Welcome to CCGTV! This is a daily video show where I answer your questions! Every weekday on YouTube, I’ll be answering YOUR questions and I am super excited!!  If you have a question you would like me to answer on a future episode of CCGTV, leave a comment below or email me at anna@classycareergirl.com.

“I have a domain. How do I build a website?” -Cassandra

It’s really not that complicated to get started building your website. That’s how I started and I continue to update and change my website myself.

This article is just going to be a basic overview of the steps you need to take. We aren’t going to get too technical but if you want to get more technical, make sure you check out this post-> How to Start a Blog in One Hour or Less.

Here is the overview because I think you just need to know the steps to take first.

Note: There are a lot of different ways you can build a website these days and a lot of new companies popping up trying to make it “easy” for you. Make sure you do your homework and choose the right platform first because it’s hard to change later on down the road. I would rather put in a little work upfront rather than go the easy way and face a mess of a situation a few months or a year in when you want to change your site.

I have built a lot of different websites and use the same exact process every single time. It has worked really worked well for me. I also was able to turn my websites into e-learning platforms and membership communities just by following the steps below, to begin with. Pick a platform that can grow with you.

How to Build a Website

1. Get a Domain

The first thing you need to do is purchase your domain. The cost of this is low at about $10 per year. Since in step 2 I recommend Bluehost, I would recommend just purchasing your domain through Bluehost as well to make it easy.

2. Create a WordPress.org Hosted Site.

I recommend using Bluehost to get started. I used Bluehost for the first 5 years of my blog and business. If you have a bigger website with more traffic as we have had recently, you’ll want to look at different options. What is going to happen is that Bluehost is then going to host your site. Usually, this is about $100 a year.

3. Install WordPress Onto Your Self-hosted Website

WordPress.org is what you will log into and what you will write your blog posts into. You can design it in WordPress and pick your colors and your font. WordPress is where you will also upload your photos into and create all of your website pages. You can easily upload WordPress.org through Bluehost directly.  Click here for my tutorial.

4. Pick Your WordPress Theme

Now, it’s time to upload your theme onto your WordPress site. Themes are what makes your website look how you want it to look. There are different options and it’s really nice because you don’t have to figure out all of the coding yourself. There are some free themes but most of the time you’ll have to pay for them. We recommend Studiopress.

Then you have your new site! You can now complete your website creation and add your services and blog pages all through WordPress. Time to start blogging! If you want to sell a product or service, you can add your purchase links with PayPal onto your website or use a WordPress plugin to help you.

This is really the basics. Don’t get overwhelmed. If I can do a simple blog post explaining the process, it’s not that difficult as you might think.

I am so glad I decided to create this website back in 2010. I say go for it. You never know what can happen by putting that first blog post out there.