I build websites for a living. And yet I’ll say this straight: these days, you can make a simple website yourself. The tools have improved so much that you don’t need to know how to code, and AI can even help with the copy and structure.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to do it with Hostinger from start to finish. And at the end, I’ll tell you honestly when doing it yourself makes sense and when it doesn’t.
For transparency: this post contains a Hostinger referral link. If you buy through it, you’ll get a discount on your first billing period, and I’ll get a small commission. It doesn’t cost you anything extra. I recommend Hostinger because it’s easy for beginners, not because of the commission.
Referral link: Hostinger – start here
Before you open a single program
The biggest mistake I see is starting with the design. People pick a theme, colours and fonts, and then realise they have nothing to say. So start on paper.
Write down four things a customer should be able to find on your website within five seconds:
- What you do. In one sentence, using the words a customer would search for.
- Where. The town or area you serve.
- What does it cost. A price, or at least what the price is based on.
- How to get in touch. Phone, email, WhatsApp or a booking link.
Also gather these in advance:
- your logo (if you have one)
- 5–10 of your own photos: of you, your work, your premises
- the names and prices of your services
- your business name and Business ID
- the web address you’d like, for example yourbusiness.fi
Once you have these together, you’re halfway there.
1. Choose a plan
Hostinger has several plans, but for a small business the choice is usually easy:
- Premium is enough if you’re making one ordinary website without an online shop.
- Business is worth it if you’re planning an online shop or want daily backups instead of weekly ones.
The basic features are already included in the cheapest plan: an SSL certificate (the padlock in the browser), a web address for the first year, backups and AI tools for building your site.
Read this before you pay: the lowest prices apply to long commitments, often several years, and they’re introductory prices. When that period ends, the price goes up noticeably. This is common across the industry, not just at Hostinger. At checkout, always check two things: how much you’re paying now and how much the renewal will cost. And set a calendar reminder a few weeks before the renewal date.
Hostinger has a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you have time to try it out.
2. Choose a web address
Your web address, or domain, is what customers type into their browser. A good address is short, easy to say out loud and has no hyphens.
For a Finnish business, .fi is usually the best choice, because it tells people straight away that you serve customers in Finland. When you buy, check whether the ending you want is included for free and how much it costs from the second year onwards.
If you already have an address somewhere else, you can transfer it to Hostinger or point it there. Hostinger guides you through this step by step.
3. Website builder or WordPress?
This is the most important choice in this guide, so let’s take a moment to think about it.
Hostinger Website Builder is a drag-and-drop tool with built-in AI. You tell it a few sentences about your business, and it creates a starting point that you then edit. It’s the easiest way to get started, and you don’t have to worry about updates because Hostinger takes care of them. The downside is that your site is tied to Hostinger. If you want to move somewhere else later, you’ll have to rebuild it.
WordPress is the world’s most widely used website platform. It’s more flexible, you can move it anywhere, and there’s a plugin for almost everything. But that flexibility comes at a price: you have to update WordPress, your theme and your plugins yourself, or over time your site becomes a security risk.
My rule of thumb:
- If you want your site up quickly and never want to think about technical stuff, choose the builder.
- If you want to grow, add an online shop or bookings later, or keep your site fully your own, choose WordPress.
4a. If you chose the builder
- Log in to Hostinger’s control panel (hPanel).
- Choose to create a new website and select Website Builder.
- Tell the AI briefly what your business does and who it’s for. Be specific: “Hair salon in central Vaasa, haircuts and colouring for women and men” works better than “Beauty business”.
- Choose the template that looks closest to what you want.
- Replace the template text with your own words and the images with your own photos. Don’t leave the AI-generated text as it is. Read it out loud and edit it until it sounds like you.
- Add your contact details and check the site on your phone.
- Publish.
4b. If you chose WordPress
- Log in to hPanel and choose to create a new website. Select WordPress, and Hostinger will install it automatically.
- Create a strong password and turn on two-factor authentication right from the start.
- Choose a lightweight theme. Among the free ones, Astra and Kadence are good and fast. If you want a page builder you can customise completely, Divi and Elementor are popular, but they take time to learn.
- Create your pages. For a small business, these are often enough: Home, Services and prices, About, and Contact.
- Only add the plugins you need. Every plugin is one more thing that needs updating. A good starter set is one plugin for SEO (for example Rank Math or Yoast), one for a contact form and one for a cookie notice.
- Set your homepage: Settings → Reading → A static page.
- Check your site on your phone before publishing.
5. The essentials many people forget
These aren’t the fun part, but every business website needs them:
- Privacy policy. If you collect names and email addresses through a form or use analytics, you need to explain what data you collect and why.
- Cookie notice. If you use something like Google Analytics or the Meta Pixel, visitors must give their consent before tracking starts.
- Business details. Your business name and Business ID belong on your website, usually in the footer.
- SSL. Check that there’s a padlock and https in front of your address. At Hostinger, this is usually switched on by default.
I’m not a lawyer, so if you collect sensitive information such as health data, it’s worth checking the requirements more closely.
6. Make sure people can find you
SEO sounds complicated, but the basics are simple:
- Give each page one clear main headingthat says what you do and where. For example, “Massage in Vaasa”.
- Write a meta description for every page. It’s the short text that appears in Google’s search results.
- Name your images sensibly and give them alternative text (alt text).
- Create or update your Google Business Profile. For a local business, this is often more important than the website itself.
- Add your site to Google Search Consoleso you can see which search terms people use to find you.
7. Checklist before you publish
- Your homepage shows within five seconds what you do, where and how to get in touch
- The site works on a phone
- All links and buttons work
- The contact form sends messages to the right address (test it!)
- Prices and opening hours are correct
- The privacy policy and cookie notice are in place
- Your business name and Business ID can be found
- There’s a padlock in front of your address
- You’ve asked someone else to read through the text
8. Your site is ready. What now?
At this point, many people think the job is done. With a site made in the builder, it pretty much is.
With WordPress, the work is only just beginning. WordPress, your theme, the PHP version and your plugins are updated all the time. If you don’t update them, your site gradually becomes an easy target for bot attacks, which have become more common with the rise of AI. And sometimes an update breaks something, and you need to know how to fix it.
If you’re maintaining a WordPress site yourself, here’s what to do:
- Check for updates once a month.
- Take a backup before any major update.
- Delete plugins you don’t use.
- Change your passwords if someone else has used your login details.
If that sounds like something you can keep up with, great. Then you have everything you need. Start with Hostinger here.
If updates make you uneasy
This is the part where I have a personal interest, so I’ll say it out loud.
Many business owners manage to get their site up themselves, but don’t want to deal with updates, backups and security. I completely understand. You have a business to run, not a website.
In that case, you can move your site to my hosting. I’ll make sure it stays secure and keeps working:
- Hosting €240 + VAT per year. Your site lives on my server, and SSL and backups are taken care of.
- Maintenance €150 + VAT per year. I update WordPress, your theme, PHP and plugins, and make small changes like updating your opening hours or a price.
And if you don’t want to build the site yourself at all, I’ll build it for you. A simple website costs €590 + VAT with me.
I’m not saying this because doing it yourself is a bad option. It’s a good option for many people. I’m saying it because I want you to know both options before you decide.
How much do the different options really cost?
When comparing website prices, one thing is often forgotten: your own time. A DIY website is cheap if your time is free. For very few business owners is that the case.
Below is an estimate of three options. I’ve valued your time at €40 per hour. Swap in your own figure: it could be your hourly rate or what you’d earn in the same time doing your own work.
| DIY, Hostinger builder | DIY, WordPress | I build and maintain it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Building the site | 0 € | €0–90 (premium theme | 590 € |
| Hosting, 1st year | approx. €50–150 | approx. €50–150 | 240 € |
| Maintenance, 1st year | included | you do it | 150 € |
| Total money, 1st year | approx. €50–150 | approx. €50–240 | 980 € |
| Your time: learning and building | 10–15 h (€400–600) | 25–40 h (€1,000–1,600) | 3–5 h (€120–200) |
| Your time: maintenance, 1st year | 2–4 h (€80–160) | 12–24 h (€480–960) | 0–1 h (€0–40) |
| Your total time, 1st year | 12–19 h (€480–760) | 37–64 h (€1,480–2,560) | 3–6 h (€120–240) |
| st year total, including time | approx. €530–910 | approx. €1,530–2,800 | approx. €1,100–1,220 |
| Money in following years | approx. €150–190/yr | approx. €150–280/yr | €390/yr |
| Your time in following years | 2–4 h/yr (€80–160) | 12–24 h/yr (€480–960) | 0–1 h/yr (€0–40) |
| Following years total | approx. €230–350/yr | approx. €630–1,240/yr | approx. €390–430/yr |
All prices are estimates and exclude VAT. Hostinger’s price depends on the plan, the length of commitment and any current offer, and it goes up when the introductory period ends. The estimate for following years includes Hostinger’s renewal price and the web address.
What do the time estimates include?
- Hostinger Website Builder choosing a plan, editing the template, text and images, contact details, privacy policy and testing. Maintenance covers updating content such as prices and opening hours.
- WordPress: installation, learning the theme and plugins, building the pages, SEO basics, cookie notice and testing. Maintenance covers monthly updates, backups and the occasional problem when an update breaks something.
- I build it: an initial conversation, sending me your text and photos, and going through the site together before it goes live.
What does the table tell us?
Honestly: if you only need a simple site to present your business and don’t plan to update it often, the Hostinger builder is the cheapest option, even when your own time is included.
A DIY WordPress site is only cheap if your time costs nothing or if you enjoy learning the technical side. Otherwise, it’s the most expensive option of the three, because the biggest cost doesn’t show up on an invoice. It shows up in your calendar.
My service costs more money than the builder, but it frees up your time. It’s worth it if you want the flexibility of WordPress without worrying about updates, or if your hour is worth more than €40.
And this is a good moment to remember that time is a business owner’s most valuable resource. You can’t get it back, and you can’t buy more of it. Every evening you spend figuring out plugin settings is an evening taken away from what you’re actually good at: your customers, your services or your rest.
I’ve learned that it’s worth building a small circle of trusted people around you. People you can hand things over to, who do them faster and better than you would. An accountant who knows taxes. A driver who knows the roads. And someone who knows websites. That’s not a weakness. It’s a way of keeping your time where it’s needed most.
That’s why my warm recommendation is to outsource your website if you can. Not because you couldn’t learn, but because learning the technical side takes time that’s often worth more in your own work. A professional can do the same job in a fraction of the time and knows what to pay attention to so the site actually works and gets found.
Whether that trusted person is me or someone else.
And one thing the table doesn’t show: your first website teaches you a lot about your own business. If you write down what you do, who it’s for and why, that work isn’t wasted, even if you later have someone else build your site.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website cost with Hostinger? The first period is affordable, but always check the renewal price. Also factor in the cost of your web address from the second year onwards and any paid themes or plugins.
How long does it take to build a website? With the builder, you can finish a simple site in one evening if your text and photos are ready. With WordPress, it usually takes a first-timer anywhere from a few days to a week.
Can I move a site I built myself over to you later? WordPress sites can be moved. Sites made with the builder can’t be moved as they are, so they need to be rebuilt.
Will AI write the text for me? It’ll give you a good starting point. But always read it out loud and change anything that doesn’t sound like you. Customers often choose a small business precisely because of the person behind it.
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