So, you’ve registered your .com/.co.uk/.scot domain name and you’ve got great ideas for what you’d like to see on your website, but how do you get the ball rolling? If you’re not sure where or how to start, we have some thoughts and suggestions that might help.

First, we think that it is better to have a website than not. Any potential customer trying to get to your website and not finding one installed might think there is something wrong with you or your business, and end up going elsewhere. Having an active website at least gives them the impression that you are still around.

Your website doesn’t have to be big. It can vary in size from a simple one-page site giving basic contact details, through a medium-sized site with several pages including Home, About Us, Location and Contact pages, etc.

Depending on your skills, there are several ways you can create a website, ranging from template-driven sites to manual coding (for the more technical among you).

Template Systems

There are two web creation systems that we recommend. Both are aimed at people with no coding skills. Both systems are free to add to one of our hosting packages.

The first system is WordPress. This is a free system and is used by millions of website owners around the world. We can install the basic package for you, and then you can customise it by adding pages, plugins, themes, etc. Because it is widely used, there are lots of these add-ons available, including shopping cart plugins which you can use to set up an online shop. (Note: this requires Supercali Linux hosting or one of the Hostworld site hosting plans)

The second system is the Hostworld Website builder. The builder allows you to create responsive websites using a choice of over 200 templates, to incorporate ecommerce, plugins and even go multilingual. The site builder has an import function so you can copy over website content from an existing website to save you time on a re-design.

To try the builder for free, before you opt to buy a hosting plan, head over to the website and scroll down to the “Try Builder” button. The temporary builder allows you to try the functions for a day before resetting.

Build it Yourself

Both of the above are online web creation systems, ie you log into the website’s control panel or dashboard and create the site while you are logged into it. Rather than editing your site online where everyone can see your changes, you could create your website offline, on your own PC, and then upload it to our hosting servers using FTP software. This approach can be useful in that you can hide any changes being made to the site until everything is ready, and then publish all the changes together at once once you are ready and have tested them. We recommend using FileZilla FTP Client software to connect your PC to our server. This is free software, and you can download it from the Filezilla Project website.  There are many web development tools out there for creating pages, or you can even use Microsoft Word.

Redirection/Pointing/Third Party Systems

If you already have a site under a different domain name, we could reroute your web address to make it point to this site. Note that Google will sometimes penalise sites where two different domain names point to the same page. But you could create a special landing page for the redirected domain name to try to get round this.

Another way you can easily create your own website and link it to your domain name is to use third party web creation sites such as Wix, Weebly and Squarespace, or even link it through to your Facebook page.

Don’t be Stuck! Get in Touch!

Please contact our friendly help desk on 01381 600580 or by emailing [email protected] if you want to start setting up your new site, or want to discuss these options further and find out more about them.