A plain-English guide

How to build a website, without the sales pitch.

What a website is made of, the seven steps in the order that actually works, the three ways to build one with real costs, and the point where it is cheaper to stop and hire someone. Written by a person who builds them for a living and would rather you did it right than did it with me.

Start with the seven steps Compare the three ways

Text me anytime: (218) 818-1023. Skip the email if you like. I read and answer every text myself.

First, the parts

What a website is actually made of

Five things. Every website you have ever visited is these five, and every confusing bill you have ever had from a web company is one of them dressed up.

The domain

Your address: yourbusiness.com. Rented by the year from a registrar for $10 to $20. It should be in your name, on your card, always.

The hosting

The computer that keeps your pages online. Anything from free (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages) to $5 to $20 a month for basic hosting to $16 to $46 a month inside a builder.

The pages

The files a visitor sees. Written by hand, generated by a tool, or assembled in a builder. This is the part people mean when they say "the website".

The content

Your words, your photos, your prices, your hours. Nobody can do this part for you well, and it is where most websites stall.

A way to be found

Page titles Google can read, a sitemap, and for a local business, a Google Business Profile. Without this the site exists but nobody arrives.

The padlock

The security certificate that makes the address start with https. It is free everywhere now. If anyone tries to charge you for it, that is a sign about them.

The steps

Seven steps, in the order that works

People start with the design and run out of steam at the words. Do it in this order and the design is the easy part at the end.

Decide the one job the site has to do

Most small business sites need to do one thing: get a stranger to call, book, or walk in. Write that sentence down before anything else. Every later decision, from how many pages to what goes at the top, comes from it.
Buy the domain, in your own name

The domain is your address, like andersonlandscaping.com. Buy it from a registrar such as Cloudflare, Porkbun or Namecheap, for about $10 to $20 a year, using your own email and card. Never let a designer or an agency register it for you. If they vanish, or you fall out, the address goes with them.
Pick how you will build it

There are three honest routes: a website builder like Squarespace or Wix, hiring someone, or writing the code yourself. The table below shows what each one costs in money and in your own hours. Pick the one that fits the job from step one, not the one with the best advert.
Write the words before you touch the design

Who you are, what you do, where you do it, what it costs, and how to reach you. Short and plain. Most sites stall here, not at the design, because writing about your own business is harder than it looks. If you get stuck, write it the way you would say it to a customer on the phone.
Get real photos

Your actual shop, your actual truck, your actual work, your actual face. Phone photos in good daylight beat stock photography every time, because people can tell. A stock photo of a smiling stranger in a hard hat tells a visitor nothing about you.
Build the pages, and keep it to what you need

For a new business one page is usually enough: your services, a few photos, your reviews and a way to contact you, as sections you scroll through. Separate pages earn their keep later, when you want one per service so each can show up in local search. Put your phone number where a thumb can reach it.
Launch it properly

Connect the domain, make sure the address bar shows a padlock, and open the site on your own phone on mobile data, not wifi. Then claim your free Google Business Profile, because for a local business the map listing sends more calls than the website does. Ask your last ten happy customers for a review.

Three ways to build it

What each route really costs

All three work. The honest difference is whose hours get spent, and who is still around in March when something needs changing.

	A website builder	Hire a developer	Code it yourself
Good for	Owners who enjoy fiddling and have the evenings	Owners who want it done and their evenings back	People who want to learn, or already can
Money up front	$0	$100 to $600 with me; $1,500 to $9,000 elsewhere in Minnesota	$0
Money every month	$16 to $46	$0 if you host it yourself, or $49 for hosting plus a person making the edits	$0 to $20 for hosting
Your own hours	20 to 40 to build, then a few every month	About two, plus writing your content	60 to 200 the first time
Who fixes it at 10pm	You, and a help article	The person who built it	You
Do you own the files	No, you rent the page inside their platform	Yes, if you ask for the source code before you start	Yes
How it looks	Like a template, because it is one	Like your business	Like your first website, at first

Builder prices are their published rates in August 2026 and move with the plan. My prices are on the pricing page. If you want the four options laid side by side by someone with a stake in one of them and a straight answer anyway, that is what getswansonx.com is for.

The expensive part

Mistakes that cost the most

None of these are about design. Every one of them I have fixed for a real business after the fact.

The domain in somebody else's name

The single most common way a small business gets trapped. Check who owns yours today. If it is a designer, an agency or an old employee, get it moved before you need it.

No phone number at the top

Most visitors are on a phone, checking you out between two other things. If they have to scroll to find how to call you, a lot of them will not.

Hours that are wrong

A site that says you are open when you are closed loses the customer who drove out, and the review they leave afterward. If changing your hours is hard, they will be wrong by August.

A stock photo hero

The smiling stranger in the hard hat. Everyone can tell, and it makes the whole site read as not really yours. One real photo of your actual work beats it.

Ten pages when one would do

More pages means more to write, more to keep current and more places to go stale. Start with one good page. Add pages when you know what they are for.

Skipping the Google Business Profile

For a local business the map results sit above the website results and take most of the clicks. The listing is free. A website with no profile is a shop with no sign.

When to stop

When it is cheaper to hire someone

Do the arithmetic honestly. If you charge $60 an hour for your own work and a builder site takes you thirty evening hours, you have spent $1,800 of your time on something that still looks like a template. That is not a reason to hire me. It is a reason to count your hours the same way you count your money.

Build it yourself when you enjoy this kind of thing, when the site is a small part of how you get customers, or when the budget is genuinely zero. Hire someone when your time is worth more than the fee, when you have already tried and stalled at the words, or when the site is the main way strangers decide whether to call you.

If you hire anyone, me included, ask three things before you pay: whose name the domain is in, whether you get the source code, and what changing your hours in March will cost. Here are the other nine questions.

If you are not sure which side you are on, I will build your homepage for free and put it on a real address. You keep it either way, and you will know in a week whether you want the rest.

Questions

The things people ask before building one

How much does it cost to build a website?

Anywhere from the price of a domain to several thousand dollars, depending on who does the work. A domain is $10 to $20 a year. A builder is $16 to $46 a month and your own evenings. I build a one-page site for $100 and a five-page site for $600, one fixed price, and the care plan afterward is $49 a month if you want it. Minnesota agencies quote $3,000 to $10,000 for the same size of site.

How long does it take to build a website?

A one-page site can be live in a week once the words and photos exist. The words and photos are what take the time, whoever builds it. A five-page site is one to two weeks. If a builder site has taken you a month, that is normal, and it is the evenings, not the tool.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. A builder needs no code at all. Hiring someone needs none. Coding it yourself is a real option and a good skill, but it is a hobby project the first time, not a weekend. If you want to learn, start with one page of plain HTML and CSS and put it online for free before you buy any course.

Can I build a website for free?

Nearly. Hosting is free on Vercel, Netlify or Cloudflare Pages, and the code costs nothing to write. The domain is the one thing worth paying for, about $15 a year, because a free address that ends in somebody else's name tells customers you are not really open. Free builder plans exist too, and they put their advert on your site.

What is the difference between a domain and hosting?

The domain is the address. The hosting is the building at that address. You rent the address from a registrar and you rent or borrow the building from a host, and they do not have to be the same company. Keeping them separate is usually the safer choice, because it means no single company can hold both.

Should I just use Wix or Squarespace?

If you enjoy the fiddling, have the evenings, and the site is not your main way of getting customers, yes. A well set up Squarespace site beats a badly built custom one every time. It stops being the right answer when you are the one logging in at 10pm to change your hours, or when you want the site to look like your business rather than a template. If you already have one and have outgrown it, the domain moves across with no downtime.

Start with the words, not the tool.

Whichever way you build it, write the one sentence about what the site has to do, then the page, then find the photos. If you would rather see it built before you spend anything, I will build the homepage for free.

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