How to Create and Set up a Website (Complete Beginners)
I just wrote up this tutorial for my little brother who's in 11th grade, he's interested in making a website so I did a little step by step thing. I thought this might help others out too so I'll post it on here. I'm kind of a beginner myself so some of the things I said might not have been correct so please correct me if you see anything 
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If you were wondering what hosting is, it's basically just uploading your website files to the internet. It puts your site online so everyone can see it across the web.
After you have bought a hosting account you can view your admin control panel by going to https://gator249.hostgator.com:2083/...d/x3/index.php
Next, you will want to add your new domain name to your hosting account.
You will need to set your name servers on godaddy to point to your hostgator account. I'll tell you step by step how to do it. First, go back to godaddy.com and log in. Then at the top click on "my account" and then click on the plus sign next to "domains". Now you should see your domain name with a launch button to the right of it. Click on that, now under the "go" button you should see a "nameservers" button, click that and hit set nameservers. Now select the option that says "I have specific nameservers for my domains". Now you will need to enter your TWO nameservers, to find them go back to your hostgator control panel and scroll down to the bottom and on the left you should see your two nameservers. Now enter those in your godaddy account. That's it for setting your name servers, now you need to add your domain to hostgator.
Go back to the hostgator control panel and scroll down to domains and click "addon domains". Now create an addon domain. Enter your new domain name, then it should create an ftp username for you so leave that how it is. Your document root should be already set too so now just make a password and add your domain.
Now that you have hosting and a domain, you can start to build your website. Wordpress is probably the best way to build a website for beginners.
Wordpress is a free web building software more geared toward blogs but you can turn the blog function off so that it's just a regular website. Before I tell you how wordpress works, you will need to install it on your domain that you bought. To do that, just go to your hostgator control panel. Then scroll down to software/services and under that click quick install. Then click wordpress (you will see it to the left). Click continue and select your domain from the dropdown. Now just enter your email and other info, it can be whatever you want. I usually make my username just admin. Now hit install and you're good. It should then give you your username and password for wordpress. SAVE THEM. You should also see a link to your wordpress login near where it gives you your password, so go there. Then you can edit your site however you want!
You might want to configure your website for something other than a blog. To do this go to your wordpress admin control panel and hover over the "pages" tab and click "add new". Name the page something other than home, such as "welcome" and then publish it. Now go to "pages" and click "add new" again, name this new page "blog"and publish it. Now from your admin control panel go to the settings tab and click on "reading". Cick the option that says "A static page" and under that for your front page, select your welcome page, and for your posts page select your blog page. Note that you can now change the name of your welcome page to whatever you want. The "blog" page is the page that your blog posts will now show up on, so you can keep that page if you still want to have a blog on your site, or you can get rid of the page.
Go to appearance then themes and search for a good theme for your site. Install a theme and then activate it! Just search around wordpress and get familiar with it. One important thing with wordpress is knowing how plugins work. Plugins are just add-ons for your website that you can install, they make it so you can add cool features to your site without knowing how to code yourself.
Under the appearance tab on your wordpress admin control panel you will see a plugins tab. Hover over that and click add new. You can search for plugins or at the top just hit "popular" or "newest". After you install a plugin make sure you activate it, you can easily deactivate it if you don't like it. Usually you can edit the settings of your plugins by going back to the control panel and hovering over the settings tab and you will see your plugin there.
Make sure that you do some of your own research on how to use wordpress so that you can create a decent site. After you build a website the next step is to promote it, get your link everywhere you can for starters. Here's a website that lists a ton of directories that you can easily submit your site to Free Web Submission: Free Search Engine Submission and Site Promotion
Oh and also you WILL want analytics to track your visitors. Sign up for a google analytics account, analytics will give you a code to place into your website script. Just add the code into your header template. To do this, go back to your admin control panel and hover over the appearance tab and click "editor". To the right under templates you will see your header template, just open that and place your analytics code into that. Make sure it's working by going back and checking on google analytics.
If you want to make money with google adsense just sign up on google adsense and create your ads. Copy the code for the ad that you created and place it wherever you want on your site. You can place your ad into a widget (a widget could be like a box in the sidebar for example) by clicking "widgets" under the appearance tab on in your admin control panel. You can create your own widget by dragging the widget named "text" over into your sidebar and then put your ad code into that, change the title of the widget to whatever you want, "advertisements" could be good. Or you can put your ad code into your header template if you don't want it in a widget. Just paste the code at the top of the header template if you want. Or put the ad into your footer template (at the bottom of the page). You can put ads wherever you want, and have however many you want. But just remember that ads do not look very nice on your presentation. You want to be careful where you put them. First impression is very important on a website.
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First, purchase a domain name at godaddy.com (or your preferred domain provider)
On the home page of godaddy, just type a domain name into the box that says search for a new domain.
You can choose if you want your site to end with .com .net .org .co etc. A short domain name with a keyword that's relevant to your site is ideal. Just search until you find a domain that is available and add it to your cart and checkout.
Now your new domain is registered on godaddy.com and you will have to pay around $8 a year to keep your domain from expiring.
On the home page of godaddy, just type a domain name into the box that says search for a new domain.
You can choose if you want your site to end with .com .net .org .co etc. A short domain name with a keyword that's relevant to your site is ideal. Just search until you find a domain that is available and add it to your cart and checkout.
Now your new domain is registered on godaddy.com and you will have to pay around $8 a year to keep your domain from expiring.
After you have a domain, you need to set up a hosting account. Hostgator is the one of the best places for website hosting. Just go here Web Hosting - Shared cPanel Web Hosting.You will want to select the baby plan and probably make it year or two year long contract, it's up to you. It's going to be around $8 a month to keep your account, but you can host as many domains as you want on it.
If you were wondering what hosting is, it's basically just uploading your website files to the internet. It puts your site online so everyone can see it across the web.
After you have bought a hosting account you can view your admin control panel by going to https://gator249.hostgator.com:2083/...d/x3/index.php
Next, you will want to add your new domain name to your hosting account.
You will need to set your name servers on godaddy to point to your hostgator account. I'll tell you step by step how to do it. First, go back to godaddy.com and log in. Then at the top click on "my account" and then click on the plus sign next to "domains". Now you should see your domain name with a launch button to the right of it. Click on that, now under the "go" button you should see a "nameservers" button, click that and hit set nameservers. Now select the option that says "I have specific nameservers for my domains". Now you will need to enter your TWO nameservers, to find them go back to your hostgator control panel and scroll down to the bottom and on the left you should see your two nameservers. Now enter those in your godaddy account. That's it for setting your name servers, now you need to add your domain to hostgator.
Go back to the hostgator control panel and scroll down to domains and click "addon domains". Now create an addon domain. Enter your new domain name, then it should create an ftp username for you so leave that how it is. Your document root should be already set too so now just make a password and add your domain.
Now that you have hosting and a domain, you can start to build your website. Wordpress is probably the best way to build a website for beginners.
Wordpress is a free web building software more geared toward blogs but you can turn the blog function off so that it's just a regular website. Before I tell you how wordpress works, you will need to install it on your domain that you bought. To do that, just go to your hostgator control panel. Then scroll down to software/services and under that click quick install. Then click wordpress (you will see it to the left). Click continue and select your domain from the dropdown. Now just enter your email and other info, it can be whatever you want. I usually make my username just admin. Now hit install and you're good. It should then give you your username and password for wordpress. SAVE THEM. You should also see a link to your wordpress login near where it gives you your password, so go there. Then you can edit your site however you want!
You might want to configure your website for something other than a blog. To do this go to your wordpress admin control panel and hover over the "pages" tab and click "add new". Name the page something other than home, such as "welcome" and then publish it. Now go to "pages" and click "add new" again, name this new page "blog"and publish it. Now from your admin control panel go to the settings tab and click on "reading". Cick the option that says "A static page" and under that for your front page, select your welcome page, and for your posts page select your blog page. Note that you can now change the name of your welcome page to whatever you want. The "blog" page is the page that your blog posts will now show up on, so you can keep that page if you still want to have a blog on your site, or you can get rid of the page.
Go to appearance then themes and search for a good theme for your site. Install a theme and then activate it! Just search around wordpress and get familiar with it. One important thing with wordpress is knowing how plugins work. Plugins are just add-ons for your website that you can install, they make it so you can add cool features to your site without knowing how to code yourself.
Under the appearance tab on your wordpress admin control panel you will see a plugins tab. Hover over that and click add new. You can search for plugins or at the top just hit "popular" or "newest". After you install a plugin make sure you activate it, you can easily deactivate it if you don't like it. Usually you can edit the settings of your plugins by going back to the control panel and hovering over the settings tab and you will see your plugin there.
Make sure that you do some of your own research on how to use wordpress so that you can create a decent site. After you build a website the next step is to promote it, get your link everywhere you can for starters. Here's a website that lists a ton of directories that you can easily submit your site to Free Web Submission: Free Search Engine Submission and Site Promotion
Oh and also you WILL want analytics to track your visitors. Sign up for a google analytics account, analytics will give you a code to place into your website script. Just add the code into your header template. To do this, go back to your admin control panel and hover over the appearance tab and click "editor". To the right under templates you will see your header template, just open that and place your analytics code into that. Make sure it's working by going back and checking on google analytics.
If you want to make money with google adsense just sign up on google adsense and create your ads. Copy the code for the ad that you created and place it wherever you want on your site. You can place your ad into a widget (a widget could be like a box in the sidebar for example) by clicking "widgets" under the appearance tab on in your admin control panel. You can create your own widget by dragging the widget named "text" over into your sidebar and then put your ad code into that, change the title of the widget to whatever you want, "advertisements" could be good. Or you can put your ad code into your header template if you don't want it in a widget. Just paste the code at the top of the header template if you want. Or put the ad into your footer template (at the bottom of the page). You can put ads wherever you want, and have however many you want. But just remember that ads do not look very nice on your presentation. You want to be careful where you put them. First impression is very important on a website.
― George Carlin