In this post, I’ll show you how to create a successful website without having any prior experience.
With all the endless supply of information online it can be pretty overwhelming if you don’t have any experience. This is why instead of trying to become an expert in all these little areas I looked up some online tools, plugins, and communities that have something close to “do it for you” features you can use without needing to be an expert.
This post will contain plugins, tools, platform for:
- Hosting and getting a domain name
- Content management
- Security
- Themes
- SEO
- Lead conversion
- Email marketing
- Support
My definition of a successful Website
Everybody defines success in different ways and the same goes for what we call a successful website. I value your time so I’ll give you mine definition for a website so you can choose for yourself if you want to spend time reading this post.
In my opinion, a successful website is a website that:
- Communicates the message you want to send to your website visitors through the way it looks
- Is able to drive traffic to your website without spending money on advertisement
- Is able to efficiently convert leads that arrive on your website
- can make money without having to check up on it every day
If you’re interested in making a website like this or transform your current website in a passive source of income but you have zero or close to no experience with creating successful websites read further.
It all starts with finding proper Hosting and a fitting domain name
Hosting
Hosting is one of the most important parts of creating any kind of website. The host provides you with space you can store all the content you’re going to create. It’s important to find a provider that fits your website.
Domain name
The domain name can be compared to an address. People can find you by looking up your domain name. Ideally, you should give your website a self-explanatory name that’s easily brandable.
There is one provider I’d recommend for hosting and getting a domain name:
SiteRubix
My websites are all on SiteRubix a provider backed up by wealthy affiliate.
I went for SiteRubix because of:
- 2 free .siterubix.com domain names you’ll get with the free account
- Unlimited hosting
- Access to WA-university certification course where you learn to build a website and make it SEO ready.
- No restrictions when it comes to promoting products by using affiliate links.
Try out siterubix right here.
Content management system
Honestly… just go for WordPress. It’s the most popular cms and most themes and plugins are made for WordPress.
Themes
A theme is the face of your website and is very important when it comes to communicating what your brand is all about to website visitors. In the past, you’d have to be able to code or pay someone to make your website look good nowadays that’s no longer necessary. Now we have pre-made themes that can save you a lot of time and still give your website a professional look.
A few examples I’d recommend are:
XthemesA multi-functional WordPress theme that gives your website the professional look it deserves. Inside the theme are four different stacks with completely different designs for your website.
How the stack are described:
Stack 1 Integrity: A clean look for websites of all purposes
Stack 2 Renew: flat and purposeful with no borders or shadows
Stack 3 Icon: Modern and minimal with creative touches
Stack 4 Ethos build for news and magazine related content
With Xthemes its possible to:
- drag -and drop page builder
- Mobile responsive
- custom fonts and Icons
- Member page options
- Create forms
- SEO friendly
- and much more.
A solid WordPress theme with excellent site speed, extremely customizable and very handy shortcodes.
Check out the theme for yourself at the Xthemes website.
I haven’t got the chance yet to write a proper review about it but here’s a review from income school
Thrive themes: Thrive Architect
A plugin from Thrive themes that help you create your website with the help of a visual pages builder. Simple and fast no need for code.
With Thrive Landing pages you’ll get access to:
- Instant drag -and drop editing
- 271 Landing page templates
- Pre-built conversion elements to optimize sales
While a lot of WordPress themes are focused on giving your website a professional look thrive themes also help you with converting your website visitors.
The plugin on its own is very handy but I’d recommend to check out there thrive themes membership which is pretty cheap too and you’ll get access to all their plugins. I wrote an in-depth review about their membership and all the plugins you’ll get access which you can find right here.
Search engine optimization
In my opinion, a successful website is one that has eyes on it. It should be able to drive traffic towards it.
SEO is one of the best ways to do it because you don’t have to invest a lot of money and once a website ranks high it seldom lowers from rank. This means passively highly targeted traffic is coming to your website 24/7 for free.
There’s a lot that goes into SEO luckily these are plugins you can use to make it easier for you.
All in one SEO plugin
Wordpress plugin that makes optimizing your content a simple and straightforward process. The plugin can be found for free in the WordPress plugin directory and is rated 4.5 of 5 stars.
The all in one SEO plugin:
- Notifies Google every time you post content so that they can index and rank it as soon as possible.
- Creates sitemaps to make it easier for Google bots to navigate through your website.
- Lets you easily edit your title tag and meta description
- and much more.
jaaxy keyword tool
Jaaxy is a keyword research tool that provides you with information about keywords that you can target to get more eyes on your website. What makes Jaaxy’s keyword planner different is that it’s specifically designed for online marketers striving to turn their website into a source of passive income.
With Jaaxy its possible to:
- Find out how popular a keyword is
- Find out how much competition you have for certain keywords
- Find out the rank of content you’ve posted online.
- Automate brainstorming for new profitable keywords
- Find domain names you can sell to other people.
- And much more.
I’ve made a review about Jaaxy that you can find here if you’re interested in learning more or trying it out for free.
Lead conversion
Being able to drive people to your website is very important but what they do once they are on the website is just as important. To make your website successful you have to navigate your website visitors to where they need to be and spur them on to take the actions you want them to take. Normally to do this effectively you need to know about sales, psychology and a lot of other things but these websites will do most of the work for you.
Clickfunnels
A do it for you service that creates a website that guides website visitors from the point they arrive on your landing page to the point where they buy a product seamlessly.
The reasons I recommend going for clickfunnels are:
- Funnel templates
Russell Brunson the creator of clickfunnels has identified 22 different funnels and put them in three categories. Lead capture funnels, sales page funnels and event funnels. All ready for you to use. - Visual drag -and drop editor
Make those small changes that take the personalization of your website to the next level. No coding needed just drag and drop elements at the places they need to be. - A rich supply of page conversion elements
Conversion elements based on psychological sales principles that’ll help you turn random website visitors into loyal customers.
find more information at the clickfunnels website.
Thrive themes
I’ve already talked about thrive themes earlier in this post but when it comes to conversion. Even though its a plugin there isn’t a lot of software alternatives superior to it. Quality for a reasonable price.
Email Marketing Services
A successful website has good customer retention. People that have already used your services are more willing to buy from you than new customers because they already know they can trust you. Customer retention can be the key to making insane amounts of profit if done well. A great way to keep in contact with your customers is email and is used by almost every major business. The more customers you acquire the harder it to email them all. That’s why people use autoresponders that can automate the process and makes it possible for you to scale.
MailChimp
MailChimp is a marketing automation service that helps you communicate with your audience through email.
They’ll help you with:
- Building email lists
- automating your marketing campaigns which help with scaling
- Analyzing the data from your campaigns and turning it in a simple to understand rapport
If you want to learn more about MailChimp read my comprehensive MailChimp review.
Aweber
Aweber just like MailChimp is a marketing automation service and was probably one of the first to do it.
Just like with MailChimp you’re able to:
- Build email lists
- Automate your email marketing campaigns
- Analyze the data from your campaigns.
I would say the only real difference between Aweber and MailChimp is the people that are allowed to use them. MailChimp doesn’t provide their services to people promoting affiliate products.
Learn more about Aweber in my comprehensive Aweber review.
Community
Creating a successful website is really hard. There’s a lot of time and hard work that goes into it and if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing you might get lost while walking the path to success. This is why you should surround yourself with like-minded people on the same journey. They’ll give you feedback when you don’t know what to do and will motivate when you feel like giving up.
Wealthy affiliate
Wealthy affiliate is a platform that helps people build websites, market them and make money off them.
They offer a free account (No credit card needed) on which they provide you with:
- A website building and SEO course
- Unlimited hosting
- 2 siterubix domain names
- A keyword research tool
- Access to their community which has 1.400.000+ members
They also have a premium account which also gives you access to:
- Advanced courses to scale your business
- Advanced setting for keyword research tool
- Expert guidance
- Live classrooms and more.
- And much more
Everything you need to know about wealthy affiliate can be found in my in-depth wealthy affiliate review so check that out.
And there you have it websites, plugins & software to create a successful website with zero experience. If you have any questions leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.
That’s all for now.
Until the next time.
