Back in 1995, I discovered the World Wide Web. Thus, I learned how to write HTML code and launched my business creating websites, Creative Eye Marketing, in Miami, FL.
Back then, if someone who didn’t know code attempted to edit their website, it was very easy for them to totally mess it up by accidentally deleting one little character.
Now, anyone can build a website!
With online services like Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, GoDaddy and other easy-looking website builder and of course WordPress.com, Google and Microsoft you can have a free website (or at least a very low-cost one)!
Wow! However, all these website builders are free (or cheap) to a point.
As soon as you want to customize the look, get your own domain name, add extra pages, widgets (to do things like promoting events), plugins, SEO and fancy stuff, you have to pay and pay and pay. Another problem is you forego search engine optimization (SEO) for ease of use or cost. The test for all these platforms is the recent Google Core Web Vitals Update. Go ahead, test your website here. If you get below 70, you’re losing valuable SEO. Also, if your website was built BEFORE July 1. 2019, it is NOT Mobile-First according to Google’s standards.
It’s actually more cost effective to get your own hosted website with WordPress installed. Hosting plans start at just a few dollars a month and WordPress has tons of free, customizable templates (themes) and plugins to make yourself a really nice, functional website. PLUS, you own it!
The Benefits of WordPress
- Very User Friendly. Sure, there is a learning curve, as with all software programs, but once you learn it — AND use it regularly — it’s like riding a bike! Eventually, it will take you less time to do what you need to do.
- There are more webmasters, web designers and developers that can build or fix a WordPress Site than any other platform. (If you need one, I got a guy!)
- You can choose from thousands of free themes (templates) to customize your site
- There are thousands of free plugins to help you save time, add functionality, optimize your site for SEO, track your analytics, sell anything.
- Then, I can teach you how to edit it yourself and how to blog on it. Furthermore, just like in any learning situation, it will take you more time up front as you’re learning, but with practice, you get quicker and it will take you less time to do what you need to do.
Build it Yourself or Outsource?
Sure you can build it yourself and save money, but you will need someone to show you how to do it. And there’s a lot to think about and set up. Read: What Could Go Wrong When Building Your Own Website?
If you have the budget, and depending on your needs, you’re going to have to get both a designer and a developer. Obviously, the latter for an ecommerce site or anything complicated.
An Example
For instance, a client of mine, not knowing any better, struggled with GoDaddy’s site builder to setup event booking and it was a mess. Events weren’t selling. With her new WordPress website, we used 4 different plugins to do what she needed it to do.
- A calendar plugin for her live events
- WooCommerce for her on demand classes
- An email add-on so she has a lead generator
- An online contact form which makes it easy for people to contact her with various questions on the different aspects of her business.
Once completed, the site will yield totally passive income for her and her event colleagues. Additionally, it will be a smooth and easy booking and purchase process for her potential students, clients, and customers. Naturally, that should increase conversions, which is the goal of any business with a website.
Nevertheless, the more complicated and complex your website is, the higher the cost.
Managing Your WordPress Site
Once it’s set up, it’s very easy to manage, edit, and blog on a regular basis with a little guidance. However, you should have a monthly security service (affiliate link) for when the site goes down or gets hacked. Yes, every website is subject to getting hacked — no matter how small the business is. Hackers use bots to crawl websites looking for vulnerabilities. Then, they install malware and you’re really in trouble.
You need to judge how much your time is worth. If you don’t want to spend the money to hire someone to build your website for you, then you need to learn how to do it yourself. That takes a lot of time. Furthermore, even if you are fairly tech-savvy, it still takes a lot of time.
What about Maintenance?
In 2015, my WordPress website got hacked twice. I built it myself and was managing it myself. After the second hack, I decided that I didn’t have time to build it again and I needed someone who knew more than I did about security and backups. I’m glad I hired him. He has since semi-retired, and I now have OnsiteWP (affiliate link) maintaining both my websites. When something goes wrong, I email them and they find the source the problem and fix it. It’s insurance and peace of mind.
Think of it like plumbing. Sure you could probably fix the clogged drain yourself, but what if the problem is further down the line? At some point, after you’ve tried and tried on your own, you have to give up and call a plumber. Same thing with your website.
The other point is quality. Sure you can get some kid to move your site, but all they are going to do is copy and paste. They probably don’t know the intricacies of SEO, copywriting to entice a conversion, or how to get the payment processing system to work right and securely.
See, it’s way more than just a pretty online brochure!
Migrating a WordPress Website
Recently, I moved a personal website from the free WordPress.com to a hosted one on LightningBase.com (where I host this site and of which I am affiliate). It’s a site where I blogged daily since January 2020. It was HUGE! It was fairly easy to export the posts, pages, comments and pictures from the free WordPress.com and import them into the hosted WordPress. As with all technology, I did have some glitches. Technically, I outgrew the free WordPress.com after 6 months. Clearly, I shouldn’t have let it go for so long. I did have to rely on one of my former web guy — the semi-retired one — for some assistance.
The folks at Lightning Base‘s customer and tech support were great. I described the problems I was having and they showed Kerry the way to fix them.
Migrating from another platform.
Now, if you’re on another platform, like Wix, or a site-builder, and you want to migrate to a hosted WordPress website, there is no way to easily export your content. You’ll have to copy and paste all the content, pages and posts from the old to the new and then format and tweak them on the new site. That last part is important. Obviously, just because of the different structures and back-end coding, it will look and work differently.
Keep in mind that if you start with a site-builder, you’ll probably outgrow it in about 6 months as your business grows and you need more functionality.
WordPress FREE Plugins and Widgets!
I love WordPress because of the free plugins that make it easy to optimize posts and pages for SEO, add widgets to make it easy for people to follow you on social, subscribe to your email list, and stay longer on your website – which is what you want!
The longer a visitor stays on your site, the better the chance that they’ll become a customer or at the very least, a follower.
It really helps to Define Your Target Market before you start all this, so here’s a free workbook to help you do that. Click here to download.
Like learning anything new, at the start, it will take you more time to blog. However, the more often you blog, the less time it will take you do each one.
Get it on Amazon Kindle!
