I developed this site in less than an hour. And I am not boasting. If you are a beginner and don’t know anything about technology, you may take 2-3 hours to develop a responsive site.
For the newbies, responsive sites mean site layouts that provide best user experience across all devices like smartphones, tablets, and desktop monitors.
Here is a Step-by-Step guide to developing a responsive website:
Register a domain name
Our domain name is sixpl.com, which is registered on GoDaddy. Domain name is like your name that identifies unique IP Addresses or websites. A domain name is always unique and can be associated with only one website. You can register a domain name on GoDaddy at the cost of $10 per annum. If you are registering the domain for the first time, you can get it for free from web hosting providers as explained in next section.
Purchase Web Hosting
Web hosting, also known as web space or web server, is used to store all the data related to your website. The data pertaining to this article is hosted (stored) on a particular web server. When you type a domain name or a URL, the corresponding data is fetched from web servers and presented to you in the browsers. For the purpose of website development, we simply need to know about how to purchase the web hosting without going into details of its working. You can buy the web hosting from BlueHost. You can also get a domain name for free from BlueHost if you have not registered it already.
Update the Nameservers
Nameservers link the domain name and web hosting. When a user types a domain name into the internet browser, it is the nameserver that translates the domain name in computer’s language and links it with web hosting. If you have purchased the domain name and web hosting from different companies, you need to update the nameservers of the domains. Here is a guide on how you can update the nameservers on GoDaddy. If you have purchased the domain name from other companies, please log into the account and follow the same procedure. Except for the design and placement of menu items, the process of updating the nameservers is same for every domain registrars.
Install WordPress
WordPress is a free content management system that is used to develop dynamic websites. There are many inbuilt features, like navigation menu, creating new pages, users registration and login and much more that can be used to develop a great website. You can just drag and drop to integrate powerful features on your site. Note that the core of the WordPress helps you in developing various features of the site. For designing, look and feel, color combination, etc. WordPress themes are used, which we will address in the next section.
Install a New WordPress Theme
To change the design and layout of the website, you need to install a WordPress theme. There are hundreds of free themes that come inbuilt into the WordPress system. You can install any of the themes that are close to your requirement.
Customize the WordPress Theme
Once you have installed a theme, you can customize it further to change the color, layouts, navigation items, adding new plugins, etc. as per your requirements. And, like MS Office, you don’t need to know any coding to make these changes.
Write Content
At this stage, your website will be ready with the theme demo content. Now you need to write the content and post it on appropriate pages.
And you are done! That is all you need to develop a basic responsive website. There are several companies like wix.com and webs.com that provide domain name registration, web hosting, nameservers management and website builder all at one place. So you simply need to sign up with them and provide monthly fees to design and host your own website. While these services look ideal for beginners, the features, functionalities and design capabilities are highly limited. So, if you wish to integrate a new promotional feature on your website, you may need to hire an experienced developer to do that. The Plugin system in WordPress eliminates such difficulties. You can integrate 90% of the features of Time.com or forbes.com without writing a single line of code.
If you like this article, please share it on social media sites. You can also ask your queries through comments, and I will help you get started with your brand new website.
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