6 Steps To Create A Successful Website In 2024

It’s estimated that there are more than 1.5 billion websites on the internet in 2024. For your website to stand out and gain loyal visitors, it must be optimized in every way possible. This article is intended to give you a bird’s-eye view of how to create a successful website in 2024, breaking down the entire process into just six easy-to-understand steps.

Choose A Memorable Domain Name

You can imagine the internet as a huge city where every single building has a name. It’s no coincidence that the largest buildings in this city have the most memorable names (like Google.com or Amazon.com).

If you want your website to stand out as well and attract a lot of foot traffic and returning visitors alike, then you need to choose a name that everyone will easily remember. Here are some quick tips to help you distinguish memorable domain names from those that are forgettable:

• Do keep it short.
• Don’t use numbers and hyphens.
• Do consider your target audience.
• Don’t use words that are hard to pronounce.
• Do avoid doubled letters.

You can generate some pretty good domain name ideas using tools like DomainWheel and Nameboy. To check if a domain name is available, you can use the free domain name checker provided by Namecheap.

Select The Right Web Hosting Service

Remember how we compared the internet to a huge city with around 1.5 billion buildings? In reality, most buildings in this city are owned by specialized companies that rent them to people who want to establish an online presence without having to worry about the technical aspects of operating a web server.

The web hosting services provided by specialized companies can be separated into several main categories, including:

• Shared Web Hosting: This type of web hosting lets multiple websites share the resources of the same server (or multiple servers) — just like when multiple people live in the same apartment.
• Virtual Private Server Hosting: VPS web hosting services let customers rent an isolated part of a physical dedicated server — similar to how a single building can be split into multiple apartments.
• Dedicated Server Hosting: These web hosting services let you rent an entire server all for yourself — much like when a family rents an entire house.

Generally speaking, the fewer visitors your website has, the more people you can afford to share a single server with. If you’re just starting, then shared web hosting will likely work just fine for you.

Build A Well-Designed Website

Websites are built using technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP, among many others. The good news is that you don’t really need to understand them to build a well-designed website.

If you have a decent budget, you can let someone else build your website for you. On sites like Upwork, you can find plenty of skilled freelance web designers who can turn your vision into a functioning site.

Alternatively, you can use an easy-to-use content management system like WordPress or a web builder like WIX to assemble your website from pre-made parts.

Obviously, the DIY approach requires more time and effort, so we recommend it mainly to tech-savvy folks who are familiar with terms like FTP, backend, and frontend.

Perform Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Because the internet is such a massive place, your new website would never be discovered by anyone if it wasn’t for search engines like Google and Bing. They make it possible for users to find your website based on keywords and natural search phrases.

For search engines to recommend your website to as many users as possible, you need to perform the so-called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Simply put, SEO is a set of best practices to help your content rank higher. Here are some of them:

• Write well-researched content.
• Use descriptive headings.
• Include a meta title and a meta description.
• Create an XML sitemap.
• Optimize your website loading speed.

Entire books and websites are dedicated to SEO, but the best place to start is Google’s Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals online course.

Keep Your Website Security In Check

It’s estimated that 30,000 new websites are hacked every day. To prevent your website from contributing to this alarming statistic, you need to keep your website security in check.

To start with, make sure your content management system and server are both fully patched. Some web hosting services can help you with both, and those are the ones you should use if your tech skills are limited.

Since many successful website hacks involve weak or stolen passwords, it’s paramount that you use a strong, unique password for your administrator accounts.

Last but not least, you should always create backups on a regular basis so that you can quickly recover your website even if the worst happens.

Establish A Social Media Presence

You want everyone to talk about your successful website, and you can help make this goal happen by proactively establishing a social media presence. Here’s how:

1. Create accounts on all social media websites you want to use.
2. Align your social media branding with your website design.
3. Start sharing regular social media content.

Because it takes so much time and effort to establish and maintain social media presence, increasingly many website owners pay a dedicated social media person to handle everything for them.

Conclusion

We hope this brief introduction to the topic of building a successful website has helped you understand the road you need to follow in order to reach the end destination.

If you would like to learn even more information about web design, search engine optimization, web security, and other related topics, then we recommend you subscribe to the SaneChoice newsletter. SaneChoice is currently running a giveaway, so there’s a chance that your subscription will win you Apple AirPods.