Before you start.
If you are thinking about starting you own website there are many things you must do.
- Decide how much you want to spend. If you have unlimited funds, or are willing to pay over $100/month then you probably do not need my advice. Just hire a consultant.
- Decide what it is you want to do with the site.
The first thing you should do is to decide what it is you want to do with the site. That will be a major factor in picking which site you will use to build or host your web.
1. Decide how much time you want to spend maintaining the site as opposed to time spent creating the content,. These are two very different things.
The next thing you will need to do is to decide how much control you want over the site.
I had four very basic requirements.
The site must be free, at least initially
It must have a site search
I must be able to back it up offsite
I must have control over all of the site contents.
—– Cost of Website —-
There are many hidden costs. You will need to buy a domain, or pay for it after the first year, 20 – 40 yr. If you want your domain secure (and at some point you will) that will be an extra $50 a year. Then there will probably be additional costs for plugins for the site. Beware of anything that says it is free. WordPress is the worlds leading web software. It says if is free and requires no programming experience. However when you really get into it you will find that to really use it you will have to learn basic programming skills, and you will need to but plugins, which to get their full features for a paid for upgrade.
One of your top considerations should be the support and help available for the site. Email support is not good. Waiting for a day when you are starting out is a long time. However, live chat is usually an additional charge, or not available at all. I have my primary site on Bluehost which does supprt live chat on the basic package.
I would strongly urge anyone w/o a lot of internet development experience to use a free site to determine if you really want to set up a website
There are many the hidden costs you will have to have to get usable site. These include a domain (usually free for the first year and an SSL certificate, make sure the site you pick also incudes this or be prepared to pay about $50 dollars for the certificate (renewable every year).