How To Create My Own Website?

Some of us love to learn to do things on our own. We love the challenge, the feeling of accomplishment, and the feeling of self-ownership. So when a client says to me: “I want a website, but I want you to guide me to do it on my own so I have the skills to do it in the future” we completely understand where they are coming from. In this blog we explain the process of how we guide our clients to create their own website.

Here are the guided steps to create your own website:

1. Client Questionnaire:
   Every project starts with this step. This is a set of questions that helps the client set their intentions and organize their thoughts. At the same time, it guides the website planner to understand what pages, forms, galleries, and other functions are needed. This questionnaire becomes the skeleton of the project to create your own website.
2. Choose a Theme:
   Before our first meeting, the client searches for inspiration in WordPress Themes. Together we choose a theme that fits their aspirations.
3. KeyWord Research:
   Before creating the website, we look at Google KeyWord Planner tool to understand what words people are searching for in our niche. This is helpful to have in mind when writing content for the site.
4. Go Over WordPress Basics:
   The first session is dedicated to going over the basics of WordPress. How to activate a theme? How to add a page, images, posts, etc? By the end of the first session, the client knows how to work on their homepage and inner pages. We leave the first session with homework to continue working on the site.
5. Weekly Follow Ups for Accountability and Questions:
   We dedicate the next few weeks to weekly check-ins. During these meetings, we go over any questions and set goals for the next week. The aim of these meetings is to create accountability and keep the client in check to reach their goals.
6. Upgrade WordPress Plan and SEO Basics:
   Once the client finishes working on the pages and content of the site, it is time to upgrade to the business plan. We upgrade to the business plan because it gives us free access to plugins and opens the ability to Yoast SEO. We spend time understanding the Yoast SEO free plugin and how it works. The client receives homework to go back to all their pages to fill out the Yoast SEO plugin.
7. Transfer to your Domain:
   Until now our site was on the free wordpress URL. Now that we are ready to launch, it is time to change over to our own domain. This step is done together over video conference to assure it is done correctly. If everything is good, we will turn the site LIVE at this time.
8. Search Console and Google Analytics:
   I like to put all my clients websites on Google Analytics and Search Console. Google Analytics gives a much more in depth look into the site’s analytics than WordPress. The client gets a tour and explanation of the platform. Search Console helps us understand what keywords people are using to reach our site in the long run. In the short run, it is used to ask Google to crawl the site and index it. Every time you add a new blog, you can submit in on Search Console for google to index it. Lastly, search console will raise any technical issues the site may have.
9. That’s it. Once your website is live, it is good practice to keep it up to date, log in to update WordPress versions and plugins, and add more content.