Creating a website used to be a huge pain. You had to learn complicated coding languages or hire expensive web developers. But those days are over! Now anyone can make a beautiful, professional website in no time at all.
In this post, we’ll walk through how to quickly build and launch your own UK-based website in about an hour. No technical skills required. We’ll share tips to get your site up fast using Hostingly UK’s easy website builder and hosting.
Whether you’re a small business, blog, or just want a strong online presence, a website is a must these days. But it doesn’t need to be difficult or expensive! With the right tools, you can have your own stylish site before your lunch break is over.
Let’s get started and build that website of your dreams!
How to Prepare to Build a Website
Before we dive into actually building your website, let’s make sure we have all the key elements ready to go. Having a solid plan in place first will set you up for website success down the road.
Figure Out Your Website’s Purpose
What’s your website all about? Is it for your business, creative portfolio, blog, or something else? Defining your website’s main goal and objective is crucial. This purpose will guide the design, content, and features we pick later on.
Take a moment to get clear on why you want a website and what you hope it will achieve.
Get to Know Your Ideal Visitors
Now think – who is your website really for? Your target audience should be at the heart of every choice you make.
Get clear on who they are, what they want, and how your site can help them. We’ll craft the experience to be perfectly aligned with your ideal visitors.
Gather Your Website Building Blocks
Finally, pull together all the raw materials your website needs: photos, text, videos, etc. Having this high-quality content ready to go will make the building process smooth sailing.
Take the time upfront to set your website up for success. Your future website visitors will thank you!
Okay, with that groundwork laid, you’re ready to start bringing your website to life. Let’s do this!
How Much Does it Cost to Create a Website?
Building a website is an investment for sure, but it doesn’t have to break the bank. Let’s break down what goes into the price tag so you know what to budget for.
The Web Address
First up is paying for your custom domain name (the www.yourwebsite.co.uk part). This usually runs Ā£10-15.
But good news! Many of Hostingly UK’s hosting plans toss in a free domain, so you can skip this cost altogether.
The Hosting Fee
Hosting covers renting space on a server to store all your website files. This is the recurring monthly or yearly cost.
Hostingly UK’s packages start at just 7/month for our Starter plan. This works great for smaller sites and blogs. From there, plans scale up based on your needs and budget.
Extra Bells and Whistles
Premium themes and plugins can jazz up your site’s design or add neat features. But don’t sweat this part – Hostingly UK’s website builder (much like the GoDaddy website builder) has tons of free and paid themes to pick from.
So, what’s the damage compared to hiring a fancy web developer? Usually between Ā£2,000-10,000, depending on the functionality of your website and the features you need. Yowza!
So yeah, this will always be the more affordable route, which makes it great for getting started and building your online presence!
How to Select the Perfect Domain Name
Picking the right domain name is mega important. This is your website’s address – it needs to be easy to remember and fit your brand.
Here’s how to find your perfect match:
#1 – Represent Your Brand
Your domain should capture the essence of you. Come up with options that sum up your website or business in a catchy, memorable way.
Make sure it’s simple to spell too! You want visitors to get your URL right on the first try. People are fickle these days, and if they can’t find what they’re looking for instantly, they’ll move on to something else.
Usually, a competitor’s website.
#2 – Keep It Short
Shorter is better when it comes to domains. Go for something snappy that rolls off the tongue. Something that people instantly know and remember. Facebook. Twitter. Amazon. Punchy and concise works best. Stick to about 2-3 words max. The fewer characters, the better.
No one’s going to remember mysmallbusinessltdinlondon.com.
#3 – Check Availability
Once you’ve brainstormed your domain options, plug them in to see if they’re available.
You can check .co.uk domain availability right in Hostingly UK’s domain search tool. Act fast if you find a good one – you don’t want it snatched up!
#4 – Consider Extensions
The domain extension comes after the dot, like .co.uk. For a UK site, .co.uk is your best bet for authority.
Other options like .com or .net work too. Just avoid hyphens or numbers – they’re confusing.
With the right domain in hand, you’re ready to conquer the web! Let your brand shine with a domain visitors won’t forget.
#5 – SEO
Including relevant keywords in your domain name can positively impact SEO rankings, helping your website rank higher in the results of the search engines. Think of your target audience’s primary search terms when exploring domain options.
Choosing the right domain name is a crucial decision when building your website, as it forms the basis of your online identity. To select the perfect domain name, consider the following factors:
#6 – Consider Your Target Audience
A domain name should also be tailored to your target audience. If your website specifically targets a UK audience, choosing a .co.uk domain extension might provide a greater sense of locality and relevance.
Domain Name Options
There are a variety of domain extensions available to choose from, including:
- .com ā the most popular and recognised globally
- .co.uk ā the top choice for websites explicitly catering to the UK market
- .org ā often used by nonprofit organisations
- .net ā a popular choice for online businesses and technology-related projects
Take the time to weigh these factors and examine your domain name options carefully. A well-selected domain will serve as an invaluable asset to your website’s success.
How to Build a Website in One Hour
Alright, you’ve got your domain, hosting plan, and content ready to go. Time for the fun part – actually creating your site!
With Hostingly UK’s beginner-friendly website builder, you can have a fully functioning site up in about an hour. No techie skills needed!
We’ll walk you through the super simple step-by-step:
Step #1 – Starting Your Website (Time: 5 Minutes)
Alright, time to kick things off and get your site set up! Here’s what to do:
Sign Up With Hostingly UK
First, create your free Hostingly UK account. Just enter a username, password, and email to register. Quick and easy.
Choose Your Plan
Next, pick the right hosting plan for your needs. Whether you just need basics for a simple site or more power for a business, Hostingly UK has options for every budget.
Buy Your Domain!
With your plan selected, let’s lock down your custom domain name. Search for available .co.uk names and snag the perfect one for your brand.
And that takes care of the website basics! With your account, hosting, and domain ready to go, you’ve got everything you need to start creating your site.
Our friendly support team is here for you every step of the way, even if you’re a total newbie. So take a deep breath and dive on in. Your website awaits!
Step #2 – Picking a Domain Name (Time: 10 Minutes)
Choosing your domain is super important – this is your website’s address and identity! Follow these tips to pick the right one:
Show Off Your Brand
Pick a name that captures the essence of your business or site. Keep it short, sweet and easy to remember. You want it to stick in people’s minds!
Boost Your SEO
Include a main keyword in your domain to help boost search rankings. But don’t overdo it – just one key term is ideal. More will look spammy.
Consider the Extension
The .co.uk extension looks best for UK sites. But .com and .net work great too. Avoid complicated hyphens or numbers, though.
Your domain name is your first impression online – make it count! Pick something visitors won’t forget that represents your brand.
Basically everything we shared in the guide above! Don’t forget this step is crucial, so take your time finding that perfect domain. Once you’ve got it, let’s continue the website fun!
Step #3 – Choosing a Hosting Plan (Time: 10 Minutes)
Okay, hosting.
This is where the service that your website will sit on and the reason it will be accessible to others. Therefore, you need a reliable, high-performing service that hosts well, gives a fast, secure experience, and has everything you need to create a website easily.
Fortunately, Hostingly UK offers three main categories of hosting and website builder plans, each with unique features designed to cater to different requirements.Ā
Let’s break them down:
Website Hosting
The fundamental website hosting plans are designed with simplicity and affordability in mind. They’re perfect for individuals, small companies, and bloggers who need dependable services without breaking the bank.Ā
Here are our core Website Hosting plans:
- Stardust (Starter): Ideal for small websites and blogs with minimal traffic, this plan offers 10GB of SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth, starting at just Ā£7 per month.
- Cosmic: Geared towards growing websites and studios, this plan offers 25GB of SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth and scope for five websites, starting at Ā£11 per month.
- Celestial: Host an unlimited number of websites, unlimited bandwidth, backups of your website automatically every four hours, and a free website domain included, all for only Ā£18 per month.
Business Hosting
Our Business Hosting plans cater to medium to large-scale businesses or eCommerce websites that require expanded resources and higher performance. Check out our Business Hosting offering:
- Stellar: Unlimited websites, bandwidth, an x2 speed boost, and priority support, everything you need to host the most amazing websites with everything technical handled on your behalf. Prices start at Ā£37 per month.
- Orion: Need faster speeds? Orion includes everything from the Stellar package, just with a 4x speed boost and automatic backups every four hours. Prices start at Ā£67 per month.
- Solaris: Everything that’s included in the other packages, just with our maximum speed boost offering for the utmost fastest speeds. Prices start at Ā£97 per month.
And don’t worry; every hosting plan comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can with building your business online without any risk.
Reseller Hosting
Looking to resell hosting services to your clients or customers? Want to easily offer your own hosting packages, all with your own branding, features, and pricing? Check out these plans to get you started:
- Comet: Offer up to 25 cPanel accounts with 25GB of SSD storage, unlimited databases, SSL security built-in as standard, daily backups, and everything else needed for a fluid and streamlined experience. Prices start at a simple Ā£20 per month.
- Galaxy: Over 50 cPanel accounts, 100GB of SSD storage, unlimited everything. More scope, more opportunities to build your business. Easy access for just Ā£35 per month.
- Nebula: The mega business package. 100 unique cPanel accounts, 250GB of storage, and unlimited everything else, all UK-based, so you can offer your customers the best connection and speeds. All for only Ā£70 per month.
Again, all packages come with a 60-day, no-questions money-back guarantee, so you can build in peace without worrying about any financial loss! And if you’re just starting out, start with the Comet package and scale up as and when you need to!
Simply select the website hosting package that best suits your business needs and goals, and away you go!
Step #4 – Use a Website Builder to Build Your Website (Time: 30 Minutes)
You’ve got your domain, hosting plan, and content ready to go. Now it’s time for the fun part – using Hostingly UK’s website builder to bring your site to life!
This step is a breeze thanks to the intuitive drag-and-drop website builder. No technical skills needed! The tool handles the heavy lifting, freeing you up to focus on what matters most: making your site distinctly yours.
In just 30 minutes, you can have a professional, visually appealing website up and running. Let’s see how it works.
Accessing the Website Builder
Once you’ve signed up, chosen the hosting plan, and registered your domain, it’s time to start building. There are two main website builders available, depending on which you’d like to use, and they support all the major platforms.
This includes;
- WordPress hosting
- Magento
- Opencart
- Joomla
- Prestashop
- Drupal
Each of these is known for being fast, having a ton of customisable themes available for them, and creating high-quality websites with ease. Many of them even have built-in SEO tools, so it’s super easy to manage your search engine optimization tasks and get ranking.
Just pick the one that best suits your needs!
Choosing a Template
These days, you never have to build a website from scratch since there are just so many website templates out there. Whatever your business, whatever your branding and style, take a look through the available templates.
There are plenty of free, mobile-friendly templates out there to get started with, or for a few extra bucks, you can get a premium one. It’s up to you and your budget.
However, which one you choose is really up to you, but the trick is not to get caught up in trying to find the “perfect” website template. It doesn’t exist because this is your new website, so you don’t actually know what your customer needs are or what will work best.
What you need to do is to see your website as a living, breathing entity that will evolve over time. Get it set up and functional, with all your content in place, as quickly as you can. And then tweak, edit, improve, remove, and enhance pages, content, and features over time, as and when needed.
Whether you’re running a business, starting a blog, establishing an online store, or showcasing a portfolio, there’s a template for you. Just remember, it’ll look very different in several years, so don’t try and get that now.
Done is better than perfect.
Customising the Template
Once you’ve picked your starting point, it’s time to make it your own.Ā
Our website builder’s drag-and-drop system makes it easy to customise every detail. You can replace the images with your own images, change the text, adjust the layout, and add or remove sections until your site suits your vision.
Add all the content to suit your business, add your contact details, and if you’re creating an online store to sell products, add your products now so you can actually sell online. You’ll have a stunning website in no time at all!
Adding Website Functionality
To help improve the online experience and so you can add more value to your customers’ lives, we offer a range of add-ons like social media integration, contact forms, and SEO tools that can be easily incorporated into your website.
This includes built-in marketing tools, extra web pages, a landing page here and there, and automatic optimisation for mobile devices. Everything you need for a professional site.
Whatever features you need to make your website give your customers what they want, add them in now!
Review & Publish
When you’re happy with your website, and you think everything’s in place, go through it all from a customer’s perspective. Imagine you come across the website and you want to buy something or book a service.
Do all the links work? Do the pages connect? Is the information easy to find? Does the content have any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors?
Once you’re satisfied, with just one click, you can publish your website for the world to see.
Step #5 – Grab a Cup of Tea While You Publish (Time: 5 Minutes)
The exciting moment has come. It’s time to share your meticulously built website with the world. How, you might ask?Ā
Just one simple click.
And you’re done.
Now, when you type in your domain name from any computer or mobile device, you’ll come across your website.
It’s really that simple.
Of course, as we’ve said above, your job is not done. As you start to sell services, you’ll need to add them in. Your content will also change as your business evolves. Maybe you want to work on your SEO so you get more traffic, which could mean starting a blog page and using blogging tools, starting an email marketing campaign, adding a photo gallery, or growing your social media channels.
Whichever direction you want your business to take, don’t believe this is a one-and-done thing. Come back to your website regularly, keep it alive, and make sure it’s serving your business and your potential customers in the best possible way.
It’s this kind of approach that will ensure you succeed online.
Conclusion: The True Power of Efficiency (Total Time: 1 Hour)
And there you have it; within just an hour, you’ve embarked on the thrilling journey from having a mere website idea to seeing its realisation on the web.
Never has creating and launching your own UK website been so efficient or so accessible. We at Hostingly UK genuinely believe in removing barriers to entry in the digital world, giving you the tools you need to stake your claim on the web.
So, aren’t you amazed at how quickly and effortlessly you can transform your ideas into a fully functioning digital platform?Ā
That’s the true power of efficiency offered by Hostingly UK!
Get started with us today and have your website up and running within the hour. We can’t wait to see it!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you get web hosting for free?
We get it – “a free site” sounds pretty tempting when you’re making a website on a budget! Some companies do offer free web hosting services.
But before you jump on those free offers, know that they come with a lot of catches. You’ll likely get limited bandwidth, barely any storage space, turtle-slow speeds, and zero technical support. Not ideal!
Your best bet is to invest just a small amount into a legit paid host like Hostingly UK. The tiny price brings huge benefits: tons of resources, ultra-fast speeds, round-the-clock support, and rock-solid security.
In other words, don’t waste time wrangling free hosting’s restrictions. A few bucks a month with Hostingly UK gives you the freedom to build the site you really want!
Do you get web hosting and domain name together?
Yep, Hostingly UK makes it super simple by offering both in one place.
Once you’ve picked out the hosting plan that fits your site’s needs, you can seamlessly select your perfect domain, too. No jumping through extra hoops or using separate services.
We handle it all from start to finish, getting your site online quickly and hassle-free. Our bundled packages (complete with premium features and a ton of built-in tools) let you check two crucial steps off your own website launch checklist at once.
Streamlined, straightforward, done. That’s the Hostingly UK way.
Is web hosting cheap?
Web hosting prices definitely vary a lot depending on where you look. But the good news is, with Hostingly UK, you get rock-solid hosting that won’t break the bank.
Our paid plans start at just Ā£7 per month. Now that’s cheap! You get tons of resources and tools to build a fast, fully functional siteāall for the price of a fancy cup of coffee.
So, if you’re wondering whether quality web hosting has to be expensive, the answer is nope! Here at Hostingly UK, we keep costs low without compromising on service.
That means you can easily create a beautiful, mobile-friendly website on a budget. Affordable pricing plus powerful featuresāhosting can be cheap when it’s done right!
Does web hosting give you an email?
With Hostingly UK, the answer is yes! Our hosting packages come with professional email accounts using your custom domain.
That means you can have a sleek, branded email like “yourname@yourbusiness.com“. No more clunky default addresses.
Having matching emails and website domains lends a polished, trustworthy vibe to your brand. It shows clients and customers you mean business.
So, not only do we offer easy website building – we hook you up with a custom email to level up your brand, too! Just one more perk of choosing Hostingly UK for all your hosting needs.
What is a website builder, and do I need coding skills to use it?
A website builder is a stress-free way to make a siteāno coding or technical knowledge required!
With Hostingly UK’s website builder, you can use our drag-and-drop editor to, well, drag, drop, and click your way to a stunning website through the intuitive editor. No need to mess with complicated code or learn any tech skills.
Thanks to the huge template library, you can easily find a professionally designed layout that fits your vision. Tweak fonts, colours, and add your own content in just a few clicks.
So don’t worry if you don’t know the first thing about HTML or other programming languages. Hostingly UK’s website builder tool makes DIY web design simple and, dare we say, fun!
How long does it take for my website to go live after I click ‘Publish’?
The second you click that big, beautiful “Publish” button, get excited – your site is live!
Hostingly UK’s website builder tool pushes your website out in near real-time. Pretty cool, right?
Now, we do have to give a tiny disclaimer. DNS, the technology that directs people to your site, can take up to 24 hours to fully propagate across the whole internet.
But don’t stress! This short lag is totally normal and something all hosts deal with. Consider it the final countdown as the web eagerly awaits your awesome new site.
The bottom line: Once you officially publish with Hostingly UK, your website won’t be waiting long to go live for the world to see!