How do you make a website, step by step?
The short answer
It takes five steps. Pick a hosting plan with a domain name (step 1, from about $3 per month), install WordPress with one click, pick a theme, set up your core pages, and go live. Start today and you have a working site tonight, and budget 2 to 4 hours for the first version.
In detail
Step 1 is hosting with a domain name, because without that foundation your site has nowhere to live. An entry plan from Hostinger or Namecheap starts around $2 to $3 per month with the domain free for the first year, and DreamHost is the calm alternative with fair renewal pricing. Keep the domain short and sayable. Step 2 takes five minutes, because every host named here offers a one-click WordPress install, the system behind roughly forty percent of all websites.
Steps 3 and 4 decide what your site looks like and says. Pick a lightweight free theme (Astra and Kadence are proven choices) and resist installing twenty plugins, because each one makes the site a little slower and more fragile. Then create four core pages: home, about, contact, and privacy. Write them to done rather than to perfect. You can rewrite copy forever, but a site that never launches cannot be improved.
Step 5 is going live and only then polishing. Check that SSL is on (the padlock in the browser, which virtually every host now handles automatically), submit your site to Google Search Console, and switch on your host’s backup schedule. From that moment you improve a site that can already be found. If you would rather skip WordPress entirely, a drag-and-drop website builder is the alternative. You trade flexibility for even less setup work.