Okay, if you want to build your website and don’t know how, you came to the right place. But before you start thinking of design and actually understand the steps to build it, you have to work on understanding some of the fundamental questions.
Why do you need a website?
There could be many answers.
You may have your own reasons, say, you might want to run a small business, you might have a digital product to offer, or you might have something to sell. All these can be a good reason to start. The reason we need to document the why is because your why will determine your design and tailor the process.
For me, my why was to house all my writings in the same place. I wanted a place that, if visited by anyone, would get a rough idea about what kind of person I am. I didn’t build my website for ads or promotions. It was a fun project and I love to maintain it by publishing on it at least once a week.
Fair point, I hope you have spent a few days documenting your why, now let’s move on to what.
What do you want your website to look like?
There are two approaches to finding an answer to this question. If your drawing is good and have been surfing other websites that offer similar content, you can start on a blank paper, what your website should look like. What buttons, features, and what images it might have? What would be its menu etc?
Or if you are like me, who is either lazy to draw things on paper or have no idea what to imagine then you better the deepest corners of the internet and start benchmarking similar websites. Whichever design you like the most, you make a note of it. Then start using that design as a base to customize and design your website’s look.
I fall into the later stage. To house my content on the website, I decided that it should be a blogging-type website that shares exclusive information on disability. I went through a lot of disability blogs before settling on the design I have here.
Here are some of those websites for your reference on disability blogging-
- http://www.wheelchairmommy.com/
- https://curbfreewithcorylee.com/
- https://havewheelchairwilltravel.net/blog/
To Get Inspired, Here are some of the good design samples-
- Themes for blogging
- Design samples
Ok, you have the look in your mind. Cool. Now the next hard part.
What is the site map for your website?
This answer will optimally decide how to distribute the information you want to share with the world over the website. It is directly linked to the menu design which plays a critical role in navigating the visitor through your content. It has to be simple yet powerful enough to show the visitor the desired information as soon as possible.
Well, I don’t think I have a very simple site map for my website but I think it works for me.
Great, now that you have all of your services, products, or blog categories lined up as per your content, and the site menu is also ready.
Just one little thing before we proceed with the next steps. If you wish to make money with your website then you need certain mandatory pages available on your website, without which getting a Google AdSense approval is difficult so please make note about it.
- Must-have pages for a website
- About us
- Contact us
- Author pages
- Privacy policy
- Disclaimer
- Disclosure for selling products
Good font size for the websites-
- Usually, these are the good fonts recommended for the websites
- Open sans
- Roboto
- Merriweather
A website needs a logo-
A logo should represent the website. Make a free logo on logo maker- logomakr.com- size has to be 512 x505
Images for your website –
- Here are some of the free images that you can use without copywriting issues, for the website -the image size has to be – 1920×1280
AI Websites for creating stunning images-
- https://twitter.com/iam_chonchol/status/1711248960755757129?t=V1IXMvg3nrrjwfWZnZBqWw&s=08
- https://app.leonardo.ai/ai-generations
- https://lensgo.ai/creatImage
How to make a website with WordPress?
WordPress is a content manager which is essential for managing a blog. Here are 2 videos that will teach you, how to make a website, end to end. As you can see, my website is heavily influenced by below the two videos-
If you find them too complicated, then here are some other reference videos-
- Brian from the website learner yt channel is superb in learning website-building skills.
- Ai Website builder
How to let Google know your website is live?
- Intermittent users help guide for adding a website to search engine: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/10267942?sjid=674519644632027390-AP
- Go to Google Console and put your domain name there to get a unique text DNS server name text ID string.
- That string needs to be added in website hosting (Hostinger>domains>DNS server names). Type is text and points to the field where you need to put Google’s text ID and leave everything as is. Hit enter.
- Go back to the Google search console and verify the property ownership. Then we need to add the site map in the Google search
- From all Seo WordPress plugins, you need to copy the sitemap link and upload it to the Google Consoles sitemap section
- Monitor page indexing status and if any issues, reinitiate the paging.
- If You Follow the Steps In The Help Guide/Mentioned Above, You Should See Your Website In The Search Console’s Dashboard Link -https://search.google.com/search-console
One of the ways to monetize your website –
you need to enable ads on it. So here is a way to enable that. First, it is important, to build organic traffic on your website by putting out quality content. Use the below link to connect and enable AdSense-
A Blogging website supercharged by Keywords –
- Now, either you can write content and hope that the right readers will find your blog or you approach blog writing from the other way around. You find out what people are searching for and write it by doing research.
- Based on the topic of your website, you can find on the below the website what keywords are being searched by the world for your topics-
- Once you have the keyword, you can generate unique, quality blog content ideas from the below sites-
- Now, that you have a keyword and a blog idea, you can use the below methods to write blogs as well-
- Would you like to make videos for advertising content from your blogs?
- How to add an Email subscription to your website
- Would you like to share your blogs via share buttons then, here you go-
Hope this blog helps you on your journey of making a website, blog writing, and monetizing.