Building A WordPress Site For Less Than $100
There are good reasons why WordPress has become the world’s leading website construction platform. It contains thousands of customizable templates, all of which are well designed and robust. Creating a user-friendly website is easy using the WYSIWYG drag-and-drop editor, so you don’t need a working knowledge of HTML or Cascading Style Sheets to create your own online presence.
Best of all, WordPress is extremely affordable. This is a compelling argument for most startups and new business, where there are a hundred possible ways to spend modest budgets. Fortunately, it’s possible to build a WordPress site for less than $100, without compromising on quality. It is little wonder that WordPress now underpins a quarter of the world’s websites.
As long-standing champions of WordPress, WestHost are delighted to offer the inside track on building a budget site that looks a million dollars. Best of all, we can host it for less than 35 cents a day…
- Research the competition.
Start planning for your WordPress site by looking at competitor platforms. What do they contain, and how are they styled? Don’t assume you need flashy features, because users are more interested in simple navigation and clear, compelling text. Consider which sites work and which don’t, before deciding how many pages you’ll need and how they’ll link up.
- Choose an affordable domain name.
Although it’s tempting to follow the crowd by adopting a .com domain name, other top level domains represent far better value. Choosing a TLD like .online or .site can save you money, particularly when you sign up to one of WestHost’s super-affordable packages. Try to avoid wacky TLDs like .win or .hot in favor of neutral suffixes such as .biz, denoting a business.
- Don’t be tempted by premium themes.
There’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars on a single website license. Just because a WordPress site template comes with drag-and-drop modules or bespoke skins, it doesn’t mean audiences will appreciate this expenditure. Free themes can look equally awesome – it’s all to do with how you populate them. That brings us to our next point…
- Create your own written content.
It’s tempting to recruit a professional copywriter to give your WordPress site some pizzazz. But do you really need to? Give written content your best shot, asking friends and colleagues to review it for improvements. Spell-check text before copying it into the Hemingway theme, and re-read it all the next day before uploading it. You’ll spot loads of ways to make the copy sound better.
- Take your own photographs.
Getty Images and Shutterstock charge a fortune for professional images, while the photos at free portals like Pixabay and Stockvault are often overused. Take your own product shots and staff selfies with a modern smartphone or SLR camera. Research photographic techniques, invest in (free) photo editing software, and take multiple shots so you can pick the best one later.
- Choose free or low-cost plugins.
WordPress plugins can be free or paid for, but new websites rarely need the advanced features provided by pricier plugins. You could always upgrade or enhance them as your site evolves – freemium plugins are great for this. Since every plugin increases loading time, which is a key factor in SEO rankings, only install them if they’re genuinely necessary.
- Test the site among friends and family.
Glitches or faults can be expensive to repair if you delegate them to professionals, so beta test the site in-house prior to launch. Ask friends and relatives to visit every page on as many different devices and operating systems as possible, noting any display issues or errors. There’s no need for website testing packages or freelance debuggers with WordPress.
- Choose WestHost as your WordPress host.
We’re huge fans of WordPress. We offer optimized web hosting packages from just $9.99 a month. You get 25 email accounts with 10GB storage, plus the same amount of disk space for databases and images. Our global data centers are packed with cutting-edge security, and we offer automatic updates and malware removal to ensure your data (and customers) stay safe.