How to create a website without paying any money

Do you want to learn how to create a website without paying any money, then this article is perfect for you. In this article, I will teach you how to create a professional looking website in free without investing any money.

As we are living in Digital Era, everyone have a dream of atleast have an own website for any purpose for selling own products, selling of other people products, share own ideas, share own creativity, spreading of own brand/ business with worldwide and teach other people etc.

But, due to lack of technical and knowledge of computer science/ programming, they can’t accomplish their dream.

Designing and developing a website is not a rocket science. If you read this article carefully, you will get complete information about how to create a basic/ professional website with the help of free resources.

To designing and developing any website, we need various resources and skills. You know, if you join any institute for website designing course, it will take atleast 3-6 months period to complete your website designing and development course. Also, you need to burn huge amount of hard saving money of your parents.

But, don’t worry, I will teach you everything step by step from zero to advance level throughout this single article.

Before, going to learn anything, you need to acquire some basic theoretical ideas about that topic so that while you walk through the process of practical, you don’t face any problem.

To learn website designing, first you need to understand basic concepts of internet and website designing.

Ok, let’s get started.

Table of Contents

What is a Website ?

Information on the web is displayed in pages. Page is the basic unit of the web. Web pages are written in the HTML language and sent to web browsers by a web server using the HTTP protocol. A website is a collection of related web pages with a common web address.

What is Internet ?

Internet is a World Wide interconnected system of millions of computers and computer networks across the globe, which can exchange and accessed information electronically. Each computer connected to the Internet must have a unique address. Internet address is known as an IP (Internet Protocol) address. Every computer that is connected to the Internet is part of a network, even the one in your home.

What is URL ?

URL stands for uniform resource locator. Whenever we want to access any website we need URL. URL is a string of characters used to represent and identify a page of information on the World Wide Web that is used by a web browser (such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc) to find HTTP and other resources on the Internet.

What is Web Designing ?

Web designing is an essential skill to develop website and develop the components of web. Web designing actually involves different skills and disciplines, which include UI Design, UX Design, Web Graphic Design, scripting /programming languages and search engine optimization.

We can design a website in two ways, i.e. 1) With the use of programming languages and 2) With the help of Open Source Software.

In early days, computer programmers designing their website with the help of programming languages, i.e. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL.

But, over the period of time, technology has been advanced and it gives us flexibility in programming and web designing. Now, anyone can create a website with the use of Open Source Software, by just drag and drop facility, don’t need programming knowledge.

Here, I am talking not about value of programming is decrease over the period and also not giving you any suggestion to don’t need to learn programming. Programming was always in high demand in early days, at present and will be more demanding in future also as we seen that after Covid Pendamic people are preferred online than offline in every field, i.e. education, jobs, shopping and business etc.

In this article, I will give you idea about how to create a website in local server for which you don’t need to pay any money to anyone. When you get self confidence in creating and designing a website in local server, it is very easy to move your website to live server within just couple of steps.

So, in this article, we will focus only on creating and designing a website in local server. To create and design a website in local server, we need some resources.

What are the basic resources needed for web designing ?

Basics resources needed for web designing in local server includes:

Install the Local Server (XAMPP software) in your PC
Download CMS in local server folder
Theme for website
Page builder for design beautiful looking page
Editing tools like Adobe Photoshop/ Adobe illustrator
Code editor like Notepad++, Sublime Text, Brackets, Visual Studio code etc.

It is very easy to download and install above software in your PC/ Laptop, you just only need an Internet connection and you will get every software in free of cost. Don’t worry, I am available here to guide you step by step, how to download and install the above software in your PC.

How to Install the Local Server in PC

Go to Google Browser and type XAMPP, then Click to download, it will re-direct to another page, from where you need to choose XAMPP for which platform i.e. Windows, Linux, OS X.

Once you download the XAMPP software, now it is time to install on your PC. Just double click on downloaded file, it will automatically starting its installation and follow the instruction. Within couple of time installation will be completed.

What is a Web Server ?

A Web Server is a software program that delivers web pages and other documents to browsers using the HTTP protocol. Computers that provide services for other computers to use are called Servers. The software run by server computers to provide services is called server software. A server usually runs a computer that is connected directly to network and keeps running till any client login is expected. The objective of the Web Server is store, process and deliver web pages to the users.

General point of view, there are two types of Web Servers, 1) Local Server and 2) Live Server. In this article, we will be working with Local Server, because as per title of this article, we are going to create a website without paying any money.

If you want to work with live server, you need to pay money. But, I suggest you, first learn and clear all concepts of web designing in local server and then switch to live server. Believe me, it is very easy.

How to Install and Setup CMS for Web Designing ?

After installing the XAMPP software, now time to download and paste the CMS software in your PC within local server of XAMPP.

What is a Content Management System ?

A content management system (CMS) is software used to create, manage and modify the content of web. Basically, content management system is a place where you spend most of the time, if you want to run any website. You can manage your website with the help of CMS without the knowledge of programming or coding.

Go to Google Browser and type WordPress.org, then Click to Get WordPress, from where download the latest version of WordPress in your PC.

After download the wordpress, extract the folder and you will get following files.

Copy all the files and paste all these files in htdocs folder under xampp folder in your C drive with a single folder after giving a unique name i.e. called Domain Name for your new website. For the preparation of this article, I choose the domain name of my website is xyzwebsite.com, in your case you might be choose any name as per your choice and requirement.

What is Domain Name ?

As a human, we are normally identifying any person with his name from the hundred, thousand and millions of people. Name gives us a particular identity to differentiate from other people.

In the world of Internet, a Domain name is a way by which a company can uniquely identify itself on the Internet. To identify your website on internet, its need a name (i.e. Domain Name), so that people can identify your website on internet and can able to land directly to your website with the help of your domain name.

With the help of domain name, we identify any website, for example, www.google.com, www.youtube.com, www.facebook.com etc, all these names are domain name.

Why choose WordPress for CMS ?

WordPress is a most powerful, free and open source Content Management System which provide us freedom to manage important aspects of our website.

Almost 40% of all the websites live on the internet powered by WordPress. Hence WordPress developer are more popular than others. They are making a decent amount of money just developing WordPress themes.

How to create a Database for any Website ?

After installing the XAMPP and Wordpess, now time to create a Database in your local server of XAMPP.

To create a Database, first you need to start your XAMPP software. To start local server of XAMPP, go to start button and type XAMPP Control Panel and then right click and choose run as administrator.

Once the local server is open, click on start button of Apache and MySQL and minimize the XAMPP Control Panel window, ensure not close the window.

When you noticed, your Apache and MySQL has been started, Go to Google Browser and type localhost/phpmyadmin/ and press enter. It will open dashboard of your local server of XAMPP.

Once the open your local server, click to Databases, where you need to give any name for your database, in most cases people give the name of database exact same name giving to their website domain or whatever name you want to give. After giving the name of Database for your website, just click to create button, it will create a Database for your website.

For the preparation of this article, I give the name of my database for my website is xyzwebsite, in your case you might be choose any name as per your choice and requirement. But, now you can may be think, what is database and what is its use in web designing.

What is a Database ?

A Database is a collection of related information stored so that it is available to many users for different purposes. A computer databases gives us some electronic filing system, which has a large number of ways of cross referencing and this allows the user many different ways in which to reorganize and retrieve data.

We are normally seen, any factory / office is use a storage room, where they physically store all the files and important documents for their future reference. In the case of web, a database is just like a storage room to digitally store all the files and information for use in Internet.

How to configure Database & User for Website ?

After creating of Database, now time to configure and connect this Database and user with your CMS installed in your Local Server.

To configure and connect your Database with CMS, you need to type in the URL bar of your Google Chrome Browser localhost/your domain name/ and then press the enter button. In my case, I will type in URL bar localhost/xyzwebsite. It will re-direct to wp-admin setup page i.e. setup-config.php file, which is available within the WordPress CMS folder and show you a window, where you need to choose a language. Normally, people choose English (United States) and push the continue button.

Once you choose your language and click the continue button, it will open just like following window. You need to click, Let’s go button.

After clicking, Let’s go button, you need to fill up the following information about 1) Database name, 2) Database username, 3) Database password, 4) Database host and 5) Table prefix etc. All this information, you can also directly fill up in wp-config-sample.php file and save it as wp-config.php file. After filling all the details, click the submit button.

After filling the information of Database, while click the submit button, following screen will appear in your screen.

Now click “Run the installation” button, it will appear following welcome screen of wordpress installation process.

Just fill up the information about 1) Site Title, 2) Username, 3) Password, and 4) Your Email address and click the Install WordPress button. Once you fill up all the information and click the Install WordPress button, a success screen will appear in your window.

How to design a professional looking website ?

Once installation of Local Server and Content Management System is completed, now we can say that technical parts web designing is almost completed. Now, time to design your website.

To design your website, you need to login Dashboard of your Content Management System, from where you will control every part of your website. To login your Dashboard, go to Google Chrome Browser and enter in URL- localhost/yourwebsitename/wp-admin/ and press the enter button.

In my case, I will enter in URL bar- localhost/xyzwebsite/wp-admin/ and press the enter, it will appear following window in your screen.

Login in your Dashboard by entering your username and password. After entering your login credential, you will seen Dashboard of your WordPress as follows:

Now, you can visit your local website directly just clicking on Home symbol appear in top left in your WordPress Dashboard or you can open just entering your website domain name in URL bar- localhost/xyzwebsite.

Congratulation ! You have successfully created your first website. You might be thinking that this website is looking very bad.

Don’t worry, I will convert this bad looking website to a wonderful and beautiful looking website.

To design a website, we need some additional resources (i.e. Theme, Page Builder & Plugin) to show a beautiful and professional looking website.

What is a Theme in website designing ?

In website designing, a theme is a face, overall look, feel and style of your website which visually display before your customer and visitors.

Face and look of your website, depend on which theme is installed in your website. You can install custom theme or free/ premium theme in your website. For customizing any theme you need sound knowledge of programming. So, in this article, we only focus on how to design a website with free theme.

At present most popular WordPress themes are Generatepress, Astra, OceanWP, Divi, Avada, Sahifa, Genesis Framework etc. So, first we install a popular WordPress theme in our website and then will give it beautiful look.

How to install a theme in Website?

To install any WordPress theme, you need to Login into your WordPress Dashboard and admin page, then go to Appearance and then click on Theme.

You can choose any theme as per your requirement. In my case, I love GeneratePress Theme, because it is lightweight theme that focuses on speed, stability and accessibility.

Thanks for reading this article.

If you have any question about the topic, don’t hesitate to send us an email through contact us page or comments in comment section below. We will be answered your question, as soon as possible.

Looking to learn more about Website Designing, you can check out our other articles published in our website, which also listed below for your ready reference:

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