How can I build my own website?
The fastest way to build your own website is with WordPress: choose a plan, register a domain name, activate a theme, build your homepage in blocks and publish. In this guide you'll go through those steps from zero to live, with a concrete checklist for every step so your site is online today.
Which WordPress plan suits you?
Before you build, you choose a plan. WordPress itself is free and open source; you pay for the place where it runs. On wordpress.com, the hosted version, you choose from five plans that each suit a different purpose. If you want to install outside plugins later, you'll need at least the Business plan there, or you choose your own host with wordpress.org. Choose deliberately, because your choice determines what you can and can't do later.
Free
: for practising on wordpress.com. Not suitable as a business calling card.Personal
: your own domain and no adverts. Fine for a portfolio or blog.Premium
: extra design options and a professional address. Good for freelancers.Business
: plugins and full control. Recommended if you want to grow.Commerce
: this lets you add a store plugin with payment methods later.Small task before you carry on: choose your plan and note down why. That one sentence forces you to think about what your website actually needs to do.
Step 1: choose your domain name
Your domain name is the address where people find you. A few tips that make an immediate difference:
- Use .co.uk or .com, it builds trust.
- Keep the name short and clear.
- Avoid numbers, unless they genuinely fit your name.
- Check whether the matching social media handles are still free.
Then register the name through WordPress itself or through a registrar
Then connect the DNS to WordPress. Bear in mind that activation can sometimes take a little while.
Work through this checklist before you carry on: a name idea, your domain preference, a backup in case that one's taken, the available social media handles and your next action.
Step 2: choose a theme and template
Your theme determines what your site looks like. Here's how you set it up:
- Open Appearance and click Themes.
- Look for a calm design that suits your business.
- Activate the theme.
- If you're working with a block theme, open Appearance and then Editor: in that site editor you'll find Templates, which let you adjust the layout of your pages. With a classic theme, that editor doesn't exist.
Once you're done with this step, you'll have chosen a template, set your colours and fonts, placed your logo and favicon, and set Home as your homepage. Only then do you move on to the content.
Step 3: build your homepage in blocks
You build your homepage block by block. Use this fixed structure:
- A heading with a subheading that immediately says what you do.
- A short explanation of your services.
- Three benefits that set you apart.
- Proof, such as a case study or a review.
- A clear call to action, for example a button to your contact page.
- Test everything on mobile.
Not sure about the heading
An example that works: We build clear websites that win customers. And for the three benefits, think along the lines of: plain language and results, a focus on measurable growth, and a transparent plan with fixed steps. Translate them to your own offering.
Step 4: create a clear menu
Don't be creative with your menu. Use words everyone knows: Home, About us, Services, Cases, Blog and Contact. Visitors scan your navigation in a second and expect these labels. Also make sure your logo always links to Home, because that's what everyone is used to.
Step 5: publish and test
Time to go live. Run through this checklist before you publish:
- Your homepage has a clear heading and a clear call to action.
- All text and buttons are easy to read on mobile.
- Your form works and sends a confirmation.
Does everything check out
Then publish your site and take one more look at it on your phone. Most visitors arrive on mobile, so that's where it has to work.
wordpress.com or wordpress.org: the difference you only feel later
It was already there briefly in step 1: WordPress itself is free and open source, you pay for the place where it runs. Behind that one sentence sits the choice that determines the most a year into building, and almost everyone makes it without realising. So here's the spelled-out version.
The hosted version
On wordpress.com you buy a plan and everything is sorted: the server, the security updates, the backups. You log in and you build. That's a genuine advantage if you don't fancy dealing with the technical side, and it's the reason we take this route as the starting point in this guide. The price you pay for it is that you stay within the lines of your plan: which plugins you're allowed to install, whether you can get at the files, and how easily you can move away later, all depend on which plan you have.
Your own host
With wordpress.org you download the same software and put it on a server you rent yourself. Anything goes: any plugin, any theme, your own code, your own backups. In return, updates, security and backups become your job, and that's not a one-off task but a habit. Choose this route if you want to build something that's a bit different, or if you already know now that you're going to build connections with other systems.
How to choose now without locking yourself in later
Ask yourself one question: will I need something within a year that my plan doesn't allow? Think of a link to your accounting, a calendar clients can book themselves, or a shop with its own payment rules. If the answer is no, start hosted and keep it simple. If the answer is yes or probably, start straight away with your own host, because moving is possible but always costs you an afternoon you'd rather have spent differently.
One thing is the same on both routes, and it matters more than the choice itself: your domain name. Make sure it's registered in your own name and that you have the login details. You can rebuild a site; you can't rebuild an address your customers have been finding you at for years.
The pages you actually need, and the pages that can wait
Most self-built sites get stuck at the same point: there are ten half-finished pages and not one of them is done. That happens because the menu gets dreamt up before the content exists. Turn it around. First build the pages your site can't work without, put it live, and expand after that.
The four that need finishing today
Home
What you do, for whom, and what the visitor can do right now. The structure is in FIG.01.What you do
One page per service if you have two or three, otherwise one page with subheadings. Write down here exactly what happens when someone hires you, in the order it happens.About us
Who you are, since when, and why someone should trust you. Add a photo of yourself, not a stock photo of a boardroom table.Contact
Phone number, email address, service area or address, and a form that works. This is the page where the money comes in, and at the same time the page that’s most often half-finished.The pages you add once you have something to say
- Proof. Cases, projects or reviews. Without real material, this page has no point, so wait until you can show your first project and ask your client for permission before you name them.
- Blog or knowledge base. Only start if you'll keep it up. Three articles that sit there and don't grow do you more harm than no blog at all.
- Pricing. If you work with fixed amounts or fixed starting prices, this is one of the strongest pages you can have. If you only work bespoke, a page with a pricing structure is better than a page with a figure that's never quite right.
- Frequently asked questions. Just collect the questions you get on the phone and write down the answers. This is the easiest page to make, and it saves you the most explaining later.
If you notice you can't fill a page, leave it out rather than publish it half done. A menu item that points to an empty page costs you more trust than a menu with four items.
Writing text for your own site without being a writer
For almost everyone, this is the part where things grind to a halt. The theme is in place, the blocks are in place, and then it turns out words need to go in them. There's a trick that always works, and it's that you don't sit down to write, you sit down to write down.
Write down what you say on the phone
Think of your last conversation with a new customer. What did they ask, and what did you answer? Type that out exactly as you said it. What comes out is almost always better than what you'd write if you tried to sound professional, because it answers a real question in ordinary words. Then just tidy up the spelling and leave the tone as it is.
The five questions every visitor asks
Every visitor who lands on your site has the same five questions in the same order, even if they never say them out loud. Answer them in that order and your text is done.
- Am I in the right place? Do you do what I'm looking for?
- Do you do that for someone like me too, in my area, in my situation?
- How does that actually work? What happens after I get in touch?
- Why should I believe you? Who has had this done by you before?
- What does it cost roughly, and what's the very next step?
Three things you leave out
The word welcome, because that tells nobody anything. Jargon only your industry knows, because your visitor searches with the words of a customer, not those of a tradesperson. And superlatives without proof: the best, the fastest, the most reliable. Anyone who writes that without putting something concrete next to it sounds exactly like the four competitors writing the same thing. Put one concrete sentence there instead and you'll stand out.
If you use AI
A great tool for organising your typed-up phone call, for coming up with headings, or for shortening a paragraph that's too long. A poor tool for having a page about your business written from scratch, because what comes out is text that could have been about any business in your trade. And always proofread: names, prices and promises that sneak in unnoticed end up on your site, not on the model's.
What you set up properly now so you don't need a rebuild later
There are a few things that cost five minutes on day one and a whole day two years from now if you only do them then. Go through them now, even if it feels like jumping ahead.
Your addresses
Make sure your site runs on https; with almost every host that certificate comes standard or you switch it on with one button. Also pick one style for your addresses, short words with hyphens between them, and stick to it. You can always rename a page, but then you need to redirect the old address to the new one, otherwise you lose visitors and visibility you already had.
Your business details
For a business website in the Netherlands, it's common practice, and depending on what you sell and to whom sometimes a legal requirement, to put your company name, your Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KVK) number, your Dutch VAT number and a reachable contact address on your site. The contact page or the footer is the usual place for that. If you're not sure exactly what's required in your situation, check with your accountant or a solicitor; we're not laying down a rule here that applies to everyone, because no such rule exists.
Your privacy policy
If you put a contact form on your site, you’re processing personal data, and that calls for a privacy policy explaining what you do with that data and how long you keep it. If you also use analytics or a chat feature, that should be covered too. An example of what such a document can look like is on our own privacy policy NL. Don’t copy it, but use the structure.
Your analytics
Connect your site to an analytics program and to Google Search Console before you start promoting it. That costs a quarter of an hour right now. Do it in a year's time, and your tracking only starts then, and you can never look back at what happened in that first year. Search Console is also the place where Google tells you if it sees problems with your pages, and that's exactly the kind of message you'd rather read early.
Your backup
Know where your backup is stored and try once whether you can restore it. With a hosted plan that's often included in your subscription, with your own host you arrange it yourself. A backup you've never tested is not a backup, it's an assumption.
What comes back every month once your site is live
A website isn't a project with a deadline but a piece of equipment that needs maintenance, just like your van or your machinery. The good news is that the maintenance amounts to very little as long as you keep on top of it, and it only gets expensive once you leave it for a year.
Updates
WordPress, your theme and your plugins get updates, and some of those fix security issues. With a hosted plan that usually happens automatically; with your own host you set aside a fixed moment for it in the month.Click through your own site
Once a month, on your phone, as if you’re a customer. Does the form still work, is your phone number correct, is there still a service listed that you no longer offer. This finds more errors than any checking tool ever will.Add something
A finished project, a new review, a question you got a lot with the answer alongside it. One thing a month is enough, and it’s more than most competitors do.Check your analytics
Not to admire the numbers, but with one question: did any enquiries come in, and from where. If the answer is zero, that’s not a reason to stop but to look at what’s going wrong between the visit and the enquiry.If the number of enquiries is behind what you expected, look first at how your site looks and works on a phone, because that’s where most visitors come in. We’ve covered that separately in your website looks bad on mobile.
When doing it yourself is no longer the smartest move
This guide is about building it yourself, and that's the right choice for a great many businesses: you keep costs low, you get to know your own site, and you can change something yourself tomorrow. There are three moments when it tips the other way, and it's more honest to name them than to pretend doing it yourself always wins.
When your site needs to earn money and doesn't
As long as your website is a calling card, building it yourself is fine. Once revenue depends on it, the question stops being what it costs and becomes what it delivers, and an afternoon of fiddling with it yourself is then more expensive than it looks.When you get stuck on the technology instead of the content
If you’re sitting on a plugin for two evenings that won’t do what you want, you’re not building, you’re troubleshooting. That’s exactly the work you can buy in.When it needs to be finished and you don't have the time for it
A half-finished site that stays that way for months costs you more customers than no site at all.Want to know what outsourcing costs in your case and exactly what you get for it, the figures and the breakdown are on what it costs to have a website built NL, and the service itself is on WordPress specialist.
And if you're mainly unsure whether you're on the right track with what you've got now, just put it to us
Send us your site’s address and where you’re stuck, and we’ll say what we’d do and whether it’s something you can perfectly well finish yourself. That’s possible through the contact page, where you pick a slot in the calendar yourself or simply call. A first conversation carries no price and no obligation, and if the answer is that you’re better off finishing it yourself, we’ll simply say so.
Frequently asked questions
Can I switch themes later?
Yes, you can. Just check your layout afterwards, because not every theme displays your blocks in the same way.
What image sizes should I use?
For a wide banner, 1920 pixels wide is almost always enough; wider than twice the space it'll actually occupy just adds weight. For cards, stick to 1000 by 1000 pixels.
How do I add a contact form?
Install a form plugin, set up your fields, and place the form via a block on the page you want.
What do I do if something goes wrong?
Use revisions to restore an earlier version of your page. That way you can undo a mistake in a few clicks.
Can I add an online shop later?
Yes. You do that through a store plugin that lets you add products and payments.
How do I become easier to find?
Write an article every week that answers a question from your target audience, and install an SEO tool. Want to dig deeper into this, read how to make your website easier to find.
Summary: from zero to live in five steps
You've built your website today: you chose a plan, sorted your domain, activated a theme, filled in your homepage and put the site live. That doesn't mean you're finished, it means you've just started. Keep improving every week with articles, cases and reviews.
A website that’s online is step one. Step two is people finding it. Read how to rank higher in Google without backlinks, or let us take a look with our improve your SEO service. More practical guides like this one are in the knowledge base.