You don’t need code to make a website.
Most modern website builders allow you to make a fully custom blog, portfolio, or passion project website with simple drag and drop. These days any beginner can start an online business by setting up a website within half an hour. That’s crazy.
And even if you’ll need to use some code then most likely you’ll be able to figure out how through a simple YouTube tutorial or asking ChatGPT.
So in this guide, I’ll walk you through how you can make a website even if you’re a complete beginner.
Best Tools For Making A Website With No Code
What does a website need?
Every website needs 2 things to live on the internet – a domain name and host.
1. Domain name
The first thing that you will need to create a functioning website is a domain name. Think of it as a home address for your website. When people want to access your website they’ll have to type in that address in their browser’s search bar. A typical .com domain name usually costs up to $15 per year.
You can either buy a domain name separately or together with your hosting plan.
I recommend Namecheap as the best place to get a domain name for beginners because they offer the cheapest pricing.
2. Hosting
After you have a domain name you’ll need to get hosting. A host is like a home for your website – a server where the website lives. There are a lot of different hosting providers that offer features based on your specific needs.
Some e-commerce platforms such as Shopify have their own hosting built into their pricing plans so you don’t have to purchase it separately. So if you create a website with Shopify it will be hosted on their own servers.
If you’re thinking of creating a WordPress website then here’s a quick overview of the best hosting platforms for bloggers:
- Hostinger – best overall
- Namecheap – cheapest price
- EasyWP – best for WordPress site speed
- Nexcess – best for customer support
- Bluehost – best for beginners.
You can head over to my detailed guide for the best web hosting services to find the right fit for you.
How much does it cost to make a website?
It typically costs $5 a month to have your own website. The price mostly depends mostly on the hosting provider that you choose. If you go with something cheap, then you’ll have to pay even lower than that.
It’s important to mention that most hosting providers offer promotional discounts for the first year and then renew their prices at a higher rate. This means that if it cost you $50 to host a website for the first year the price might jump up to as high as $150 the following year.
When choosing the host for my website I went with a 4-year promotional discount through Hostinger and I have to pay $11.1/year for a domain name and $28.89/year for hosting for the first 4 years.
how to create a website with WordPress
The wast majority of websites currently online today use WordPress. It’s also the most popular tool for bogging.
Here’s a step by step guide on how to set up a website using WordPress.
1. Set up your hosting & domain name
The first thing that you need to set up in order to make a website with WordPress is to get a domain name and hosting.
Most hosting providers offer bundle deals if you buy a domain name together with hosting through them. I recommend getting hosting and a domain name through the same provider to save money.
I currently use Hostinger to host my website because it’s cheaper compared to everything else that I found out there. You can read my Hostinger review here.
Also if you want to compare and find the right hosting platform for you then here’s my guide on the best hosting providers for WordPress.
2. install WordPress
To install WordPress on your website all you have to do is go to your hosting provider and find WordPress. The installation will be done automatically with most hosting platforms and all you’ll have to do is click 1 button to set it up.
If you want to learn how to use WordPress I recommend this Skillshare course to start with.
It’s the one that I watched when I first started learning how to blog.
You can also take it completely for free with Skillshare’s 30-day free trial.
3. Edit your website without coding
The best way to modify your WordPress website without using any code is with Elementor. It’s a WordPress plug-in that adds a beginner-friendly website builder to WordPress and lets you edit your website with a responsive drag-and-drop.
You can also create and host your entire WordPress website through Elementor.
Of course, you can use the default WordPress page builder but I found that Elementor is a lot easier to use and it’s more beginner friendly.
I never looked back once I installed it on my site.
Why create a website?
When I didn’t have my website I wondered what can you even do with one.
Turns out – anything really. It can be a portfolio of your work, a place to store ideas, or my favorite – a blog. Not the kind of blog you’re thinking about.
A blog is essentially a list of useful resources. Just like a book but each chapter is about a different topic.
But why would you want to create a blog?
Having a website to blog seems so boring and outdated but blogging is still very much a massive opportunity to make BIG money.
I’m talking quit your job for life type of money. But how?
As with any online business, it takes a lot of time and patience but in 2 to 5 years’ time, you could retire if you go in hard on blogging.
Essentially what you need are a bunch of helpful articles that will rank on Google. 100 articles that are around 1500-2000 words each for the first year is a good benchmark to aim for.
It’s not easy, but not impossible.
And the best thing is that when you actually write those articles (100 or so) you then don’t have to do anything to make money. Your blog posts will get consistent traffic from Google for years to come.
Wouldn’t it be cool to make $1500 extra per month for the rest of your life for only 2-3 years of blogging (assuming nothing horrible happens and Google doesn’t disappear into thin air).
I think it’s worth suffering a bit for 2 years writing everyday to be able to quit your job and not work for someone else for the rest of your life.
So how do blogs really make money?
How do blogs make money?
Every time you Google something a result is either an annoying sponsored ad or a blog post. This is what blogs want, to rank high on Google search so a lot of people click.
But how do you rank on Google? Well you need to publish good, helpful content (usually in a type of an article) that people find useful. It’s that simple. A good article like that is usually 1500-2000 words.
These days people publish a bunch of articles (usually with the help of AI), they rank on Google and get traffic. And the point of all those people clicking on your blog post is to make money of course.
There are 3 ways that you can make money with a blog: affiliates, ads, and selling your own digital or physical products.
1. Affiliate programs
With affiliates, you join an affiliate network like Amazon Associates and promote a product to your audience in order to get a cut of the price for referring that person to that product.
The best part is that almost any brand these days has an affiliate program so you can basically recommend any product out there that you like. Think of your favorite apps, shoes, courses, Chrome extensions, etc.
When you join an affiliate program you’ll get a custom link for the product that you want to recommend.
Then you can put that affiliate link inside your blog posts and whenever people click on it and purchase that product or service you make a little bit of money.
For example, if you sign up for Skillshare through my link and watch some of my courses, decide that you like Skillshare, and don’t cancel your free trial, then I will make some money because I was the one who referred you to the platform.
The best affiliate networks to find brands to promote are PartnerStack and Impact.
2. Ads
With ads your website viewers will see ad placements all around your website which will earn you money. You need to get your website to a certain amount of monthly visitors to be able to join a good ad network.
For each visitor that sees an ad, the ad network will pay you a few cents. Some ad networks can pay ridiculous CPM’s like $30 per 1000 views which means if your website gets 50K views per month thats an easy $1500 per month for you just from ad revenue.
3. Selling digital or physical products
If you don’t like ads or recommending someone else’s products then what you can do is sell your own digital products.
The best products to sell on your website are digital products, like courses, digital planners, templates, pdf’s, e-books, notion templates or even wallpapers. Anything that fits what you’re blogging about.
You can use Payhip to list and sell digital products online for free.
But if you combine all of these 3 methods of making money with a blog (affiliates, ads, and your own products) then you can maximize the amount of passive income that you’re going to make.
how to make money with a website
Building a website that gets traffic is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It requires a ton of patience which is probably the most important virtue if you want to become successful with an online business.
“Persistence overshadows even talent as the most valuable resource shaping the quality of life.” – Tony Robbins.
Expand your time horizon. Think decades, not days.
The thing is, we usually overestimate what we can do in a year but underestimate what we can do in 5 years.
If you can stick with doing something for more than 1 year, whether it’d be starting a youtube channel or a blog but do it consistently, you will beat almost any other human on the planet because very few people can sit down every day for a year and work on something without seeing any results.
No one can compete with you if you puts in such an unreasonable amount of time into something. Others can only see it as delusional. But when you make they will think you’re a genius.
With that said, I hope you achieve all of your goals and I’ll leave you with this quote.
Whether you believe you can or you can’t – you’re right.