WordPress is free and probably the most industry standard tool out there for creating a free business website. You just need to buy a domain name and some web hosting. It’s not as complicated as you might think – if you have basic technical skills give it a go and see how you get on.
In my view creating a simple business website is an essential life skill. Even if you plan to outsource your web design needs, creating your own site can still be a good idea. You’ll learn about the basics of how modern websites work. You’ll also be much better prepared to ask your web developer or marketing team the right questions as your business grows.
Having said all that, if you don’t have a technical or creative bone in your body then you might be better off using a hosted website builder such as Wix or SquareSpace. These can be great for some people but be warned – once you’re on these platforms it can be tricky to move off them and many professional web developers won’t touch them. Off course if you have the spare cash you can get a web design company to do everything from square one. They’ll probably use WordPress.
WordPress Installation & Essentials
In this series of videos and articles I’m taking you through creating a simple, free business website from scratch using WordPress. I’m using this actual website associated YouTube channel as an example, so you can see how everything evolves over time.
Let's get started! In this article we'll look at how websites work, web hosting and what exactly is WordPress? How techie do you need to be and is WordPress really free? ...
One of the first things you need to do when you set up in business is to register a domain name for your website. Let's have a look at how to do that. From domain name types to registration periods and much more. How does it all work? Here's a ...
A bit of a break from the website series so you can skip this one if you don't want to follow the journey of this channel. In this article I'm making the actual YouTube channel for this website ...
Welcome to part 4 in this series about creating your very own business website! In this article I'll show you what's involved in setting up web hosting for your business prior to installing WordPress ...
Once your web hosting is up and running it's time to install WordPress. Some hosts will do this automatically for you but I normally prefer to do it manually. You'll learn more about how everything works and if something breaks in the future you'll stand a better chance of fixing ...
Another optional step! If you don't already have one you'll need a logo for your business website. This is just a very chilled timelapse of me making the logo for this site. I'm no graphic designer but I'm happy with the final result ...
You should now have WordPress installed so let me give you a guided tour so you know where everything is. I'm using the free Twenty Seventeen theme and I'll explain everything from widgets to blog sidebars ...
You don't have to install Plugins for WordPress but there are a few that I like to use all the time. In this article we'll chat about what plugins are, how to install them and I'll give you a list of some of my favourite plugins for WordPress ...
Now that you've built your shiny new website it's important that you keep everything secure. Any website can be hacked and there are a few simple steps you can take to minimise the chances of anything going wrong ...
Although most web hosts will backup your website for you, it's important to perform your own website backups too. This is your 'get out of jail free' card if something goes horribly wrong. Don't take backups for granted! ...
My Favourite WordPress Plugins
Plugins are used to add extra functionality to WordPress. There are over 58,000 to choose from but here are my current favourite plugins that I like to install on just about every WordPress website I build.
You can normally obtain basic analytics data directly from your web host. However it’s useful to gather your own statistics about how many people are visiting your website. Koko is a great privacy-focused alternative to the market leader, Google Analytics ...
Modern websites need to be SSL-enabled. In other words the URL of your website needs to start with https:// instead of http://. The Really Simple SSL plugin makes this whole process easier ...
If you ever change the URL of a page on your website it's important to redirect the old URL to the new address. This avoids search engine confusion. The Redirection plugin is a useful tool for this ...
All websites can be hacked. Simple as that. Get used to it. Although WordPress is pretty secure by default it makes sense to add a few extra layers of security if possible. Wordfence is probably the most popular security plugin available ...
From time-to-time you'll need your website to automatically send e-mails on your behalf. You can make this whole process more efficient by using a SMTP plugin ...
Need to embed YouTube videos on your website? Did you know this has potential implications for GDPR? Did you know they can slow your website down? This little plugin fixes all that! ...
Need a contact form for your WordPress website? WPForms is one of the most popular free contact forms available. In this article I'll show you how I normally configure it ...
Every WordPress website in the world can be accessed via the wp-login admin page. If you want to add an extra layer of security you can rename that page. How do you do that? Using a plugin! ...
Want people to actually visit your website? You'll need to make your website search engine friendly. This whole process is known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. In this article I'll show you how to use Yoast SEO ...
