Steps to building a low cost website with WordPress.

This article is intended for those entrepreneurs who are just starting out and simply cannot come up with the capitol to invest on a professionally designed website. If you do have money to invest in a website and marketing then you really do not need to read this. Do not cheap out and do it yourself if you can afford to have it done professionally. Money can buy other peoples time, with out money then you better make time yourself.
However with that being said lack of capitol is a reality we entrepreneurs often face and just one more obstacle to be overcome. With a little (ok a lot of) time, reading, planning and work you could have a bare minimum website that can be expanded on, as time and disposable money permit, for the cost of a domain, monthly hosting and whatever energy you can put into it. We are talking the bare mimimum here. A place to start from and build as you grow. If you plan it out properly you will be able hire someone else to build on it with out having to do a complete rewrite which is often what happens with DIY websites. By taking advantage of the WordPress website software you will be able to have a website up and running in a very short period of time.

Why use WordPress for your business website?

Mainly because:

• Solid robust platform for the majority of small businesses (many large businesses use it too!)
• It is free to download and use.
• It allows you to make changes to the look, feel and content of the website yourself. No programming knowledge “required” – though it does help.
• You can change the look and feel of the program using themes easily with out losing your data and this can be done in seconds.
• There is a massive amount of paid and free support when and if you need it. Honestly, you will require it at some point. We all do.
• Additional free or paid software called plugins can be installed that add functionality. Media players, eCommerce, membership, SEO, and tons more.

Here is an outline of things to do and consider:
1. Pick a domain name. This really is one of the more important things you need to spend time on. Go to your favorite domain register (I use namecheap.com and baremetal.ca) and use the domain search tool on the front page. Ideally you want a .com domain as that is still the most recognized domain extension. Despite rumors of “all the good .com ones are gone” I still find many but you have to use your imagination. The domain name you are trying to get does not have to be your exact business name.
If it is a very long name then it should be shortened to something people can remember and type easily. If your business name was “Henry Hugginger & Associates Law Offices LTD.” do you really want your clients to have to deal with that? Can you see your self typing www.henryhuggingerandassociatesltd.com into your browser? What about the email address haha! info@henryhuggingerandassociatesltd.com !! Try to choose something that has less then 20 characters. EG www.henryhugginger.com. The average domain has 11.
To .com or to not to .com. The most common domain extension is the .com one and as such it comes up more frequently in search engines then any other domain extension (IE .net, .org etc). If you cannot find a .com domain that works for you AND you do not plan on exporting then you may want to consider using your countries domain suffix like .ca for Canada. Of course you will need to be actually located there by law to qualify for one. There are a lot more choices available for country specific domains. Otherwise you will have to go with .net, .org, .biz etc.
2. Find a hosting provider.

• Make sure they have phone support AND email support and have been around for at least 5 years. Google for reviews and look for consistently recent poor feedback.
• Do not pay more than $9 a month and  for the love of furry critters  - stay away from the free ones. All they offer is reduced functionality, performance and support.
• Use the linux ones with Cpanel access for the best performance and features.
• Look for ones that cater to WordPress
• Have a look at godaddy.com, and hostgator.com. No I am not an affiliate. I use a VPS hosting service from rebelnetworks.com that I am very happy with.

3. Install Filezilla FTP software. Go to http://filezilla-project.org/ and download then install the Filezilla Client version. Its free and works very well.
4. Read WordPress Documentation. Yes I said read the freakin’ documentation. Find it here codex.wordpress.org. Think of it as a long term investment. The more you put into knowing the software the more you will get out of it – literally. You can install it and have a look around but you will need to plan what you are going to do with it.
5. Prepare your website plan. What are you hoping to achieve with the website? Is it basically going to be an online brochure or are you going to provide information, sell products, generate leads, blog, multiple authors? You need to be clear on what you are trying to accomplish.  If you are in a rush to get your presence online up then keep the layout simple. Just start with your main “Home” page, an “About”, “Contact” and “Services” page. Those are the critical bits of information people are looking for.
6. Install and Configure WordPress. I generally recommend using Filezilla to upload WordPress to your hosting account rather than using the install scripts. Mostly because the version of WordPress that the scripts upload is typically out of date. You will be typically uploading to either the “www” or “Public_HTML” folder on your web server.
7. Install your plugins. Depending on what you plan on doing with your website you will want to install various plugins to add needed functionality to the website. These plugins are free and you can purchase others if you cannot find one a free one that does what you need it to.
Here are a few basic free core plugins you will want to consider installing and activating right away:

• Prevent Spam with Growmap Anti Spambot (G.A.S.P. ) Plugin - By Andy Bailey visit plugin Website. I no longer use Akismet which works almost as well well but requires you to register and the key is only good for one domain.
• Google Analytics for WordPress By Yoast ( Joost de Valk) visit plugin Website. This guy is really good.
• WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin (Again with the Joost! ) visit plugin Website. Yes this will help get your content noticed, however, you will have to actually fill in the data for this to happen.
• Google XML Site Maps – This will generate a XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. There are many decent ones to choose from.
• BackWPup – Back up your database. By Daniel Hüsken visit plugin website . This is a VERY important plugin. If you lose your database you lose the heart of the website as it contains all your bog posts.

8. Install a different theme. As exciting as the default theme is you may want to look around and try a few others. Start with the themes that are featured on the WordPress website then you can move onto others latter on. The ones I am most comfortable recommending at the moment are of the “Premium” variety (not free). The premium themes typically have better support for widgets, custom menus, and provide security updates. I currently am a fan of both the Elegant Themes and Woo Themes.
9. Make your home page static. One of the nice things about using WordPress is that it can be used to make it look like a “normal” website. Click on the left sidebar in wp-admin and choose Setting then Reading. To the right of “Front Page Displays” click the “A static page” button and then choose which page you want to display as the front page. Apparently you were supposed to have already created this page.
There are going to be many questions as you beat your path thru this process. How do I insert my own logo? How do I add an image to a post? What do I do for SEO? How do I sell my products? Please come back often as I will try to cover these topics and many more in the coming weeks and months.
Please feel free to ask any questions about this process in the comment sections below!

I will update the appropriate links here to the corresponding tutorials as they become available.

Hope that helps!

Brian

This video guide is actually part one of a series of WordPress Premium tutorials that we will be publishing starting in December 2011.

Video covers:

• Folder Layout
• Folder Names
• Backup Suggestions
• What Information to keep track of

What better place to start learning about using WordPress then at the beginning with the Dashboard? Here is a short video that introduces you to the first thing you see when you log into the admin area located at www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin . Nothing radical here just a quick overview of the components.