How to Create a Website to Make Money Online in 2024

Free tutorial with step-by-step- proper guidance to create your first professional looking brand new website to make money online in 2024.

How to create a website to make money: Make your First Professional Website for Business or blogging in 2024. In coming future there would be nothing but digital world for any thing around you. Make your own brand or digital identity for personal, professional or business purposes.

Did you know? As of today, there are more than 5.19 billion active global internet users and the top three countries in respect of internet users are China, United States (US) and India. Thus, making your identity online is one of the best decision in your life.

In this tutorial you will learn step-by-step complete guidelines and recommendations to create your own Websites or Blogs. If you’re a beginner, these will help you to make a high-quality and Search Engine (Google Search or Bing) friendly website to receive maximum users from organic traffic source.

Additionally, you will find most successful ways to make money from your online contents or store. You can convert your live visitors to customers. I have also created an E-Book on this topic and you may order your copy from here.

We will discuss the best CMS (Content Management System) in 2024, I mean website builder i.e. WordPress. I have divided the whole contents into different broad categories viz. Website platforms, Domain Names, Website Hosting providers, Set up website, Web Designing, Web page Contents, and Making Money Online.

Make Your Own Website – Free Complete Guide for Beginner

How to create a website with proper guide free of cost? I am sharing this tutorial after my 10+ years of experience in this digital world. After completing all the steps discussed here, you will be able to create your own website.

This tutorial will guide you to make your first static website, blog, online educational course, membership site, multi-user news sites, portfolios, biggest eCommerce stores, forums, social networks, galleries or responsive mobile sites etc.

For creating your first website, you need to follow these simple 5 steps:

  1. Choose Website Builder;
  2. Purchase Domain Name;
  3. Buy Website Hosting Service;
  4. Set Up Website;
  5. Website Design and make it live.

After launching your own website, you may prefer to follow the additional two steps:

  1. Increase Website Traffic; and
  2. Make Money Online.

Now, we shall discuss all the above steps in detail.

Step-1 Choose Website Builder

Instant Website Builder in 2024: This is the first step and I made it easy for you to choose best website builder in 2024. Website builder or platform is a tool that allow you to construct a website without manual code editing.

If you are expert in coding then you may build your unique website using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery or server-side programming languages like PHP, ASP.net, Ruby, Java, Scala or Python etc. You may also hire a web designer who make your customized site.

But here I am for the beginner having zero knowledge of programming languages and they don’t want to hire any website developer. Yes! you can create your own beautiful site following these simple steps sited below:

Did you know? There are more than 1.9 billion live websites. According to the Web Technologies Surveys (W3Techs) based on top 10 million websites, the following website builder captures more than 65% market share.

  1. WordPress
  2. Shopify
  3. Joomla
  4. Squarespace
  5. Wix
  6. Drupal
  7. Bitrix
  8. Blogger
  9. Magento
  10. OpenCart
  11. PrestaShop
  12. Weebly

Among the above top 12 content management systems, the WordPress itself trusted by 42% of all sites across the web. As per report of BuiltWith, WordPress is currently the most popular technology used by at least 38% websites out of top 1 Million Sites.

In fact, my own website SuperWebTricks.com (Showeblogin) is also build with WordPress, a free and open source Content Management System (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL.

Step-1 have been completed and I am sure that you have chosen the right platform for your website. If you have selected WordPress then go for the next step.

Otherwise ignore the remaining steps and check out the other tutorials for good alternatives of WordPress including Blogger, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, Joomla, Weebly etc.

Step-2 Purchase Domain Name

In step-1, we have selected best website builder i.e. WordPress. Now, its time to get registered your site with a unique name in Domain Name System (DNS). It will be your website identity called Domain Name.

My site domain name is SuperWebTricks.com and you may be familiar with other websites address like Google.com, Twitter.com or Facebook.com. So, you choose your own website domain name like YourSiteName.com.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) officially recognizes three types of top-level domain (TLD):

  • Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD): .com, .edu, .gov, .net, .club etc.
  • Sponsored Top-Level Domains (sTLD): .aero, .asia, .cat, .jobs, .tel etc.
  • Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD): .cn, .tk, .de, .uk, .ru, .us, .in etc.

There are many organizations accredited by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to sell domain names. However, the most popular Domain Name Registrars in 2024 are GoDaddy, NameCheap, Hostinger, A2 Hosting, BlueHost, Fastcomet and Domain.com etc.

While purchasing domain name, you will have to provide correct personal or organisation info including Name, Email address and contact number etc. These information shall be recorded in the public Whois database.

Generally, you may register domain with minimum validity period of one year and maximum up to 10 years. You have to renew domain name before the expiry of the validity of registered domain.

If you want more detail on why you need a domain name then this tutorial will help you to choose best domain name for your site. You might be interested to know about advanced factors for selecting best domain name for websites.

Step-3 Buy Website Hosting Service

In Step-2, we have purchased a domain name for our new website. If you have not yet bought your site domain, don’t worry you may get domain name along with the web hosting service. This is because, most of web hosting providers offer FREE domain name with their hosting plan.

Did you know? Web hosting provider stores all websites on servers. In other words, your website shall be hosted on server and when a user wants to view your site they just type your domain name into their browser.

Most trusted web hosting service providers are Bluehost, Hostinger, DreamHost, Nexcess, SiteGround, HostGator, WP Engine, GreenGeeks and InMotion etc.

Step-4 Set up Website

In Step-3, we have bought web hosting service to host our website and in Step-2 we have our own Domain Name. Have you remember? We had already selected WordPress as website builder in Step-1.

Setting up a website with website builder in 2024 is very easy and takes less than 5 minutes.

Method-1 (Install WordPress Site with one Click):

Now-a-days reliable hosting companies provides web hosting with WordPress install services. That means, you will find a direct link to Create a WordPress Site or Auto Installer section in the control panel of your hosting account itself.

So, just login to your website hosting account and check out the option to install WordPress automatically.

Other web hosting organisations integrated either Softaculous Auto Installer or WordPress Manager application in their cPanel which helps one-click installation for WordPress.

Method-2 (Install WordPress Site with Manual):

How to install WordPress on website 2024: If the previous method doesn’t work for you then you may easily install WordPress manually. Don’t worry, I will guide you step-by-step to install your WordPress for the first time manually. It will hardly take your 8 minutes.

  1. Download the latest version of WordPress package from official website https://wordpress.org/download/
  2. Login to your Control Panel (cPanel/ hPanel) account as provided by your hosting company.
  3. Under Databases section, click on MySQL Databases:
    • Create New Database Name
    • Create New MySQL User Name and password

      You may also use MySQL® Database Wizard of cPanel to create new database and user.

      Note: Please make sure that you keep the created databases and username credentials complete in a TEXT file. All these details will be needed in the next step [See Point No. 8].
  4. Now, click on File Manager under the Files section in your cPanel account.
  5. Go to public_html and upload the downloaded WordPress ZIP file into public_html.
  6. Extract the WordPress ZIP files into public_html and delete the empty ZIP file.
  7. Locate the wp-config-sample.php file in the extracted files and rename it to wp-config.php
  8. Right click on wp-config.php file and click on Edit button. Then, find and replace with your MySQL credentials created above [See point No. 3]:
    • Search for database_name_here and replace with your created New Database Name
    • Find username_here and replace with your created New MySQL User Name
    • Search for password_here and replace it with your MySQL User password.
  9. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing the URL (YourWebsiteDomain.com) in a web browser. In other words, just visit your site at YourWebsiteDomain.com/wp-admin/install.php
  10. Finally finish the WordPress installation by providing details like:
    • Site Title
    • Username
    • Password
    • Admin Email

After successfully installation of WordPress, login prompt will be displayed on the screen. Enjoy! You have created your first WordPress site.

Step-5 Website Design and make it live

We have just finished the installation process of WordPress. Now, we shall follow these steps for website designing before make it live:

  1. Free WP Theme: Choose a WordPress Theme for your site. To do that, simply go to Appearance > Themes, and click the button (Large + sign) that says Add New Theme. Choose from more than 4k free WP Themes.
  2. Premium WP Theme: For the most popular Premium WordPress Theme, you may visit www.ElegantThemes.com, www.ThemeForest.net, www.CreativeMarket.com, www.MojoMarketPlace.com, www.Themify.me or www.StudioPress.com.
  3. WP Plugins: Go to plugins section of your site from left sidebar and add these plugins before you make your site live. All plugins are free of cost but you may upgrade to pro version for advanced features:-
    • Plugins for creating beautiful coming soon page while your site is under construction mode.
    • Contact Form Plugins like Contact Form 7, WPForms, Forminator, Ninja Forms etc.
    • Caching Plugins e.g. LiteSpeed Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP-Optimize – Cache, Clean, Compress, WP Rocket, Autoptimize, WP Super Cache etc.
    • WordPress security plugins that protect your site from hackers and spammers. Secure your website using plugins for firewall, login security, malware scan, blocking live unauthorised traffic. Use Wordfence, Jetpack, Defender Security, WP Cerber, iThemes, All In One WP Security & Firewall etc.
    • Online Store Plugins – If you want to sell your products or provide paid services online then you may use ecommerce store plugins. Most popular are WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
  4. Add Pages and Posts: Imagine a site without a single post or page, your website must not be empty. Am I right? Moreover, how can you see the difference before and after customization. These posts and pages will help you to see the changes you made while customizing your site.

Navigate the Pages to add new page for your site. You need to create these essential pages before site is visible for public:-

  • About Page
  • Contact Us Page
  • Landing Page (Homepage).
  • Privacy Policy Page (Compulsory)

After creating necessary pages, you should also add some blog posts to your site. To add blog posts just go to Posts > Add New.

This is not compulsory but if you want to update your visitors, users, subscribers or customers on regular basis with latest changes, news, products and services then you can do it by adding a blog post to your site.

If you want to publish blog posts on regular basis then you should also create relevant categories and tags for your posts.

  1. WordPress Customization: For customization, go to Appearance > Customize and make these changes according to your preference:
    • Site Identity – Logo, Title, Tagline and icon.
    • Colors – Background color and activate the Dark Mode.
    • Background Image – You may use image for your site background.
    • Menus – Manage your navigation menus to add items such as Pages, Posts, Categories, Tags and custom links.
    • Widgets – Add any block to widget areas i.e. header, footer and sidebar in your WP theme.
    • Homepage Settings – You may display a static page in your website front page/ homepage. Default setting will display latest blog posts.
    • Excerpt Settings – Option to show the full content or only the summary of your blog posts.
    • Additional CSS – You may add your own custom CSS codes into your site.

For more advance customization, you use Visual Composer Website Builder, SiteOrigin, Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg and Beaver Builder etc.

Have you any question in your mind? You may ask me for help. I shall complete all the above steps and build your WordPress site and blog.

Step-6 Increase Website Traffic

Hey! You have made your first website using the above free proper stepwise guidance and recommendations. As your site is new, probably you will not get users for your site directly or indirectly.

Actually, no one has idea about your brand new website. Therefore, you have to increase your site traffic.

Types of Website Traffic Sources: There are various types of website traffic sources. Most popular traffic sources are:

  1. Organic Traffic
  2. Direct Traffic
  3. Social Media – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc.
  4. Online Advertisement
  5. Referrals
  6. Email Marketing
  7. Guest Post
  8. Podcast
  9. Host Webinars
  10. Brand Collaboration
  11. Online Community Groups or Forum
  12. Create YouTube Channel
  13. Android & iPhone App for Mobile users
  14. Q&A Sites like Quora, ASKfm, Answers.com, Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange etc.

Alternatively, you may say that there are mainly two website traffic sources viz. Organic Traffic (Unpaid Source) and Inorganic Traffic (Paid Source).

Organic traffic comes from Search engines like Google, Baidu, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com and AOL.

Therefore you will need to follow some basic to advance level Website optimization. It includes best SEO practice, Mobile Usability, Core Web Vitals, HTTPs and site speed etc. It helps to derive maximum organic traffic to your site.

Step-7 Make Money Online

You have successfully launched your first website and deriving decent website traffic by following the above steps. Now, it’s time to monetize the all traffic coming to your site.

Following are the most popular different ways of making money online through website:

  1. Monetize Published Contents through AdSense and Media.net etc.
  2. Sell Ad Space – Direct Advertisement
  3. Affiliate Marketing
  4. Sell Sponsored Posts
  5. Set up an Online Course
  6. Provide Premium Services
  7. Sell Your Photos
  8. Create YouTube Videos
  9. Freelancing
  10. Publish eBooks in PDF or Kindle eBook
  11. Accept Donations
  12. Sell Your Website using Flippa.com, www.WeBuyWebsites.net, www.EmpireFlippers.com, www.Trustiu.com and www.FEInternational.com etc.

Thanks for reading my complete tutorial and free guidelines on creating a website to make money online right now in the current year 2023 and the next year 2024 and onwards.