Now more than ever people are needing to build their online presence. Whether you’re in the services, a product business, or an artist that wants to display the projects they’re working on. There’s no denying the importance of a website.

That being said, it has never been easier to build a site than it is now. The only issue is, there are so many options that if you’re anything like me it can become overwhelming and often cause you to be stuck in decision paralysis. You can build a site from scratch, use a content management system, or use a website builder. And all of these incredible tools are an excellent choice and I honestly believe there is no wrong answer. The truth is the best choice is the one that gets you to take action now. 

So to help you out of decision paralysis. I’m going to teach you my personal preference for website building so we can just get you started now. And that is with WordPress! 

I can talk to you about the difference of each type of site for hours so if you want me to compare any of your favourite builders or systems comment that down below and I can film a video on whatever is most popular.

Why WordPress

The reason I like WordPress is that in my opinion it’s the most versatile system and can be the least costly of the options if done well. You don’t have to just take my word for it either as WordPress is used in almost 60% of all the sites online, so in terms of longevity, support and ability to do things yourself it’s rated top-notch. On top of that, I think it’s the least constraining option and with this tutorial, you’ll be able to make the exact site that you’re thinking about. Like I can’t even explain how precise the designs can be. It’s unreal.

So without further ado, we’ll just get into it.

What is a Website: Hosting and Domain

A website is just a collection of files that you visit on the internet. And every website has two things: a domain and a hosting service.

While you don’t need to know how it works to get your site started I do think it’s cool to know what you’re paying for. So in a very brief and general overview, the easiest way I find to explain this is a real estate analogy:

If you think of your website as your storefront or office.

Hosting is what holds all your site’s files like the real estate or land that your storefront sits on. But the way that the internet works is that every location is defined by an IP address, similar to longitude and latitude coordinates. IP is a bunch of numbers that tells you where you are. But as a business owner trying to give your IP to people to find your site isn’t super intuitive.

So that’s why we purchase domains. This is the thing that you type in the URL that humans can actually understand and try to remember like: Google.com, youtube.com or yoursite.com. It’s the link people use to find your website which is why we call it a web address. 

So with those explanations out of the way how do we get them? And how much does everything cost?