How to Build a Website with no Code in 2024

Arshian

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Transcript

00:00So the days of having to know how to code and write HTML and CSS and JavaScript to make a website are

00:05long gone. You can build a website literally in minutes without knowing anything about coding or

00:09servers or anything like that. I've been building websites multiple times a year since 2010 so I

00:13followed this space for a long time and it's literally never been easier. But it's now gotten

00:17to the point where there are an overwhelming number of choices when it comes to making a website at

00:22different price points with different features and so in this video we're going to start by

00:25breaking down the three different paths that you could take if you want to build a website

00:29and then based on which of those different paths you want to choose I'm going to share some

00:32recommendations as to how you can build a website for different price points without having to know

00:36how to code. What is the point of a website in the first place? A website is essentially a home on

00:40the internet. It is a place where anyone in the world can type in a URL in their little address

00:44bar and then they can go to your website and so it's a way of you being able to showcase basically

00:49whatever the hell you want without a social media platform like LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or

00:53whatever and depending on who you are and what your needs are then the different stuff that you

00:56have on this website is going to vary. So for example if you're a professional then you might

01:00want to have a personal website because if for example someone's looking to hire you yes they're

01:04going to look at your LinkedIn profile but they're probably going to google you and normally the first

01:08result is going to be your own personal website and so you can kind of use that as a professional

01:12CV or a personal CV of sorts. If you're working in like a creative field or something you could

01:16have your portfolio on the website and even if you're not then at least you can showcase what

01:20you want employers and people who might hire you in the future to be seeing on your website.

01:24Secondly if you're a creator then a website is a great place where you can publish written content

01:28so these are the bloggers and the writers and even like the graphic designers and illustrators and

01:32stuff. If you're going to be publishing content regularly whatever that content is then yes of

01:35course you can put it on social media platforms but you also might as well put it on your website

01:39and thirdly if you're an entrepreneur or you're a business and you want to sell stuff then a website

01:42is a fantastic way of selling things. Loads of commerce is done on the internet these days and

01:46you need a website to be able to sell stuff and a website that we're talking about in this video

01:50is distinct from a web app. So a web app would be something like twitter it is an application on the

01:55web that people can access on the web and can interact with and it's basically like an app but

02:00in the form of a website. That's not what we're talking about here it's really really hard to build

02:03a web app i.e an app in the form of a website without knowing how to code you kind of need to

02:07know how to code and that is like a whole other ballgame. But in this video I want to focus on the

02:11traditional website basically a place where you can either showcase your stuff or you can write

02:15content or you can sell things and those are the three different paths that you can go down and

02:19depending on which of these three things is your primary concern I've got a few different personal

02:23recommendations as to what website platform you should go for and how you might want to go about

02:27it. I'll put timestamps to everything down below so if you don't want to watch the whole video then

02:30you don't have to because it's probably going to be quite long but you can decide which of these

02:34paths you want to go down. So path number one is where you are trying your best to publish some

02:38kind of content regularly probably going to be written content but it doesn't necessarily have

02:43to be written content. Path number two is where you don't really care about publishing content

02:47regularly on the website you would rather have your website as a bit of a showcase. So for example

02:52if you're a professional it might be your personal or professional CV. If you're a business and you

02:56want to sell services rather than products then this would be your showcase or maybe you show

03:00your portfolio or the kind of work you've done and it lets people who want to do business with you

03:04see what you're all about by going on your website. And then path number three is where you want to

03:08actually sell stuff on your website. So that might be for businesses or even creators or entrepreneurs

03:13if you want to sell stuff whether it's digital or physical then you want to go down path number three

03:17and you need a website that's got e-commerce functionality built into it. Path number one I

03:21primarily want a website so that I can publish content. Now here there is a very good free option

03:26and that is Substack. Now Substack technically is not a website platform it is in fact a newsletter

03:31platform and on Substack you can sign up completely for free and then you can write a weekly or

03:36bi-weekly or however often you want newsletter which then gets emailed to people who subscribe

03:41to your newsletter but then it also lives on the website. Now if you don't want to pay anything at

03:45all then you can get the Substack domain name so it might be I don't know aliabdal.substack.com

03:49but if you want you can buy your own domain and so whatever platform I use to design my website

03:53or even Substack I can connect up my domain name to that so I don't need to have aliabdal.substack.com

03:58I can just have aliabdal.com. Now Substack is really good if all you care about is publishing

04:02content it is a very easy way to get started you don't need to worry about design or customization

04:06or any of that faff and there are so many people I know who have started creating content on the

04:10internet through publishing on Substack initially completely for free and then later on you can

04:14level up yourself to a fancier more customizable website if that's what you want. So Substack is

04:19level one and then level two within the content creator publishing content path is a platform

04:23called Ghost. Now I've been using Ghost since 2015 so for the last eight years as of the recording

04:28of this video my website has been hosted on Ghost and Ghost starts at nine dollars a month and so

04:33it's a fantastic platform if you kind of want to do the publishing content thing regularly

04:37but you want a proper website rather than quote just a Substack account. On that basic plan at

04:42the moment you can get some of their basic templates the basic templates are very good

04:45honestly for the first like four years of me having my own website I was just using the

04:48completely free default bog standard theme that Ghost supplies and I would constantly get emails

04:53from people being like oh my god how did you design your website it's so pretty. The other

04:56nice thing about Ghost is that it's got newsletters and memberships built into it so let's say you

05:00start publishing content regularly you've got your proper website that you've connected your domain

05:03name to and now you want to start launching a paid membership option you can do that if you want

05:08or if you want to start sending newsletters you can do that if you want. It's the same sort of

05:11functionality that Substack provides but it just gives you a proper looking website rather than

05:15just a Substack newsletter. And then if you want to upgrade from Ghost you can upgrade to level

05:19three which is WordPress and actually we have just migrated from Ghost to WordPress as of like

05:24this week. So what is WordPress? Well basically WordPress is free open source software that

05:28powers around 40% of the websites on the entire internet. It is by far and away the market leader

05:33in terms of what people build their websites on and WordPress started off as a blogging platform

05:37kind of like what Ghost is but over time it just got more and more and more features. Some say it

05:41became very bloated and became less about being a professional blogger and more about just a

05:45platform that you can build literally any website on. Now the reason why I've not been using WordPress

05:49for my own personal website since 2015 is because I didn't need it. WordPress has tons of features

05:54it's a little bit bloated at times. Anytime I fiddled with WordPress for my own personal site I

05:58would feel overwhelmed and then I wouldn't end up writing anything and so for the first eight years

06:01of my internet career my site was on Ghost because Ghost was nice and simple but now that our site

06:06is getting like a million hits a month or something like that we kind of needed to upgrade to something

06:10a little bit more full-featured because there's all sorts of other stuff we want to start including

06:13in the website which is why we've switched over from Ghost to WordPress. It's not necessarily

06:17something I'd recommend for a lot of people. I think if you're just a blogger and you just

06:20want to write stuff on the internet and you want a pretty looking website to go with it

06:23Ghost is still a really solid option but if you're looking for something a little bit more

06:26full-featured and more customizable there's like literally tens of thousands of plugins for

06:30WordPress as well. So almost any functionality you want you can add to WordPress broadly without

06:35having to know how to code and there's also marketplaces of like literally thousands of

06:38different themes so you can get your website to look however you want. Now WordPress is actually

06:42free but if you want to actually use WordPress to host your website which is kind of level three

06:46in this particular content path you need to find a hosting provider and there's loads of these on

06:50the market but the one that we personally use is called a WPEngine and the reason we use WPEngine

06:54is basically for the reliability, the security, the performance. Yes it's a little bit more expensive

06:58than some of the really really cheap options but I've been using WPEngine to host the WordPress

07:02site for another one of my businesses since like 2017 and so I had a lot of experience using that

07:07and never had any issues with it at all and so when it came to switching over from Ghost to WordPress

07:10they were the first people we went to and very excitingly they also agreed to sponsor this video.

07:14They've got some stats on the website that show that people who migrate from other hosting

07:17providers to WPEngine experience a 40% increase in their page load times. They've got automatic

07:22updates for WordPress and for PHP so you don't have to deal with any of the server management

07:25stuff yourself and the support team behind it is absolutely fantastic. Anytime I've needed support

07:30for since like 2017 through right now I just message them on the live chat and they either

07:34get someone on the phone or they just reply almost immediately and so if you're in this level

07:38three zone for being a creator or potentially you're a business and you want a fully fledged

07:41website that is way more customizable than a lot of the other options that you've got

07:45and you want to go with WordPress which is free and open source and has a ridiculously big team

07:48behind it and that powers like 40% of the internet and if you want your WordPress installation and

07:52server hosted by the best option out there WPEngine, at least in my personal view, then you

07:56can head over to WPEngine.com forward slash Ali or you can hit the link in the video description.

08:00Anyway thank you WPEngine for sponsoring this video and let's now move on to path number two.

08:04I primarily want a website so that I can showcase myself or my services. Now I'm distinguishing path

08:09number two the showcase from path number one the content piece because primarily the objective of

08:13path number two is literally just to showcase stuff where maybe you occasionally update your

08:17website. The intention of path number two is not that you want to write blog posts once or twice

08:21a week and so there are three options that I would recommend again on different levels. So level one

08:25is a fantastic platform called Card and Card is a great way of building one-page websites. I think

08:31Card, I've been building sites on Card also since about 2017-ish and the great thing about Card is

08:36that it's free to get started and if you want to upgrade to the pro version it's only $19 for the

08:41whole year which makes Card like probably the single best paid hosting option. Generally yes

08:46you can get free website hosting but it generally sucks so you do generally have to pay at least

08:50something for website hosting and I think Card is the best platform out there if all you really

08:54care about is having a one-page website. Now what might a one-page website be? Let's say you're a

08:58freelancer and you just want to advertise your services or let's say you're a professional and

09:01you literally just want a one-page website where you can just write a few details so that if someone

09:05googles you they stumble on your website maybe you could just write a little bit of a bio or include

09:09a link to your CV or include a link to your social profiles. Alternatively let's say you're a business

09:13and you do lawn care services and you literally just want a website a single page that says what

09:18kind of services you provide and a number to ring you or some kind of contact form to put on the

09:22website where people can get in touch. All of those simple use cases are absolutely fantastic for

09:26Card and it's pretty easy to use and pretty easy to update as and when you need to and it's the

09:30cheapest option out there. So that was level one. Now level two in this showcase mode is something

09:34called Super and Super is basically a website buildery type platform that takes in a notion

09:39page and converts it into a website. Again this is not amazing if you're planning to publish loads

09:43and loads of content very regularly for that I'd recommend path number one but if you just want to

09:47showcase your services you want a business website maybe you want a careers page a lot of people use

09:51it for that then you can literally just create a notion page for free on notion. You're probably

09:54familiar with notion if you're not it's basically like a note-taking app with a bunch of other fancy

09:59features but then you basically write down whatever you want on this page it's very easy and then you

10:02hook it up to super super.so and it turns it into a website for you. Now super also does have a free

10:07option if you want to be limited by the number of pages that you can create and if you want the

10:10subdomain something.super.so but if you want something a little bit more professional looking

10:15then you've got to upgrade to the professional package which I think starts at twelve dollars a

10:18month. So this is a more expensive option than card it's even a more expensive option than ghost

10:22the starter plan but I know a bunch of people who have built websites on super and they generally

10:26find it fairly accessible without needing to know how to code. Now the level three option here is to

10:29use something like squarespace or wix. You have almost certainly seen youtubers talk about

10:33squarespace and you've probably seen ads for wix. These are I guess the two most famous platforms

10:37when it comes to kind of all-in-one website builder. Now I've used both squarespace and wix

10:41for a bunch of different websites over the years. I haven't used them in the last year though so

10:45maybe things have updated in the last 12 months but whenever I use them to make websites it's nice

10:50and easy but there's something about the experience of making a website on squarespace or wix that I

10:54have not really been a fan of compared to something like ghost or something like card or something

10:58like super. But if you know absolutely nothing about code and you're willing to pay a little

11:02bit more for a very easy plug and play solution you can connect your own domain name they give

11:06you a domain name for free for a year. Both wix and squarespace have basically the same features

11:11you could even sell stuff on them if you want to but if you're looking to have a website where

11:14you're publishing lots and lots of content regularly this isn't the option that I would

11:18recommend which is why squarespace and wix are not in path number one. But let's say you want

11:21to have a business website and you don't want to deal with all the faff of kind of these other

11:24website builders and you want the option of customizing the navigation or the colors or

11:28the fonts and adding in more pages further down the line then both squarespace and wix are pretty

11:32good. Path number three I primarily want a website so that I can sell my stuff. Now here it really

11:37depends on do you want to sell physical products or do you want to sell digital products. If you

11:42want to sell physical products then the best option these days is Shopify. Shopify is generally

11:46considered the gold standard when it comes to creating an e-commerce store. You've got all

11:50sorts of small brands like we were selling our stationery on Shopify because it's great for

11:53physical products it links up with like distribution and warehouses and all that kind of stuff.

11:57Kind of easy to customize although it's easier to customize if you know a little bit of code

12:01but they've got tons and tons of themes that you can choose from and actually Shopify powers even

12:04huge brands like Gymshark that does like a billion dollars in sales every year. So basically from

12:09starting out to scaling up into billion dollar business Shopify is the way to go for a lot of

12:13direct-to-consumer physical product brands. But if you want to sell digital products there are lots

12:17of other options that are more like full-featured than Shopify for the digital stuff. There are two

12:22that I'd recommend personally so a sort of beginner basic option is Podia that I was using from 2017

12:27through to 2022. Podia is great it's reasonably priced I think it's like $39 a month so if you're

12:32expecting to be selling more than $39 a month worth of digital products like online courses or

12:37PDFs or downloads or anything like that then Podia is really nice. It lets you make a website

12:42that website can look really pretty even if you don't know how to code and actually we did like

12:462.5 million dollars worth of sales for our YouTuber Academy by just hosting it on Podia

12:50and not having to think too hard about it. But there's a more advanced version of Podia and that

12:53is Kajabi which is the one that we now have migrated everything over to. It takes a little

12:56bit more work of like tinkering with it a little bit to get it looking really nice. I think Podia

13:00looks really nice out of the box but Kajabi is more customizable and you can make funnels and

13:04you can have an email list and you can do all this other fancy stuff. It does start at around

13:07$150 a month so if you expect to be doing way more than $150 a month in sales then a platform like

13:13Kajabi would be what I would recommend. But really the main thing when it comes to any of these nine

13:17different things that we've talked about is actually figuring out what you personally want

13:21a website for and then actually just trying out a few of these different platforms. You might find

13:25you really like Squarespace, you might find oh my god I freaking love Ghost, you might find Substack

13:29solves all your problems. But there isn't really one easy answer for what's the best website

13:33platform. It's like they all have their pros and cons, they all have different user interfaces

13:36and user experiences and it just kind of depends what works for you. So hopefully this video gave

13:40you a little bit more of an insight into what options you might want to go for when it comes

13:44to starting a website. If you wanted to go completely down the free route and you're

13:47interested in finding out more about the Substack thing, I've got a video here which is all about

13:50a step-by-step guide to how to start an email newsletter. So check that out if you want more

13:54of a step-by-step guide on how to get started with Substack. So thank you so much for watching,

13:58have a great day and I'll see you hopefully in the next video. Bye!

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