Building a website yourself comes down to seven steps: decide what the site is for and who it's for, buy a domain, choose hosting, install WordPress and a theme, build the layout and pages, check everything before launch, and keep it maintained afterwards. On cost, a domain plus hosting gets you started for a few thousand NT dollars in the first year. The real time sink is building the pages; first-timers often spend several evenings to several weekends on that step alone.
This guide walks through each step in order and points out which ones you can hand to AI. If you'd rather not touch hosting or drag layouts around, managed WordPress hosting with Roamer AI takes care of the hosting, the installation and the page building. If you want to do it step by step yourself, here's the map.
Domain rules and prices were checked in October 2026. Domains and hosting are often discounted, and renewal prices from the second year vary by provider, so confirm on their sites.
Before you start: purpose, domain and hosting
Step 1: Decide what the site is for and who it's for
This step costs nothing but shapes everything after it. Answer three questions. What should visitors do once they arrive: call you, book through a form, buy something, or simply get to know you? Who is it mainly for: nearby customers, companies looking for a partner, or online shoppers across Taiwan? And which pages do you need? Different answers produce very different sites.
Sites on our member showcase make this concrete; each was built by a member working with Roamer AI. An after-work private kitchen has a menu bar of brand story, how to order, menus and bookings, and its homepage states the cut-off time for next-day orders and the price of three set menus. A specialty coffee roaster puts its beans, prices and monthly picks up front. A music school leads with courses, teachers and fees, plus a prominent "book a taster class" button. In each case the pages grew out of what customers come to do.
Doing it yourself, a sheet of paper is enough: list the pages, what goes on each, and whether you have photos and a price list. Even with WP × Roamer AI this step is yours, because only you know your business. The difference is that you can talk your ideas through with it; it suggests pages and content and waits for your approval before touching the site.
Step 2: Buy a domain
A domain is your web address, such as yourbrand.com. A .com works worldwide and anyone can register one. A .com.tw is Taiwan's business domain: under TWNIC rules it's for legally registered companies, sole proprietorships or other businesses with tax registration. Individuals or brands that aren't registered yet can choose a plain .tw, which has no eligibility restriction. A .com usually costs a few hundred NT dollars a year, and .com.tw tends to cost a bit more; check the renewal price from the second year before you buy.
Use your brand name if you can: short, easy to say, hard to misspell, with as few hyphens and confusable digits as possible. Where you buy matters less. Cloudflare, GoDaddy and Gandi sell domains internationally, and Chunghwa Telecom's HiNet and PChome sell them in Taiwan; they differ in price, interface language and payment options. What matters most is that the domain is registered to you or your company, the login is yours, and auto-renewal is on. Many sites get stuck years later because an agency bought the domain on the owner's behalf and can no longer be reached.
With WP × Roamer AI you still buy the domain yourself, which is as it should be. The convenience comes afterwards: enter the domain in the control panel, set DNS at your registrar following the on-screen instructions, press verify, and the SSL certificate is issued automatically while the old platform address redirects to the new one. If you haven't picked a domain yet, you can choose a memorable subdomain at checkout, such as yourname.roamerhost.com, and launch on that. The details are in connecting a custom domain to WordPress.
Step 3: Choose hosting
Hosting is where your site lives, and beginners usually pick from three options. Shared hosting costs a few thousand NT dollars a year and installs WordPress in one click from the control panel, but updates, backups and plugin trouble are mostly yours. Managed WordPress hosting has the provider handle installation, updates, backups and security so you only manage content. Platforms like Wix bundle hosting and editor for the simplest start, but your site can only live on that platform. Renting your own VPS is too much for a first site unless you already manage servers.
Check four things: the renewal price (many intro prices need years paid upfront and go up on renewal), whether you can install any plugin, whether you can take the site with you, and whether someone who speaks your language answers when things break. Prices and support for common choices in Taiwan are compared in the best WordPress hosting in Taiwan, 2026, and site builders and AI tools in no-code website builders with AI.
RoamerHost's managed WordPress hosting has two plans, both billed yearly. WordPress Basic is NT$3,588 a year (avg. NT$299/mo) and includes hosting, WordPress, SSL and automatic backups, with the site built by you. WP × Roamer AI Pro is NT$11,988 a year (avg. NT$999/mo) and adds Roamer AI to build and edit the site for you.
Building it: WordPress, layout and pages
Step 4: Install WordPress and choose a theme
WordPress is free, open-source website software that can run a blog, a company site or an online store. On shared hosting you usually find a one-click WordPress installer in the control panel and fill in a site name and admin login. Then go to Settings to set the site title, time zone, language and permalink format, and to Appearance to choose a theme. The theme controls the look and layout, and there are thousands of free ones. Check when it was last updated, how it's rated and how it looks on a phone, not just the demo screenshots. If WordPress is new to you, start with what to know before you launch and from install to first post.
With WP × Roamer AI there's almost nothing to do here. About 60 seconds after payment the latest WordPress is installed, with a Traditional Chinese dashboard, Taipei time zone and SSL already set, and one click in the control panel logs you in without remembering a password. You don't need to choose a theme either; Roamer AI designs the layout from the feel you describe.
Step 5: Build the layout and pages
This is the step that takes the longest. Doing it yourself, you either use WordPress's built-in block editor or install a drag-and-drop page builder such as Elementor, then assemble the homepage, about page, services and contact page block by block. On top of layout you write copy, find photos, set colors and fonts, and check nothing breaks on mobile. A first-timer can spend a whole weekend just going back and forth on the homepage, and a more advanced page builder adds a yearly fee; Elementor's paid plans start at US$60 a year.
With WP × Roamer AI, this step becomes a conversation. In your first message, say who you are, what you sell and who it's for, paste your address, phone number, prices and photos, and describe the feel you want, for example "quiet, lots of white space, like brewing tea on a mountain at dawn". End with "you decide the design direction, show me the homepage first". It lists a plan, and once you agree it builds pages, writes copy, and makes menus and forms, then shows you desktop and mobile screenshots. In the public Fudao Patisserie demo, one message and about 15 minutes of AI work produced a homepage. The Qingyu Tea demo took 15 messages to go from a blank WordPress install to a site that takes orders, with every prompt published. If something looks off, say where; say "undo" and it steps back.
Step 6: Six things to check before launch
Before you make the site public, spend half a day on the checks below. They save a lot of embarrassment later.
First, SSL. The address should start with https and show a padlock; check again after connecting your own domain, or browsers will label the site "Not secure". Second, mobile. Many visitors browse on phones, so scroll every page top to bottom on one: is the text too small, can you tap the buttons, are images cropped? Third, forms. Submit your own contact form and confirm the email actually arrives. Many hosts don't send your site's notification emails, so install a plugin such as WP Mail SMTP and connect your own Gmail or mail service to make delivery reliable.
Fourth, Google Search Console, Google's free tool for checking whether your site is indexed and which searches bring clicks. Add your site with your own Google account, verify ownership, and submit your sitemap. Since version 5.5 WordPress generates a sitemap at your domain plus /wp-sitemap.xml; with an SEO plugin installed, the plugin's sitemap address replaces it. Fifth, GA4, Google Analytics, which shows how many people visit, where they come from and what they read. Google's official Site Kit plugin can connect both. Sixth, a privacy policy. Any contact form, membership or order collects names, phone numbers or email addresses, and Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act requires telling people why you collect them and how they're used. Under Settings, Privacy, WordPress can create a privacy policy page with template text, which you should rewrite to match what your site actually collects.
With WP × Roamer AI, SSL is handled automatically when the site is created and when you connect a domain, and Roamer AI screenshots desktop and mobile after every change to check the layout. It can install the email and Site Kit plugins for you; the Gmail authorisation and Google account verification are steps you sign in and confirm yourself. It can draft a privacy policy based on what your site really collects; read it before publishing, and consult a lawyer if you have doubts. You can also simply ask it what's still missing and have it run through the pre-launch checks with you.
Step 7: After launch, who looks after it?
Going live isn't the end. WordPress core, themes and plugins release updates regularly, often with security fixes, and sites left un-updated attract automated attacks. Updates can also make two plugins clash, scramble a layout or leave a white screen. The safer routine is to back up first, update one or two at a time, and then open the homepage, forms and checkout to check. Content needs looking after too: opening hours change, new products arrive, promotions need new banners. Out-of-date information that sends a customer to a wrong phone number is worse than having no site.
Doing it yourself means setting aside an hour or two a month and learning how to troubleshoot; afraid to update plugins? walks through the steps. With WP × Roamer AI, the platform handles hosting, security updates and automatic backups. For plugin updates you just tell Roamer AI: it backs up first, updates, checks the homepage and dashboard, and rolls back if something's wrong. Changing opening hours, adding products or swapping a banner works the same way. If the site shows a white screen, it reads the error logs to find the cause, and anything it can't fix is written up and passed to a human engineer.
How long it takes and what it costs
The table lays out all seven steps: on the left, roughly what each takes doing it yourself; on the right, what the step looks like with WP × Roamer AI. Times are typical for a first attempt; experienced builders are much faster.
| Step | On your own | With WP × Roamer AI |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Purpose and audience | Half a day to two days, no cost | Still your call; you can talk through the pages with Roamer AI |
| 2 Domain | Half an hour; from a few hundred NT dollars a year | You still buy it; you can launch on a platform subdomain first |
| 3 Hosting | An hour or two comparing; shared hosting a few thousand NT dollars a year | Pro plan billed yearly, with hosting, WordPress and AI included |
| 4 WordPress and theme | One to three hours | Installed automatically about 60 seconds after payment; AI designs the layout |
| 5 Layout and pages | Several evenings to several weekends; paid page builders extra | Describe it and get a homepage first, then the other pages in the same style |
| 6 Pre-launch checks | Half a day to a day | AI screenshots after every change; Google and email authorisations need your login |
| 7 Maintenance | An hour or two a month, more when something breaks | Tell Roamer AI; hosting and automatic backups handled by the platform |
On your own, first-year cash costs are mainly the domain and hosting, a few thousand NT dollars, plus a yearly fee if you buy a premium theme or page builder. The biggest cost is time: from nothing to launch, a first-timer should budget several weekends, then keep some time each month for upkeep.
WP × Roamer AI Pro is NT$11,988 a year (avg. NT$999/mo), including hosting, WordPress and Roamer AI, with no setup fee; the domain is bought separately. The difference shows in steps 5 and 7: building pages and day-to-day upkeep go to the AI, and your time goes into preparing content and reviewing screenshots. For full yearly costs across approaches, see what a website costs in Taiwan in 2026.
How to choose
If you want to learn WordPress, have time to experiment, or are on a very tight budget, follow the seven steps yourself on inexpensive shared hosting or WordPress Basic. If you have no engineer and no design skills, want a WordPress site that's yours, and want edits, plugin updates and breakages handled after launch, choose WP × Roamer AI Pro from our managed WordPress plans at NT$11,988 a year (avg. NT$999/mo) and hand most of steps 4 and 5 to the AI. If you only need a one-page business card or event page you won't change much, Wix or Canva is enough. If you need bespoke design starting from brand identity and have the budget, a design agency is the better fit.
Still deciding? Look at real results first. The video tutorial covers sign-up, payment and building a homepage with Roamer AI in nine chapters, and the showcase has 30 member sites you can open full-page. For the wider picture, read the complete guide to building a website with AI.
FAQ
Q: How much does it cost to build a website yourself?
In the first year the basics are a domain and hosting, a few thousand NT dollars in total: a domain is a few hundred a year, and WordPress shared hosting from Taiwanese providers runs roughly NT$3,000 to 6,000 a year. Free themes and plugins are fine to start; pay only when you need advanced features. What people forget to count is their own time, and whether every future change costs extra.
Q: Can I build a website myself if I can't code?
Yes. The WordPress dashboard feels much like editing a document, and themes and plugins are point-and-click. The hard parts are layout and design, and knowing where to look when something breaks. If you'd rather skip those, WP × Roamer AI lets you describe what you need and has the AI build the pages inside your site; later changes work the same way.
Q: Do I really need my own domain?
For a real business, yes. Your own domain is memorable, looks trustworthy and stays the same if you change hosts. If you haven't settled on a name, launch on the subdomain your host provides and connect a domain later; the old address redirects automatically.
Q: How long does it take to build a website?
Setting up the site is quick: a few minutes with a one-click installer, or about 60 seconds after payment on RoamerHost. The time goes into content and pages. Building layouts yourself usually takes several evenings to several weekends the first time; with WP × Roamer AI you see a homepage after describing what you want, and most of your time goes into gathering material and fine-tuning from screenshots.
Q: Does a website need maintenance every month?
Yes, but not necessarily by you. Updates to WordPress and plugins, backup checks and content changes are ongoing, and the usual fate of a neglected site is an outdated plugin that gets attacked, or stale information. You can schedule the time yourself, sign a maintenance contract with an agency, or use managed hosting with AI.
Sources
- TWNIC: .tw domain eligibility FAQ
- Google: verifying site ownership in Search Console, setting up Google Analytics for a website, Site Kit plugin
- WordPress: built-in sitemaps in 5.5, privacy settings
- Laws & Regulations Database of Taiwan: Personal Data Protection Act; Elementor: pricing
- RoamerHost: managed WordPress plans and pricing, Fudao Patisserie: a homepage from one message
WordPress
