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Set up a WordPress Website!
wordpress website business beginners

Setting up a WordPress website does not have to be a complicated endeavor. If you are a new business owner who has limited funds and needs a virtual spot for clients to go, this tutorial will help in those areas. For years, I designed websites. I did not study programming or computer science in college. I taught myself how to program by using SharePoint and a LOT of research before YouTube was filled with tutorial and how-tos. When WordPress came along, I resisted using it until I realized it is the perfect content management system (CMS) for the website owners. To this day, I use a self-hosted WordPress website on all my business and client sites.

Did I lose you when I said self-hosted?

Self-hosting means you pay a company for the space to hold your website. If you are just starting out, set up a site where you control everything!  It can be easy and it is the least expensive route. Hosting a website should cost no more than $40 a year! I use my favorite hosting site iPage. They offer hosting for $1.99 a month! But wait…read all the instructions first!

Domain name selection.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of setting it up, you need your domain name the mycompanyname.com where people will know how to find you online (also called the url).

Some suggestions: follow the K.I.S.S. formula (Keep It Simple Silly 🙂 ).  Choose a name that reflects your business and is spelled in the easiest format.

For example: Let’s say I’m an organizing company and I want to call myself Neat Nic. I can search for NeatNic.com on GoDaddy*. I discover that the domain name is already taken. Bummer.

*I get my domain name from GoDaddy, because they are the least expensive domain name company.

I decide that I really like Neat Nic so I’m going to figure out a creative spin so I can get a .com url: Ne3tNic.com, or N33tNic.com. Those are both available. The question we need to ask is,

“Will my customers remember this spelling when they try to find me?”

They may, but if they don’t you risk having them Google Neat Nic and discovering a whole bunch of businesses that are offering what you offer. What ends up happening is they find someone else because that is what shows up in Google.

Come up with a memorable, short, easy to spell domain name.

My recommendations

The two companies I have worked with extensively with both domains and hosting are iPage and GoDaddy.

They are inexpensive and the customer service is awesome! iPage offers free mailboxes whereas in GoDaddy you have to pay for them.

Another popular hosting site is BlueHost.  I have never used them so I do not know how they rank with customer service or what extras they offer.

Update on Bluehost: I have set up and created a new website called Create Your WP Site using Bluehost as the hosting/domain company. It was very easy and would work well for a beginner.

If you are web designer, you may have issues opening the site with a 3rd party ftp program.

Let’s get set up!

I’ve created two videos that show you the next steps in setting up your website.

If you purchased your domain name from GoDaddy (or any other site that is different from where you will be hosting your website) you need to set up the nameservers FIRST to point to iPage (or wherever you host your site). If you are using the same company for both the domain and hosting, skip this first video.