Architecture·July 2024·9 min read

DIY Web Development

A DIY website build is seven sequential decisions, not one: register the domain, point its DNS, provision hosting or a platform, install and configure the platform, wire up forms, install analytics, and set a backup schedule. Skip the sequencing and each later step gets harder to undo. This is the hands-on walkthrough; for whether DIY is the right call at all, see the decision framework below.

This post assumes the decision to build it yourself is already made. For the framework on whether DIY holds up for a specific business, payment handling, growth trajectory, and integration needs are the three questions that matter, see Balancing Quality and Cost: DIY Web Development for Small Businesses. What follows is what the build itself actually involves, step by step, using each platform's own documentation.

Step 1: register the domain and understand what you actually bought

A domain registration is a lease administered through a registrar, which accepts the registration on behalf of a registry operator and maintains the record data, per ICANN's own documentation on the registration process (ICANN — The Domain Name Registration Process). The registrant, the business, is responsible for keeping contact information current for as long as the domain is held.

Nothing about the site exists yet at this point. The domain is a name reservation; it does nothing until DNS records point it somewhere.

DNS is a lookup table, not a black box

DNS resource records, defined in the original IETF specification, map a domain name to the actual location of a resource: an A record points to an IP address, a CNAME record points to another domain name, and other record types handle mail routing and verification (IETF — RFC 1035, Domain Names: Implementation and Specification). Every "connect your domain" step on every platform is just a set of these records, entered into whichever interface the registrar or platform provides.

Squarespace's own documentation for connecting a third-party domain, for instance, describes the process as adding two CNAME records at the domain's existing registrar (Squarespace — Connect a third-party domain to your Squarespace site). Every other platform's "connect domain" instructions follow the same underlying pattern with different record values.

Step 2: choose hosting or a fully hosted platform

This is the decision that determines how much of the rest of this walkthrough the business owns directly versus how much a platform handles automatically. A fully hosted platform, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, bundles hosting, TLS, and infrastructure maintenance into one subscription. Self-hosted WordPress requires choosing a hosting provider separately and meeting WordPress's own stated server requirements (WordPress.org — Requirements).

TLS is not a separate purchase decision on either path today. Let's Encrypt's automated certificate issuance, built on the ACME protocol, lets a server prove domain control and receive a browser-trusted certificate without manual renewal, and most hosting providers and platforms wire this in by default (Let's Encrypt — How It Works).

What a hosting provider actually needs to guarantee

Beyond meeting WordPress's stated PHP and database version requirements, the practical hosting decision comes down to who handles server-level maintenance, operating system patches, uptime monitoring, and disk space, versus what the owner has to watch themselves. A fully hosted platform answers all of that by default; a self-managed host puts every one of those questions back on the site owner.

Confirm the hosting provider's own documentation on backup frequency and restore process before committing, since this becomes the foundation the later backup step depends on.

Step 3: install and configure the platform

For self-hosted WordPress, the installation sequence is well documented and hasn't changed much in years: obtain the WordPress package, create a database and a database user, configure wp-config.php with those database parameters, upload the files to the server, and run the install script (WordPress.org — How to Install WordPress). Most hosting providers now automate this into a one-click flow, but the underlying steps are the same ones the documentation describes.

For a fully hosted platform, this step collapses into account creation and template selection. There's no database or server configuration exposed to the user at all, that's the entire trade a hosted platform makes.

A drag-and-drop editor removes the server-provisioning decision. It does not remove the information-architecture decision, what pages exist, what the navigation says, what the calls to action are. That work still has to happen, on any platform.

Step 4: build the pages and wire up forms

Content structure comes before visual polish: decide the page list, the navigation hierarchy, and where each form lives before choosing fonts and colors. A contact or lead-capture form is the one interactive element nearly every small business site needs, and every major platform, WordPress via a plugin, Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify natively, ships a native forms feature or a well-supported first-party option for it.

The detail that gets missed: confirm where form submissions actually go, an email inbox, a spreadsheet, a CRM integration, before launch, not after the first submission disappears into a default address nobody checks.

Accessibility isn't a separate step, it's a property of this one

Every form field built in step 4 should carry a real, associated label, not just placeholder text, and every interactive element needs to be reachable and operable by keyboard alone, per the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (W3C — WCAG 2.2). This is far cheaper to get right while building the page than to retrofit after launch.

Most platform-native form builders handle labeling correctly by default. The place DIY builds go wrong is custom-styled form fields added through a page-builder plugin or a copy-pasted embed, where the visual field and the underlying label silently stop being connected.

Step 5: install analytics before launch, not after

Google's own setup documentation for Google Analytics 4 walks through creating a property, configuring a data stream for the site, and installing the resulting Google tag, either directly or through a platform's built-in integration (Google Analytics Help — Set up Analytics for a website and/or app). Doing this before launch means day-one traffic gets measured instead of lost to a gap in the data.

Search Console is the second half of measurement, and it needs a separate verification step: adding a CNAME record, an HTML tag, or an uploaded file that proves ownership of the domain, per Google's own verification documentation (Google Search Console Help — Verify your site ownership). Both tools should be live before the domain goes public, not added weeks later.

A platform comparison for the setup steps that actually differ

Step	Self-hosted WordPress	Wix / Squarespace	Shopify
Hosting	Separate provider, chosen by the owner	Bundled into the platform	Bundled into the platform
TLS certificate	Usually automated by the host	Automated by the platform	Automated by the platform
Domain connection	DNS records at the registrar, pointed to the host	DNS records at the registrar, per platform docs	DNS records or automatic connection for supported registrars
Platform install	Manual or one-click install of WordPress itself	Account creation, no install step	Account creation, no install step
Backups	Owner's responsibility to configure	Platform-managed	Platform-managed

Step 6: set a backup schedule and actually test it

WordPress.org's own advanced administration documentation recommends backing up both the site's database and its files, with frequency scaled to how often the site changes: weekly for a low-activity site, daily for one with frequent posts or transactions, and keeping several recent backups stored in more than one location (WordPress.org — Backups). A fully hosted platform typically runs this automatically, but "automatic" isn't the same as "verified."

The step nearly every DIY build skips: actually restoring a backup once, in a test environment, to confirm the process works before the day it's needed for real.

What "test the restore" means in practice

A realistic test doesn't mean opening the backup file to confirm it exists. It means standing up a second, temporary copy of the site, on a staging subdomain or a local environment, restoring the backup into it, and clicking through the site as a visitor would.

This catches the failure mode that a file-exists check never will: a backup that completed successfully but is missing a database table, a broken file path, or a plugin version mismatch that only surfaces once someone tries to actually use the restored site.

The build sequence, laid out

Each step depends on the one before it. Reordering, installing analytics after launch, skipping a backup test until it's needed, is where most DIY builds lose time later.

A pre-launch checklist

Domain registered and DNS records confirmed to resolve, not just entered.
TLS certificate active and the site loads over HTTPS without a browser warning.
Every form submission tested end to end, confirming where the data actually lands.
Google Analytics 4 property and data stream live, verified with real traffic before launch day.
Search Console ownership verified and the sitemap submitted.
A backup taken and restored once, in a test environment, to confirm the process actually works.

Backups and analytics are the two steps most often bolted on after launch, and both are the ones where "after launch" means real, permanent data loss: traffic that was never measured, or a site with nothing to restore from when something breaks.

FAQ

Do I need to understand DNS to build a website myself?

Not deeply, but enough to know that "connecting a domain" always means adding specific records, A or CNAME, at the registrar. Every platform's instructions are a variation on that same underlying mechanism.

Is a free TLS certificate as secure as a paid one?

For transport encryption, yes. Let's Encrypt's certificates use the same public certificate authority infrastructure as paid options; the difference in paid certificates is usually extended validation branding, not encryption strength.

Should analytics be installed before or after the site launches?

Before. Traffic that arrives before analytics is installed is traffic that's permanently unmeasured, and early traffic is often the highest-signal data a new site gets.

How do I know my backup actually works?

Restore it once, somewhere other than the live site. A backup that has never been restored is unverified, regardless of how automatically it was created.

When should I stop doing this myself and read the decision framework instead?

Once the build itself is running and the question shifts from "how do I set this up" to "should I keep building on this platform," that's exactly the question the companion decision framework answers.

References

From the Destm engineering archive. For current work on this topic, start at Solutions or the blog.