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's 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.
What a website is actually made of.
Five things, plus the padlock. Every website you have ever visited is these, 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.
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
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.
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 | From $1,495 with me, fixed in writing; $5,000 to $20,000 at an agency | $0 |
| Money every month | $16 to $46 | $0 if you host it yourself, or $49/month 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 and move with the plan. My prices are on the pricing page. If you want the 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.
Two of those columns have a longer read. If you are hiring, the questions worth asking first. If you are thinking of prompting an AI to write it instead, where that quietly costs you.
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 it's 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.
The things people ask before building one.
How much does it cost to build a website?
How long does it take to build a website?
Do I need to know how to code?
Can I build a website for free?
What is the difference between a domain and hosting?
Should I just use Wix or Squarespace?
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'd rather see it built before you spend anything, the homepage is free.