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Building your own website can be a very rewarding experience. You’ll be able to start your adventure to help promote whatever your passion might be. The problem for a lot of people though is that they don’t have the expertise to create a website themselves and they don’t have the funds to pay a professional web designer.
This is why WordPress is one of the most popular sites on the internet, as it will allow you to make your own website without getting yourself in debt. The website hosting, layout and guides make it a simple process and here we will guide you through on how to start your own WordPress site on a budget.
What do you want to achieve?
This is the first question that you need to ask yourself as this is going to affect everything that you need to do. If you’re just looking for a simple blog that you will be able to share with your friends and family, then the total cost of your WordPress website could be $0.
The reason for this is that you can get a ‘.wordpress.com’ website for free but this is extremely limited in what it can do. If you are aiming to look professional or monetize your website, then this isn’t going to be an option.
If you want a state of the art website that is completely custom, on the other hand, then you are not going to be able to do this on a budget. If, however, you are looking to create a professional website that has a unique domain and a high level of functions, then this can be done on a budget, as we will explain here.
Get yourself a domain
One of the hardest parts of starting a website is trying to come up with the right name. It can be a torturous process but hopefully you have one in mind, when you do, it’s time for you to buy your domain name.
For those that don’t know, the domain is simply the address of the website (e.g. Google.com) and needs to be purchased. This isn’t expensive and a ‘.com’ website currently costs just $18 per year on WordPress but others are available.
A domain like ‘.doctor’, for example, costs $80, but the standard domains are all at the lower pricing level. If you want your own unique website then this is one of two costs that you have no choice but to pay, but thankfully it’s quite cheap.
Host your website
The other definite cost that you are going to have is the hosting of your website. This is the online server where your website is going to live and you need to pay a company to be able to do that for you. This is going to affect, the speed, performance, storage and service that your website has.
This can be done through WordPress hosting which is going to be the simplest of options and they have three different payment levels that you can use, at $4, $8 and $25 per month. This level is an annual billed amount, divided by 12 but having a shorter-term hosting would be slightly more expensive on a month by month basis.
These plans have various levels of features and services, depending on your needs. There is also the option of hosting with another company outside of WordPress and then you can link up your website to it. This is more complicated but gives you the potential to get more value for your money. There are actually three hosts recommended by WordPress and they are Bluehost, GreenGeeks and SiteGround.
If you’re using a host such as this, then you’re going to need to download WordPress. If you know what you’re doing then this is very easy, but if you’re not, then it won’t take long for you to go through their step-by-step process. A lot of web hosts will be able to automatically install it for you, which is a great option if you are struggling.
Choosing a theme and features
After you have your domain and host, it is then the time to design your website. Thankfully WordPress have a number of free themes that you are able to use but they also have more custom designs that are going to cost money but still aren’t too expensive.
You will be able to get a good looking website for a minimal amount but if you are a novice, this can take a little bit of getting used to. You could also look to create your own graphics but there are also cheap websites where you can pay freelancers to do this for you.
After that there are plenty of plug-ins that you can get free that will be able to add such things as contact forms, image galleries, social media links and many more. A plug-in will allow you to do a specific task and there are many great free ones on WordPress, as well a paid ones if you wanted more features.
Help yourself
Those are the basic aspects when it comes to creating your own website through WordPress and it can be a fairly simple process. There are going to be times when you frustrate yourself with trying to customize it though, especially if you are a novice.
With very minimal knowledge you’re going to be able to create an attractive and professional website. Once you’ve done that, you will be able to drive visitors towards it and monetize the site, earning back the outlay that you have spent. Once you’ve done this then you would be able to invest further funds into your website to make it even better.
One of the great aspects of WordPress though is just how popular it is. Like searching for how to fix a problem with a Windows computer, there are countless articles on guides that you can use to help you as well as many video tutorials, all for free.
The help is always there if you are struggling and after a short while, you are going to be left with a great website and one that you can be proud of. With dedication and patience, you will be able to create a website that looks like it costs thousands for less than $100 per year.