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YardScaleDigital
FreeMini-courseWebsites

Build Your First Website

Most first websites fail in the planning, not the building. This mini-course walks you through deciding what the site is for, structuring it around one action, building it with whichever approach fits your budget and skills, and launching it without the mistakes that cost people their first month of traffic.

Difficulty
Beginner
Time to complete
2.5 hours
Parts
5
Price
Free
Start free

What you’ll learn

  • Why most websites do nothing, and what separates them from ones that produce enquiries
  • How to plan a site before you open a builder, so you do not rebuild it three times
  • The nine sections a homepage needs, and the job each one does
  • How to choose between no-code, AI-assisted, and traditional development honestly
  • How to write for conversion without sounding like a sales letter
  • The complete launch sequence — domain, hosting, SSL, testing, analytics

Who it’s for

  • Anyone building their first business website and unsure where to start
  • Solopreneurs whose current site describes them but produces nothing
  • People who have started a website builder three times and abandoned it
  • Freelancers and consultants who need a credible destination fast

What you'll build

You finish with assets, not notes.

  • 01A one-page website plan: purpose, audience, offer, and the one action
  • 02A sitemap and content outline you can hand to any builder
  • 03A structured homepage wireframe, section by section
  • 04A completed pre-launch checklist covering technical, content and mobile

Curriculum

5 parts, in order.

Each part ends with something you do, not just something you read.
  1. 01

    What Makes a Website Actually Work

    The difference between a site that describes a business and one that moves someone toward a decision.

    25 minExercise
  2. 02

    Plan Before You Build

    The five decisions that determine whether the build takes a weekend or three frustrating months.

    30 minChecklistExercise
  3. 03

    Build the Website

    Choosing a build approach honestly, then structuring the homepage section by section.

    35 minChecklistExercise
  4. 04

    Make It Convert

    Turning a site that exists into a site that produces enquiries — messaging, trust signals, mobile and speed.

    30 minChecklistExercise
  5. 05

    Launch

    Domain, hosting, SSL, testing, analytics and the complete pre-launch checklist.

    30 minChecklistExercise

Included

Resources you keep.

  • Website Planning Worksheet

    The five questions to answer before you open a builder.

  • Homepage Wireframe

    The nine-section structure with the job of each section written out.

  • Pre-Launch Checklist

    Everything to verify before the site goes live.

  • Mobile Testing Checklist

    What to check on an actual phone, not a resized browser window.

Questions

Before you start.

Do I need to know how to code?
No. Module 3 covers three build approaches, and two of them require no coding at all. The course is about deciding what to build and why; the tooling is a choice you make afterwards based on your budget, timeline and appetite for learning.
How long will this actually take me?
Reading takes about two and a half hours. Doing it — planning, building and launching a real site — usually takes somewhere between a weekend and three weeks depending on how much content you need to write and which build approach you choose. The planning modules are the ones worth not rushing.
What will the website cost me to run?
A domain is typically $10–$20 a year. Hosting ranges from free (for a static site on a platform like Vercel or Netlify) to roughly $15–$30 a month for a hosted website builder. SSL is free on every modern host. Module 5 covers what you actually need versus what gets upsold.
Is this relevant if I already have a website?
Yes, if the site is not producing anything. Modules 1, 2 and 4 are diagnostic — they will tell you whether the problem is the structure, the message, or the fact that the site was never designed around an action in the first place.

What next

Your site exists and works. If you now want a page that converts a specific audience into a specific action — a booked call, a sale, a signup — that is a different discipline.

Tutorial

$19

Complete Landing-Page Tutorial

Build a landing page that converts one audience into one action — section by section, with the copy formulas and audit checklists.

What you’ll learn

  • Why people actually act — and the three things that must be true before they do
  • The above-the-fold formula that decides whether the rest gets read
  • How to write headlines that are specific without being gimmicky
Intermediate3 hours7 parts

View details

Want this built rather than taught?

This teaches the method. If you would rather have the offer, funnel and distribution built for you, start with the bottleneck.

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