Building a website may seem a challenging prospect, but what if I told you that you can do that in less than 60 seconds? Yes, that is entirely possible. Nowadays, creating a website doesn’t involve paying a techie an arm and a leg. You can do it yourself and even free. So, what do you need to build a website?

The following five things are essential for your website’s success.

1. Niche
2. SEO
3. Website hosting
4. Keyword research tool
5. Social media

A Niche

First of all, you need to define your niche.

A niche is the subject you will be blogging about on your website, in other words, it could be a product, service, or interest that will appeal to visitors to your blog.

It could be in any sector; financial, dating, making money online, pets, health, mental health, ecology, recycling, motorcycles, construction, and so on; basically, anything that you are interested in.

Your niche could be something you know a lot about, you have ample experience with, or even something of which you don’t have all the information yet but you want to learn all about it. As you research for and write your content, you and your readers learn about this niche as your website progresses.

When you pick your niche, you should narrow it down. Make sure the topic is not too broad.

Let’s take pets as an example. Pets could be dogs, cats, chinchillas, ferrets, mice, hamsters, parrots, etc.

If you pick dogs, you could narrow it down even further, let’s say, dog accessories, dog food, dog health, …

Once you have chosen what your website topic will be, you have found your niche. It is best to stick to it. You don’t want to confuse your readers by first blogging about dog beds and then about motorcycle helmets. You get the idea. 😉

SEO

It is vital to install SEO with your WordPress website. SEO means Search Engine Optimization, and this is essential to get your website noticed online. SEO will provide the tools to indicate your keywords, categories, and your blog post’s metadata; all three of those will increase online visibility of your website.

You can find SEO as a plugin. Some website hosts include SEO with your website. Wealthy Affiliate provides excellent website hosting. A free membership allows you 2 free websites with SEO, and a Premium membership at $49 per month gives you 50 websites. Both memberships also include top website hosting, which brings me to my next point.

Website Hosting

You need good and reliable website hosting. There are several online hosting platforms that will give you great hosting, but the best I have experienced is with Wealthy Affiliate. Your websites are kept up to date, website speed is excellent; and if you encounter any problems, the online support team is available 365 days per year. They will respond to your question within minutes.

I have dealt with many help desks and have had several tickets opened regarding issues I had with platforms or services, but nowhere have I seen such quick and efficient responses as with the Wealthy Affiliate online support team. It is truly impressive.

Keyword Research Tool

When you write a blog post, it is highly recommended that you research keywords for that post, in order to increase SEO. You want your article to get noticed, right? Social media can be a great help, but it isn’t advisable to rely only on social media. SEO is important, and a lot less changeable than social media.

Jaaxy is a great tool to research keywords. See here my review about Jaaxy. You simply type in keywords and Jaaxy will show you how many searches are done per month in Google for that particular keyword(s). It also displays the number of websites that feature blog posts with the same keyword and how high your SEO would be if you were to use that keyword.

Jaaxy is an important tool to have for anyone who is serious about blogging or building an online business.

Social Media

Social media are a useful additional means to get your website seen. Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and more allow you to share your website URL’s and blog posts with your followers, giving you great exposure. Your friends and followers will share and comment on your posts, thus increasing their visibility on social media.

Twitter is a wonderful social media platform and my personal favorite. Now, they are even going to add video tweets, which means that instead of writing your tweet you can tape it. For now, that feature is only available on IOS, but soon it should also be available on other systems.

Pinterest is also a wonderful platform to promote your website. Unlike other social media, it functions as a search engine where people go to find information about certain topics, such as recipes, dog care, cats, wedding dresses, you name it 🙂 If you want to increase exposure for your website, opening a business account with Pinterest is highly recommended.

Final Thoughts

These five points come as you grow your website. When you first set it up, the first thing you should take care off is getting SEO for your website. All in One SEO Pack is a good plugin. If you choose Wealthy Affiliate as your website host, your websites already include the All in One SEO package and you only need to activate it.

Starting a website is not as intimidating as it once used to be. This training video will show you how to do it in under 30 seconds.

If you need any additional information, Wealthy Affiliate offers 20 free courses that will teach you how to grow your website.

Let me know in the comments if you have any further questions.