How to Make a Personal Website Without Writing Code

Posted by Alex Stek on November 4, 2011 in Web Design Blog | 1 comment

“My friend is an [artist/rockstar/tortoise collector/model] and needs a website. They don’t have any money, so they asked me for help putting one together, but I don’t know where to start!”

As a web designer, I get asked to help people put together personal websites all the time. Most of the time, they aren’t looking for professionally-designed websites, they just want something they can post updates to without learning HTML. If you have 30 minutes and $50, you can get yourself a decent-looking website with relatively little hassle.

A good place to start is by following the steps outlined in the following video by Hank Green. This is basically the way I start creating every website. WordPress installation takes me about four minutes, for you it might take ten.

A clearer outline (and source) on the steps in this video: http://fourminutesite.com (http://fourminutesite NULL.com)

That’s a lot of information delivered very quickly. Here’s my step-by-step guide. I use different websites and hosting company to save money.

1. Find a domain name.
   BustAName.com (http://bustaname NULL.com/) is an okay place  to check names, my personal favorite is called Domai.nr (http://domai NULL.nr/), it suggests lots of alternate names and provides a list of availability for all of them, really fast. A full green box next to the name means it’s available.
2. Purchase hosting.
   Hank suggests that you use anhosting, I don’t have personal experience with them, but the absolute cheapest best hosting you can get is from a company called WebHostingPad (http://webhostingpad NULL.com/), and they offer basically the exact same package as anhosting for twenty four dollars less a year. Word of warning: Don’t use GoDaddy hosting. It’s overly expensive and hard to use.
3. Wait until the domain name is configured.
   There really isn’t much you can do here, it usually takes between 1 and 72 hours to set up a new domain name.
4. Install WordPress.
   Exactly as in the video. Check your email to find the login info, log into the cPanel (located at http://www.[yourdomain].com/cpanel), scroll down and click on “Softaculous”, click on “WordPress”, then click “Install”. Remember: you want to make sure the “In Directory” field is blank! Most hosts provide a very similar process for installing WordPress.
5. Check out WordPress!
   The final screen of the installation screen will provide you with two links. The first will take you to your website. The second, the http://[yourdomain]/wp-admin link, will take you to the administrator panel for WordPress.  Remember the /wp-admin url! That’s how you’ll always get to the administrator panel for WordPress.
   
6. Install a new theme.
   It is now really super easy to install a new theme for WordPress. After logging in to the admin panel at http://[yourdomain]/wp-admin, on the right side click on “Appearance” and then “Themes”. At the tabs at the top, click on “Install”. You can then search for themes to install, or click “Featured” to see the current favorites. When you find one you like, you can click the blue “Install” link next to the theme.
   (http://www NULL.epicwebsites NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/installing_theme NULL.jpg)

   Here's an example of a WordPress "Install Theme" page

7. Author some content.
   Posts are what you’re going to want to create if you’re writing a blog. Pages are what you want to write for static information, like an “About” page, or a “Contact Us” page. There are already some examples installed by default that you can play with.
8. Explore WordPress.
   WordPress is meant to be extensible and modular; which means that there is no definitive guide to how to use it. Different themes and plugins and configurations have different options hidden in different sub-menus. Just click around and explore and figure out what everything does.

A word of warning, however: some think or expect that creating a website is something that can happen overnight. Websites take time and effort and dedication from the author to create quality content. As we say in the web industry, “Content Is King!” I promise you the success of your amateur website will depend almost entirely upon the quality of your content.