The Ultimate Website Guide for Beginners: Step-by-Step Instructions to Create Your Own Professional Website

Create Your Own Professional Website

Do you want to create your own web site, but you don't know where to start?

Don't worry, creating a website is much easier today than it was a few years ago. If you know how to use MS Word or LiberOffice Writer, you can also build your own website.

Nine Reasons Why You Need Your Own Website

1. Your Own Website is Suitable for Various Purposes

   You can create a website that is perfectly tailored to your needs for virtually any purpose.

2. Many Products and Services Sell Much Better Online

   Whether you want to draw people's attention to your website or online store with print or online ads, you can present your products or services better with an internet site. Additional information, special offers, etc. make it much easier for you to attract new customers.

3. Today's Customers and Prospects Search Online

   It is necessary for self-employed people and entrepreneurs to have their own website today because the proportion of internet use is constantly increasing. The modern customer is mobile. Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are being used more and more frequently. To ensure that your website is displayed legibly on all devices and is easy to use, you need a responsives web design. This means you need a web design that is suitable for all mobile devices.

4. Make Your Website Your Flagship

   With your online presence you can present your company, your competencies and your portfolio in detail. you can present your company more extensively and clearly than it is possible in printed media.

5. With Your Website You Will Always be up-to-date

   You can easily keep your website up to date. Information that is no longer valid, new prices, new pictures or special promotions. That's no problem at all. Updating your web pages usually takes just a few clicks.

6. Your Website Makes You Accessible to Your Customers 24/7

   It is not only important for potential customers to find out about your company and your products, but also to get in touch with you. Your customers can reach you 24 hours a day via email. With a contact form, you can also receive visitors on your website who don't want to write an e-mail. On your website, your customers can get information 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world. If you run an online store, your customers can buy your products or services around the clock.

7. With Your Own Website You Present Yourself Europe-wide or Even Worldwide

   A website in multiple languages is relatively easy to realize today. This gives you the opportunity to attract new customers all over the world.

8. Inexpensive Marketing

   Finding interested customers via the internet is much easier and doesn't cost as much as via print media. The greatest advantage is that your advertising will be shown mainly to people who are really interested in your product. The basic requirement for online marketing is your own website. With online marketing, you reach your customers at exactly the right time. search engine optimization is necessary so your website is visible in the search results of Google and other search engines when a potential customer searches for your product or service.

9. Your Website Doesn't Have to be Expensive

   This is probably the greatest advantage. You can create your own website without much financial risk for just a few euros a month. An open source content management system (CMS) has few limitations and leaves a lot of room for creative ideas.

You have the following three options to create your own web pages.

Type of Website Creation	Main Advantage	Complexity
1. Website creation with a content management system (CMS)	Almost no technical limitations and creative freedom through freely selectable themes (i.e. design templates). Freely selectable plug-ins add additional functions to the CMS.	medium-difficult
2. Website creation with a Web Page Building Kit. Also called Page Builder or Site Builder.	Fully prepared standard designs and extra easy drag-and-drop operations, but very many technical limitations. Therefore, there is hardly any room for creative ideas. As the name suggests, a homepage builder is not a SEO tool. SEO functions are usually hardly taken into account. This is also the biggest shortcoming of these do-it-yourself tools. For serious purposes, these Web Page Creation Kits are not suitable.	very easy
3. Develop the website from scratch by yourself.	This is the supreme discipline without any restrictions. All developers who need absolute freedom must develop their websites from scratch. To go this path, you need at least solid knowledge of HTML and CSS, and you should also be able to use a server-side programming language with confidence.	very complex

CMS or Site Builder – What is the Difference?

The two terms website builder (also called homepage builder and content management system (abbreviated as CMS) are often used interchangeably. But if you're looking for the perfect tool to build your website, it's important that you know the difference.

With a CMS, you can manage the contents of your web pages. Many CMS are open source software, so you can use them for free. By using different themes, you can customize the design of your website. In most cases, the same layout is used for each web page of the site. With numerous (mostly free) plug-ins, the functionality of the CMS can be extended for almost all use cases.

In contrast to a CMS, a Web Page Builder is a tool that allows you to easily assemble your website by dragging and dropping standard building blocks. For the design of your website, only very simple layout options are available. In terms of design and function, these website construction kits are not flexible. These tools leave very little room for your creativity.

Technically sophisticated functions or complex UI elements (user interface component) are not possible. These construction kits are not recommended because of their clear disadvantages compared to a CMS.