hi there my name is Caleb and in this beginner-friendly tutorial I'll guide you step by step through the entire process of building a free GoDaddy website using their online website builder tool we'll generate your free website using a template personalize it to your brand configure it to sell products and services customize each important section and finally we'll publish your website by the end of this video guide you'll have a fully functioning free tailored website for your brand and business needs and with that said let's Dive Right In so to get started first click on the link at the top of this video's description this link will get you the best available deal for your GoDaddy website if you ever decide to upgrade from the free plan once you're here click on the start for free button now you can choose to sign into an account if you already have an account made but you can also create a new account with Facebook Google or your own email address once you've filled in your personal information I'll meet you on the next step once you've created your free GoDaddy account or signed into your existing account GoDaddy is going to ask you a few questions about your website the answer to these questions is dependent on your brand and business but for me I'm going to click on start with a basic website and then I'll navigate to the bottom and click on continue now GoDaddy wants to know what category of website you want to choose there are tons of different pre-made categories but in my case I'll click on photography and when I'm done I'll navigate to the bottom and click on continue now I'm going to name my website I'm running a photography business so I'll choose the name photos by Caleb and once again I'll navigate to the bottom and click on continue now GoDaddy will allow you to fill out your contact information you can choose to add your physical address phone number and your email address throughout this tutorial I'll just be using my email address once you're done here click on continue next we can tell GoDaddy a little bit about our business GoDaddy will then take the information we give it and use AI to help create a website for our business for example I'm running a photography business so I'll say I want an image gallery to show clients my photography projects I'd also like to sell physical prints have a call to action book Now button provide links to my social media channels give clients an option to subscribe to my newsletter and have an About Me section that tells my story giving the correct information here to the GoDaddy AI can really help with the process of building your website quickly once you're done with this navigate to the bottom and click on continue GoDaddy will now build your free website before gaining full access to our website GoDaddy will prompt you to upgrade to a paid plan plan this isn't necessary but it is worth looking through the different perks you'll receive and see if it's worth it to upgrade once you're ready to move on navigate to the top right and click on this x now that we finally have access to our website let's navigate to the right hand side and learn how to navigate the website builder let's start with the three tabs at the top here we can see that we're clicked into website additionally we have theme and settings we'll stay on website for now here we have access to our site navigation and if we click on this blue plus we can add a page to our website since we're operating on the free plan we can only have a single page on our website if you want to add additional Pages you'll have to upgrade to a paid plan next let's go back up to the top and click on theme when autogenerating your website GoDaddy chooses a theme for you as you can see I'm operating on the urban theme if you want to change your theme just click on try a new look here you can scroll down and find the perfect theme for you I'm happy with the urban theme so I'll click on back to current theme now let's click on color on the right hand side if I scroll down slightly on my website and I select a new color here I'll choose this pink color for example you can see my website's content has changed on the left hand side now you have these pre-selected colors from GoDaddy but if you want to choose your Brand's color you can absolutely do so here below now let's scroll down a little bit more on the right hand side and click on fonts if I click on a new font you'll see on the left hand side all of the fonts on my website have changed if you'd like to change both the primary and secondary fonts on your website click on the blue Advanced button doing so will reveal the primary and secondary font options I'll go back to the default font that I had selected before now let's scroll all the way down to the bottom and click on the buttons tab let's go back to the website on the left hand side and find my call to action button here if I click on the primary button Style on the right hand side it reveals this list of different buttons for example I could choose a rounded button or a more transparent option once you're done customizing your theme settings navigate to the top and click on done the last tab left here is the settings tab but we'll look at this a little bit later in the video next let's begin customizing our logo and the header for our website let's navigate back to website on the right hand side to get started we'll start with our logo to customize your logo find your website's name at the top of your website my website's name is photos by Caleb with my mouse hovering over it in the blue border present I'll click into my website's name now back on the right hand side we can see some information has populated here I can choose to change my website's name simply by altering the text additionally under other options I can choose to upload or create a logo for this tutorial I'll be going with this option once I'm clicked in I can choose to upload an existing logo for my device or I can choose to create a free logo let's go with this option to do this I'll click on create to create our logo GoDaddy needs a little bit of information they'll start by collecting the name of your logo the category of your business and then you can describe your business in a few words here I chose to write professional photographer specializing in studio in landscape photography and physical prints this gives the GoDaddy logo Builder a little bit more information about my business and what they should include in the logo I'll go to the bottom right hand side and click on continue now we can choose up to three words that best describe the personality of our business I'll go with adventurous minimal and friendly and once I'm done I'll click on generate on the bottom right hand side GoDaddy will now build your logo and as you can see my logo is now available on the right hand side I can choose to change the color scheme of my logo and on the left hand side you can see a few different options and variations for your logo I like this option with the camera icon the most so to change it I'll simply click on the one I like the most I'm happy with my logo so I'll navigate to the top right hand side to see a couple options first I can choose to export my logo and save it to my device next I can choose to continue and move on to the next step let's click on this with my logo selected here I can navigate to the bottom right hand side and click on insert here at the top of my website my logo has now been added let's now begin customizing our header to select your header hover your mouse over the top part of your website when you see a blue border appear that means your header is highlighted to edit the information within your header simply click into it now on the right hand side we can see a few different options have appeared let's start by changing out our cover media to change out this image simply click on it while it's highlighted in blue to change this image go down slightly on the page and click on change image here you can see that GoDaddy Prov provides you with a few different stock images if you want to add your own custom image click on ADD images now I can choose my photography website header image I'll upload it by double clicking on the image my image will now upload to my website once it's uploaded it'll automatically be selected with a blue check mark I can then head down to the bottom right hand side and click on insert now back on my website it my header image has changed back on the right hand side you can choose how you want to fit this image into your website's header you can choose to change it to black and white and add an image description adding a proper image description can help with your SEO search results and if this image decides to not upload for a viewer on your website the text in your image description will load instead once you're done here navigate to the top and click on done with our head are still selected on the right hand side we can change a few different options we can change the background color we can change the alignment of our website's header we can choose to add a promotional Banner to our website you can do this by clicking into promotional banner and clicking on show promotion you'll see that promotion appear back on the preview panel once you're done with this click on done next we can choose to to alter the headline and paragraph text on our header I'll change my headline to read book your studio session today and then I'll change my paragraph text to read accepting new clients finally you can choose to add your phone number to your header as well once you're done customizing your header navigate back to the top and click on done we've now fully custom IED our website's header now let's learn about the most important part of building your GoDaddy website we'll now talk about sections your GoDaddy website is comprised of sections for example your header is a section if I scroll down slightly on my website my about me is a section continuing down my image gallery is a section as well along with every other piece of my website to identify a section simply hover your mouse over it and when you see this blue border appear around it that's how you identify where the section begins and ends if I scroll back up on my website and find my About Me section we see a few different options appear on the right hand side when we have it highlighted starting from the rightmost side we see three horizontal dots if I click into this it allows me to duplicate or delete the section next I see a color wheel if if I click on this color wheel it allows me to change the colors of certain types of content within my section I'll click on a new color to see what happens I've now changed the color of this section to a nice Deep Purple if I want to choose a custom color I can do that as well I'll go down to my recently used colors and go for this nice green now going back to the right hand side we see another icon to the left of the color wheel if we click on this it allows us to change the layout of our section on the right hand side every section has multiple layouts which allows you to really customize and alter your website to fit your brand and business needs now if you want to move a section on your website closer to the top or bottom you can reorder your sections just by clicking on the up and down arrows for example if I click on the up Arrow you'll see my section moves closer to the top of my website it near my header then if I click on the down arrow it'll move back down to where it was before now what if you want to add a brand new section into your website to do that is super easy move your mouse in between two sections and click on the blue add a section button we'll start by clicking into this now we see on the rightand side that there are many different sections for us to add into our website if you're building a website for your restaurant they have sections dedicated to that if you're building a real estate website along with other miscellaneous categories adding sections to your website is a great way to customize it and make it feel personal for your brand we'll look at adding a new section to our website later in the tutorial but it's good to note how to do it now to close out of this I'll click on the X in the right hand side next let's scroll down to our image gallery section I want to configure this image gallery with my own custom images to get started I'll click into the section as you can see on the right hand side there's options for the layout background title and the gallery images at the very bottom I can choose to remove all images I'll click on this and then click on remove all in the middle of the screen I now have an empty image gallery to add my own images to the image gallery I'll go back to the right hand side and click on the plus icon I'll then click on ADD images I'll then choose every photo that I want to add into my image gallery at once and then I'll click on open to upload all of these images all six of my images will now be uploaded to my website with all of my images selected I'll go to the bottom right hand side and click on add to photo gallery as you can see all of my images have now populated onto my website so far I think this image gallery looks great but I do want to customize the layout to do that I can click on the layout button in the top right or I can choose to change the layout on the right hand side here as well I'll click into this and I think I'll opt in for a slid show of images with thumbnails to change the layout I'll click on this and once I'm done I'll click on done I've now configured and uploaded my own custom images to my image gallery now let's scroll down and begin configuring our social media links with my social media channel section highlighted I'll click into it now back on the right hand side we can add our usernames for all of our different social media links I'll choose to customize my YouTube link and I'll add the medic media URL to the end as you can see back on the leftand side the YouTube icon has appeared and once I'm done customizing my social media channels I'll click on done now at the very bottom of my website I have my newsletter signup form this is where my website visitors can input their email address to get updates and coupons for my website to configure this simply click into it while it's highlighted on the right hand side you can change the headline descript description thank you message and even provide a coupon code for new signups additionally if I scroll back up I can manage all of my newsletter subscribers directly from godaddy's dashboard now back on my website let's scroll up slightly to our contact us section with it highlighted again I'll click into it here you can configure your WhatsApp chat button your contact form your hours title heading description your business name address and other information for this tutorial I'll scroll back up and I want to configure the contact form section to do that I'll click into contact form here you can manage your contacts and if you scroll down you can add and edit different form fields on your contact form currently we have an option for the name email message attachments and send to add in a new form field click on the blue add button depending on the nature of your brand and business you can choose to collect more detailed information about your web visitors here I'm happy with the defaults on my contact form so I'll click on done next before we move on to our website settings let's scroll all the way to the top of our website before configuring and Publishing our website I'd like to explain how you can sell products or services for free on your GoDaddy website the only way to get access to godaddy's premium e-commerce features is by upgrading to a paid plan but there are ways to sell products and services completely for free the first option is by adding a section to your website to do that again click on add a section now on the right hand side click on the search bar at the top and type in PayPal here you can choose to add a section that allows you to sell a product or service using PayPal to add the section to your website click on the add button that section will now be added into your website for example I can choose to sell a photo print on my website I'll change the item name on the right hand side to say 5x7 photo print I can change the price from $20 up to $40 I'll be including free shipping on my item so I'll choose $0 I can choose to change the description of my product and I can change the product image by clicking on product image at the bottom once you're done configuring your image go back to the right hand side and click on done we can now sell a product or service directly from our website completely for free there is another alternative method to sell a product or service on a free GoDaddy website website you can do that by altering your call to action button to begin configuring this click on your call to action button then click into the button that you'd like to customize here you can choose the action of your call to action button currently it just links to the top of our homepage but you'll notice this option at the bottom called take payments if you click into this you can create a pay link let's click on this here you can configure a pay link that allows you to sell a customized product or service pay links are a great option for accommodating different types of purchases for now I'll choose to close out of this window by clicking on the X at the top right with that done let's navigate to the top right and click on settings let's start by checking out my domain as you can see our website is called photos by caleb. GoDaddy sites.com when you're on a free plan your website will always end in doodad sites.com if you'd like to connect a custom domain you'll have to upgrade to a paid plan going further down the list we can choose to customize our basic information our social media links favicon our Google SEO settings and our site history it's also important to note that your analytics and tracking information is found on this screen as well well but given that this is a beginner's tutorial we're not going to cover that today what we will configure is our favicon let's click into this here if I take my browser out of full screen view and I check out my tab at the top left you can see this little icon here this is your favicon when a web viewer is on your website their tab will have a small icon here if you'd like to upload a custom favicon to your website simply click on the upload button I'll find my favicon image here and double click it to upload it'll then populate here on the right hand side and I can click on done to close this out my website is now complete and I'm ready to publish to do so I can click on publish here on the right hand side or I can click on publish here at the top your free website will now publish and go online our site is now published to view the site let's click on view site we can now browse through our free custommade GoDaddy website if you have any questions about this video make sure you leave a comment down below and if you found this video helpful make sure you leave a like on it thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video