Resources to Create a Website #1: Domain Name

Without a domain name, your website will be hard to find by other people. Some domain name providers that I recommend are below.

Sav.com

Sav.com has the most affordable price among others. Their .com pricing is $6.95 for the first year, then $8.69 for renewals. It has Cloudflare DNS integration, meaning we can set up our domain name utilizing Cloudflare’s global network.

Dynadot.com

Dynadot pricing for .com domains start from $9.99, and the same price for renewals. I recommend Dynadot since it has cheap pricing, sometimes they run promo campaigns and make it even cheaper.

They also have a domain name marketplace and auction where you can buy and sell registered domain names.

Namesilo.com

Namesilo has been around since 2010, the first year I started my online business selling online downloader services. I recommend them because they have an affordable pricing policy and also ease-to-use site navigations. As of December 2019, they have 3.4 million active domains under their management, that is a huge number of domains making them the top 15 registrars around the globe.

Namecheap.com

Namecheap is the most popular domain registrar in the world. It has various services alongside its domain name registration services such as web hosting, SSL, and premium DNS service.

Resources to Create a Website #2: Web Hosting

We have to buy a web hosting package to host our website. Web hosting is online storage where we store our website files. You can also set up your home PC to host your website, but it requires many configurations.

Some web hosting companies I recommend below are the ones that I’ve personally used in the past. They have low-cost packages with a great support team, suitable for us who wants to start it from small then expand it when our business is getting bigger.

Racknerd

Racknerd voted #1 Top Provider at the Lowendbox community. Their strong promotions throughout 2020 till now placed them as a favorite among users. Their web hosting pricing package is somewhat general, what makes them so special is their fast response support and transparent hardware disclosure.

PS: you can find some hidden gems in Lowendbox posts of Racknerd promotions.

PS #2: Hidonny.com is hosted at Racknerd VPS hosting.

BuyShared

Fransisco, the owner of Buyshared and Buyvm is the 2nd most popular after Racknerd. They have such a cheap price for their shared hosting package. I have been with BuyVM since a few years ago, and I can tell that their service and support are top-notch.

Hostinger

Hostinger, the parent company of 000webhost, Niagahoster, and Weblink offers a 100GB web hosting package for just $6.99 a month. They even have a 4-years package for just $2.99 a month. Hostinger is highly recommended for those who are new to creating websites.

HostArmada

HostArmada the newcomer has overcome the giants in the web hosting industry. Their strategic pricing policy and top-notch support put them the #1 best web hosting company in the “Cheap Web Hosting” category according to HostAdvice.com.

Resources to Create a Website #3: Website Builder

The majority of us come from a Windows-based system, an environment where we can easily add, modify and delete files. Programming is not our natural language, we need a system that can help us build our website without having to code for hours. This is why we need CMSes and Site Builders like the below.

WordPress

Self-hosted WordPress will always be my first choice when building a website. It has a large community, thousands of plugins and themes whether open-source or paid ones.

You can create almost anything using WordPress. From a simple blog, multi-author blog, forums, eCommerce sites, and even a social media platform like Facebook or Twitter. The possibility is endless.

Joomla!

Joomla! is another CMS with a large community. Joomla! has been around I think even before WordPress exists. In the past, Joomla! is just a CMS for blogging and news site, but nowadays you can run forums and various platforms using it.

phpBB

phpBB is open-source forum software that is powerful and highly customizable. The large community enthusiast makes its user able to power up their forum portal. Although some themes on their repository look old, you can always buy paid themes at the Envato Marketplace.

Shopify

For you who want to focus on selling, then Shopify is your best choice. It’s a ready-made eCommerce platform where you can set up an online store and start selling right away. Shopify also offers offline payment collection using Shopify POS along with the hardware to receive payments.

Shopify is a paid service, but for beginners who want to sell their product easily, Shopify will help a lot.

Wix

As an alternative to Shopify, you can use Wix. Wix is a cloud-based website builder that includes web hosting and web design for its users. It also has a business package that adds payment collection functions, like eCommerce sites.

Wix is an all-in-one solution for you who does not want to be bothered with web hosting and web design perks.

Resources to Create a Website #4: Images

We can use these sites to fill our website with beautiful pictures and images. It’s recommended to take your own photos and use them to avoid copyright strikes. However, with a tight budget, these sites will come in handy for us.

Make sure you always read the license of the images you want to use. Finding a free-for-commercial use license is not hard rather than getting DMCA emails for using unauthorized pictures.

Pixabay

Pixabay has 2.5 million royalty-free stock photos available to be downloaded. The Pixabay license allows us to use all images on the site for free, even for commercial use. It’s even unnecessary to link back or give attribution to their site. We can modify the images according to our needs.

Unsplash

Like Pixabay, the Unsplash license is also similar. We can use any images for free, both for commercial or non-commercial usage. We are also free to modify the images according to our needs. Backlink or attribution to their site is highly appreciated.

Pexels

Another free-for commercial use images site. You can use images at Pexels on your website for free. Commercial or non-commercial usages are allowed, the same goes for images modifications.

Iconfinder

If you want to find icons rather than photos, Iconfinder is the best place to go. Hosting over 6.3 million icons, Iconfinder is one of the largest free and premium vector icons and illustrations site.

Envato Elements

Can’t find what is best for your project? Try Envato Elements. For $16.5 per month, you can download any stuff from the site for any projects you have. They have photos, graphics, icons, video footage, and even WordPress plugins, and themes.

Resources to Create a Website #5: Image Editors

Not satisfied enough with images from stock-photo sites? Or maybe you want to add a watermark to your images? You can edit them using free tools such as below. Image editors are also important resources to create a website.

Images downloaded from the internet are also very big in size. So make sure we always compress or resize them before uploading them to our website.

Pixlr

Pixlr is a cloud-based photo editor. You can design and create anything from professionally create templates. Youtube banners, Instagram stories, and presentations are some image formats you can have.

Fotor

Fotor is also a cloud-based photo editor. You can resize, crop, and even remove the background of your images. Its basic package is enough for you who just want to do a little editing of your images. You can always upgrade to their $8.99 package a month.

iLoveImg

iLoveimg is my favorite one. It’s simple, easy to use and the features they have is just what we need as a webmaster. Their interface are so clear right from the front page.

Canva

Everybody loves Canva. Canva is also a cloud-based image editor. With Canva, you can create your images using their templates, or edit your existing images.

Gimp

Gimp is an offline tool for editing pictures. It’s something like the open-source version of Adobe Photoshop. It’s available for Linux and Windows users.

Resources to Create a Website #6: Paid Services

When you are stuck and can not get the function or design of your website, you can hire someone from the below sites to help you with your project. The cost varies among workers, but sometimes you can get great workers with a low-cost budget.

Upwork

Upwork is the best place to find a freelancer. Their bidding system ensures a client gets the best freelancer available for the job. It’s a competitive marketplace for freelancers, and there’s a good chance you get a skillful freelancer at an affordable price.

Fiverr

Freelancer

PeopleperHour