due to several factors:
- Amazing people behind Google
- Continuous improvement in their search technology
- The funding they received when it was needed
But I believe on top of all the above important factors, the following factors played a vital role in this extraordinary success as well:
- They had a clear “WHY” to start with
- Their “WHY” reflected clearly in their home page design
- To me above two elements makes the killer combination to build a website that performs really good
Have a look at the home pages of MSN & Yahoo.
Do you get their home page “WHY” clearly?
Do you think because of their focus on everything reflected in their search engine market share as well?
Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Dropbox
Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox said during his interview with BBC that inspiration for a new business can come from anywhere, and for him, it was on a bus between Boston and New York in late 2006.
He was intending to use the six or so hours-long journey to work on some earlier business ideas. But as he sat down in his seat, Mr. Houston realized that he had forgotten the memory stick that contained all the files.
“I was so frustrated because I felt like this kept happening,” he says. “I never wanted to have the problem again, so having nothing else to do… I started writing some code [to find a solution], having no idea what it would become.”
To solve this problem, he came up with the idea for Dropbox, created the prototype, and decided on the name all within two weeks. Not only, he even secured funding from one of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious backers of new start-ups – Y Combinator.
On 15th Nov 2009, this is how the Dropbox home page was.
Another excellent example of a business that started with a clear “WHY” and managed to convey that “WHY” through their home page, which led to the outstanding growth of the company.
Again, a simple and clear website that conveyed their “WHY” surely contributed to their success along with the following important factors:
- People behind Dropbox
- Dropbox solved the real problem of the time
- Funding they received
- Famous referral system that led to 3900% growth in 15 months!
- Continuous product development to stay competitive
How they reflected their “WHY” through their website to succeed. Another internet giant has only what they need on their home page.
Facebook converted their “WHY” to join a social network clearly with their home page and managed to become the largest social network with 2.2 billion active users as of 25th Jul 2018.
Again, you can’t achieve this level of success with a good home page or a website only. But we can get a lot of insights from a home page that converted over 2.2 billion visitors into active users.
Are you thinking that it worked for Google, Dropbox & Facebook but I don’t have that big idea
Think again, the following are a couple of successful blogs, which are excellent case studies of building websites with a clear “WHY” and minimalist design.
James Clear
Leo Babauta – Zen Habits
The Minimalists
Lessons learned on how to build a website from these success stories:
- A clear “WHY” of doing what you do
- Your idea must solve a problem that enough people are facing
- Do your best to convey the above two through your website
- How to build a website is only one part of this puzzle
Step 3 – How to Build a Website With WordPress – Development Part
Most people start building a website journey from this step. As Simon explained in his golden circle, most companies go inwards.
What >>> Why instead starting from Why >>> What.
You can rest assured of being way ahead of the competition if you have started with the “WHY” first and this “WHAT” part (website development process) will be super easy.
Register a Domain Name
A domain name is your address on the web. You want to choose it carefully because it will represent your brand to the world.
- .com extension is my all-time favorite
- Keep it short
- Easy to spell
- Easy to remember
- Have the keyword – don’t stuff it
- Avoid numbers and hyphens
You can try tools like PanaBee to explore ideas for your domain name.
Some hosting companies also help you get a domain name.
I personally like to keep my domain name separate from my web hosting because if you ever get into bad terms with your hosting company, you can move to the host without any problem to keep your most valuable asset (domain name) safe.
I use Name Cheap and Godaddy for domain name registrations.
Buy Website Hosting
You need a website host like SiteGround to store your website data online to keep your website live.
Once you have a domain, head over to SiteGround or your preferred hosting provider to buy a hosting plan based on your website needs.
SiteGround is officially recommended by WordPress and I use them to host most of my websites as well.
Install WordPress
There are many different options to create your website but my all-time favorite is self-hosted WordPress.
I love WordPress because:
- Easy to start
- You own your content
- WordPress has 65.1% of the CMS market share
- A huge selection of plugins
- Easy to find WordPress support
There are all sorts of websites out there, which are built using WordPress. For example, The Walt Disney company is powered by WordPress.
Let me show you how to install WordPress using Siteground hosting.
- Login to your account and follow the steps below:
- Click on the accounts tab > C-panel red button.
Make sure you have updated the name servers of your domain to SiteGround before you start the WordPress install process.
3. Click on the WordPress installer
4. Choose your setup options and the correct domain name from the drop down.
5. Name your website and add a description.
6. Create a username to log in to WordPress. Never leave it to the default username, create something unique to you and choose a strong password.
7. It is time to click install WordPress finally.
Once you have successfully installed WordPress on your domain. You are ready to customize your WordPress theme as per your website design you have created in step 2 above.
If you need help with these steps, you can see easily seek WP support.
Login to your WordPress
You can log in to your WordPress dashboard using yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
Enter your login credentials here.
You will see the following screen, your own WordPress dashboard.
Design Your Website
Once you have successfully installed WordPress on your domain, you are ready to customize the look of your WordPress website as per your design.
This is the fun part!
You generally have two options when it comes to design.
You can either, choose a theme that reflects your design, which you have created in step 2 above or you can hire a WordPress developer to develop a custom WordPress theme as per your design requirements.
Choose a Theme
A theme is a collection of templates that control the appearance of your WordPress website.
There are 1500+ amazing themes available to choose from the WordPress theme repository.
You can pick a theme and customize it as per your design requirements.
You can access these free themes from your dashboard simply by going to Appearance > Themes.
If you are building a business website, I highly recommend using a premium theme such as Genesis Framework by StudioPress.
Custom WordPress Theme
If you can’t find a theme that fits your design, you can find a WordPress developer to develop a custom WordPress theme for your website.
There are a lot of great WordPress developers out there.
Add Content
“Content is King” in January 1996, Bill Gates wrote this essay, which was published on the Microsoft website.
It is certainly proved to be true.
Make sure you give it your best shot when creating content for your website. Most businesses require at least the following content pages to launch their website:
- Home Page -Keep it simple, make sure it explains your “WHY” as explained above.
- About Page – This is the most visited page on most websites. Your website visitors want to know who is behind this website/business.
- Product/Services Page – A page that lists your products or services.
- Testimonials Page – Adding testimonials and reviews on your website increases your credibility.
- Portfolio/Case Studies Page – Showcase your past work. A great way to show off, how good are you at what you do.
- Contact Page – To add your contact details so your website visitors can find out how to contact you.
- Legals Page – Boring but a very important page. Don’t forget to add all the legal information that requires you to operate a website e.g. Website Disclaimer or a Privacy Policy.
- Blog – If you want to grow your website, it is important to learn how to blog and produce quality content regularly.
Install & Configure Plugins
WordPress plugins are like apps on your phone, which helps you to extend the required feature of your WordPress website.
Don’t go overboard by installing all the plugins out there.
I prefer to have bare minimum plugins on my WordPress website.
- Gravity Forms – Helps you add a contact form
- Yoast SEO Plugin – You need to manage your on-page SEO
- Sucuri – Helps you protect your website from bad people
- WP Rocket – Helps you improve your website page load speed
- Backup Plugin – You must keep a regular backup of your Website
Mobile First
You should follow the mobile-first mindset while building your website.
Because mobile traffic has taken over the desktop traffic.
And this figure is expected to rise by 4% per year.
With mobile users increasing by the day even Google has officially suggested that you use mobile-first rule when building your websites.
Desktop-only website days are long gone.
After 2012, when the world’s smartphone sales topped PC sales the trends started to change.
Nowadays you need a website that adjusts to all screen sizes.
Follow this WordPress website launch checklist before you go ahead and launch your website.
Don’t Relax Here, Keep Promoting
No matter how good your website looks.
You need to promote it and need to take it in front of as many people as you can. More eyeballs mean more leads and sales.
You can experiment with content marketing, social media, and paid ads to see what works best for you. Don’t forget to orchestrate what worked for you and keep eliminating what didn’t work.
Conclusion
Most people know how to do it and what to do it but they miss the point of why they are building a website. And the “WHY” is often made all the difference in the success of building a website.
As Simon writes:
“When most organizations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. And for good reason — they go from clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.”“When communicating from the inside out, however, the WHY is offered as the reason to buy and the WHATs serve as the tangible proof of that belief.”
Cheers to your website’s success!
Want to Learn More?
Here is a list of few other guides that will help you master WordPress.
- What is WordPress? All You Need to Know
- How to Build a WordPress Website From Scratch
- How to Decide the Best Hosting for WordPress
- What is WordPress Management? All You Need to Know
- Best WordPress Plugins – Ultimate List
- 11 Steps to Secure WordPress Website from Security Threats
- 15 Best WordPress Themes for Blogs, Business & Ecommerce
- 65 Types of WordPress Help Requests
- Ultimate WordPress Security Checklist – Updated 2020
- How to Conduct a WordPress Site Audit – A Compete Guide
General FAQ
Step 1: Why do you want to build a website? Discovery process
Step 2: How to design a website? Design process
Step 3: How to build a website with WordPress? – Development process
Source: https://wpsupportdesk.com/blog/how-to-build-a-website/
