How to Build a Website on GoDaddy | 13 Easy Steps

1 Choose Your Site Type

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The very first thing you need to do is decide which type of website you want to build. If you want to sell online, you’ll need to select the online store option. If you won’t be accepting payments through your website, then you should select the website builder option.

Don’t worry, this decision isn’t set in stone – if you change your mind down the line, you can always add an online store to your website later.

In this step-by-step guide, we’ll be showing you how to build a website rather than an online store, although a lot of the steps are similar.

2 Start Your Free Trial

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GoDaddy has a one-month free trial, which is definitely worth making the most of. You can practise these steps and get your site ready on the free trial, then choose to upgrade (or not) when your trial draws to a close.

That means you can learn how to use GoDaddy without spending a single cent!

It’s easy to start your free trial – just click any of the Start for Free buttons on GoDaddy’s website, then create an account. It’s totally free, and you don’t need to enter any credit card details to sign up.

All you need is an email and password, and you’re good to go!

GoDaddy’s free trial is extremely generous, and gives you plenty of time to make sure it’s the perfect builder for you. There’s no risk and no pressure to sign up once the trial finishes – you only pay if you loved using GoDaddy!

Once your trial is over, you have four price plans to choose from, ranging between $9.99 and $24.99 per month (when billed annually). The Basic plan is the cheapest, and gives you all the usual essentials, such as SSL security and limited social sharing options.

For SEO tools you’ll need the $14.99 per month Standard plan, and to accept bookings and payments for services or appointments you’ll need the $19.99 per month Premium plan.

The Ecommerce plan is the most expensive, at $24.99 per month – this comes with sales tools such as discounts, shipping, and inventory management.

For now, though, simply start building for free and come back to pick your price plan once your trial is over – simple!

3 Select Your Industry and Website Title

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Once you’ve signed up, you’ll see this page in front of you, encouraging you to get started. This is the first step to actually building your site – and it couldn’t be easier.

All you need to do is enter the industry your site comes under, and then the name of your website.  As you do so, GoDaddy automatically creates an example page based on the basic information you’ve entered.

We wanted a website under the industry “Writer”, titled “Lucy Loves Writing”. GoDaddy instantly gave us this simple, stylish theme, centered around what we’d told it so far. You can play around with different industries and site titles to find one you’re happy with – once you’re satisfied, just click the Continue button.

Oh, and don’t worry if you don’t love every single thing about this first website – you’ll get to customize it in a moment with GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing tools.

4 Start Editing Your Site: Pick Your Theme

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Now you’ve got your base template, you can begin to edit it so that it’s more unique and in-line with your own brand. The first thing to do is to pick your theme. Your theme changes the design and layout of your site, so it’s important to choose one you like!

It’s easy to change your theme – just click that Theme button, and you’ll find tons of different themes for you to preview.

The basics of each theme remain the same, but the layouts and styles vary for each one.

This won’t be the final version of your website, so don’t worry if it’s not 100% perfect – you’ll get the chance to add your own images, text, pages, and more before you hit publish.

It’s important to know your theme isn’t set in stone – GoDaddy lets you go back and change your theme at any time, even after your site has gone live!

5 Customize Your Design: Add Your Own Images

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Images are super important for your website’s success. Your theme comes with stock images already in place – but you probably want to add your own!

However, you might want to replace this stock image with a different one – maybe even photos you’ve taken yourself! To do this, click the Update button on the right-hand side of the image.

Here, you can upload your own images, browse free stock photos, or even connect to social media to add images at the click of a button.

If you’re using the free stock imagery, you can make life easier by using the search feature. Once you’ve chosen your images, click Insert to see them appear on your website.

Below you can see the box where you type in your alt text – notice how your alt text also appears when you hover over the image.

6 Add Your Own Text

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This is a simple but crucial step to customizing your website. Content is king in the website world, so you need to replace that stock text and put in your own killer content!

It’s easy to edit the stock text already on your page, but you’re more limited when it comes to moving or even adding new text boxes. You can’t just click and drag text boxes around, and you can’t add a single text box to your page.

Instead, you need to add a new section (we’ll get to that next) and change the stock text that comes with it.

If you’re writing a blog, simply click the Start Writing button and GoDaddy will open up a blog draft for you to start creating posts.

7 Add New Sections

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You’ll notice your website already has four sections included – Header, About Us, Contact Us, and Footer. One of the best ways to make your site unique is by adding new sections – with this handy tool, you can add photo galleries, blogs, videos, menus, and more.

When you’re editing your page, you’ll notice blue buttons appearing with plus signs on them – hover over one of these, and the words Add Section will appear.

Click this button, then choose what type of section you’d like to add from the long list that pops up:

You can add up to 20 sections on each page, which should be plenty. The only sections you can’t add are more Headers or Footers, but other than that, you’re free to choose whatever you like from that impressive menu.

If you want to add lots of new content, it’s best to add a Content section, as this means you can write as much as you like!

If you add a section by accident or decide you no longer need it, you can easily delete sections by clicking on them, then hitting the red Delete button at the bottom of the side bar that appears on the right.

8 Add Pages

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Some website builders only let you build one-page websites, while others let you create complex sites with hundreds of pages. So how does GoDaddy work? Well, GoDaddy sits modestly in between these extremes – you can add up to 50 pages on your site, or keep it simple with a single page.

Adding pages is easy – simply go to your main website menu, then click the ‘+’ button next to Site Navigation. You’ll see a list of your existing pages underneath.

All you need to do now is give your new page a title, select the settings you want – for example, if it should appear in the navigation menu – and click Create Page.

Once you’ve created your shiny new page, you can start breathing life into it by adding sections to fill it up. Whether you want videos, contact forms, or even to embed custom code on the page, it’s a blank canvas for you to play with.

9 Manage Your Site Settings

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When you go into your Site Settings from the home menu, you’ll find a ton of things you can add, edit, or enable. We’ll explore four of the key features you might want to manage.

Site Profile

Your Site Profile is where you’ll find the basic information for your website, such as your email, address, and site name. GoDaddy will automatically use the email you used to sign up, but you can replace this with a different address if you want to.

You can also change your business category here, or add a phone number or address. This is especially worth filling out if you’re building a business site, as it helps to build trust with potential customers.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the art of getting found online. You can optimize your website to be found and favored by search engines like Google – there are all sorts of ways of doing this, but GoDaddy keeps it simple with its SEO tool.

Go to the SEO tab in your settings menu, and click Start Optimizing – this will take you to a new page, where you can go through GoDaddy’s SEO Wizard. Here you can answer questions such as whether your audience is worldwide or local, explain what your site is about, and pick keywords from GoDaddy’s suggestions.

GoDaddy does a great job of making SEO accessible to anyone and everyone – you don’t need to understand any of the technical stuff to begin optimizing your site. It’s not the most advanced optimization tool around, but for beginners, it’s perfect.

Google Analytics

If you’re serious about your website, the truth is, you want Google Analytics on your team. It’s a popular, powerful tool that gives you valuable insights into how your site is performing, and how people are interacting with your site.

First, go to your Settings, and find the menu tab labelled Google Analytics.

When you sign up to Google Analytics, you’ll be given a Tracking ID – if you have this to hand, then all you need to do is enter it into the labelled box in your settings, and let GoDaddy sort the rest out for you.

If you don’t have it to hand, you can find your Tracking ID in the Admin area of your Google Analytics account.

Cookie and Tracking Alert

We’re all familiar with pop-ups clamoring about cookies and data and permissions and giving us the best user experience. Most likely, you accept them without giving them a second glance.

When you’re building your own website, however, you’ll need to give a second thought to those cookie policies – it’s the law!

GoDaddy provides you with a default cookie message that works fine for general sites. Make sure this is enabled in your settings before you publish your site, or it won’t appear to visitors.

Depending on what type of site you’re running, or which industry your business sits in, you might need to edit this to be a more specific and legally airtight message.

If you have a longer and very detailed policy, you can also add a privacy policy to your site – you do this by adding a new section to your page, and choosing the Privacy Policy option.

10 Get Advanced

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Now you’ve got the basics in place, here are three things you might want to add to bring an extra level of “wow” and professionalism to your website.

Add Social Media to Your Site

Stay connected by integrating social media with your website. You can add buttons linking to your various social media accounts, making it easy for visitors to find and follow you. Simply add a new section and select “Social”. You can then link out to your social accounts by putting in the appropriate links.

Add Online Appointments

Business Plus and eCommerce customers can create appointment sections on their GoDaddy website. You can still try it out for free, though – click Add Section, then go to “Appointments & Services.”

You’ll need to enter the information and pricing details for these bookings in the dashboard of your site, but GoDaddy will guide you through the process.

This feature lets customers book appointments and services directly through your website. This looks really professional, and makes life much easier for both you and your clients!

11 Connect a Custom Domain

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You’re nearly there! The last thing to do before you can publish your site is to connect your very own domain name.

You can either connect an existing domain name if you already own one, or buy a new domain from GoDaddy.

If you need to buy a new domain, GoDaddy gives you a few suggestions based on the name of your site, or you can search for one yourself. You will have to pay for your new domain, but it shouldn’t be too expensive – the ones we looked at cost $11.99 for the first year.

You can lock down your domain for up to 10 years if you want to!

12 Preview and Publish Your Site

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It’s time! You’re ready to publish and share your site with the online world. In order to avoid any surprises, you should always preview your site as you build – but now it’s time for the final check. Get someone else to look around your site as a test run before hitting the big green button.

Look out for broken links, images that won’t load, or sections you meant to delete and forgot about. Once you’re totally happy with your website, go ahead and hit that ultra inviting Publish button.

Congratulations – your site is online!

13 Promote Your Website

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One last thing. Now your wonderful website is live, you need people to come and marvel at it – and preferably applaud (loudly). Now’s the time to run email marketing campaigns using GoDaddy’s Digital Marketing Suite, and to hook your visitors.

Simply add a Subscribe section to your site to encourage people to sign up – you can customize the wording, and even the layout, to make it really stand out.

If you’re on the Business Plus or eCommerce plan, you can also list your business on Google. This benefits your business site as it boosts your visibility by showing your opening hours, location, and contact information within search results.

Go to your dashboard to list your business on Google, manage your email campaigns, and improve your SEO.