After choosing and purchasing your domain, there is still a bit to do before you can officially launch your website. Launching a website can feel a bit intimidating, so today, BoldGrid & Inmotion Hosting are going to walk you through the website launch checklist to help get your website launched.

Step 1: Choose a host

You will need to point your domain to a website hosting company, which is a service where you can store your website’s files. Choosing the right host is important. You should look for a host which provides excellent and professional customer support and service. You also want to look for a host that is aligned to your website’s goals and services. We prefer InMotion Hosting, especially their WordPress Hosting and Shared Business Hosting products.

Step 2: Point your domain

After purchasing a hosting plan, it’s time to point your domain to your new hosting account. Simply log into your Hover account and edit your domain’s nameservers. Once the domain is pointed over to your host’s nameservers, allow 12-24 hours for propagation time. This is typically how long it will take to update the change across the world. Once the propagation time has completed, it’s time to start working on the design and development of your website.

Step 3: Design and Development

Choosing a content management system (CMS) gives you an easy way to edit and manage your website. We recommend using WordPress since it has many advantages. WordPress is the #1 CMS in the world and currently powers nearly twenty million websites. Since WordPress is the most popular CMS, WordPress users have a large number of resources available to them. From themes to plugins, there is no shortage of features or styles to choose from. Because of this, the design of your website is one hundred percent customizable, and there will usually be a theme or plugin providing the exact customization you need.

Choose a theme or content builder

This is usually the first step of the design and development stage. A theme or a page builder is exactly what it sounds like: a theme is a template where you can insert your content to form the website design. A page builder is usually drag-and-drop, meaning that you can simply drag and drop elements—such as images, text, and other design elements—to easily build your website.

Look for a page builder which includes different themes and layouts. Additional features, such as SEO tools and image galleries, are very helpful and will save you time and money. We like BoldGrid, a professional theme and page builder packed with features. It comes with not only a page builder plugin, but also hundreds of theme configurations along with staging, SEO, backup, and image gallery plugins.

Once you choose a page builder and theme, it’s time to build your website.

Make the website your own. Add your own text and images to each page. Change the layout to fit to your style and ideas. Update the color scheme to fit to your logo colors. If you’re using BoldGrid, we found a feature where you simply upload your logo and BoldGrid will update the color scheme of the website to match to your logo. This is a convenient way to ensure that your branding stays the same across the website. Once you have all of the content on your website, it’s time to take the next step.

Step 4: Successfully launch your website

Once you have completed a solid design which you are happy with, preview it on several different devices—like your phone, tablet, laptop—to ensure everything looks proper. Once this is complete, publish and launch your website.

There is quite a bit behind the curtain of a domain. Even though launching a website can seem a daunting, it isn’t too complex.

Congratulations on launching your website!