So you’ve decided you want to build a website. Be it part of a plan to take over the world, or simply to share your stamp collection, this post explains my method of building an interactive professional website for free, using WordPress.
First I describe why I decided to use WordPress, before going on to explain how you can do the same. If you want to get stuck right in skip directly to page 2. You will need to be fairly experienced with computers to complete this process, or find a friend with the skills that can help you out. The best part is once the site is set up it’s very easy to edit and create new content.
Can you remember the last time you went without using the Internet for more than 24 hours? I don’t think I can. The Internet has grown to become a vital part of our society, be it for work, rest or play. We use the Internet at work to research and collaborate, at home to keep in touch with friends, plan holidays, find new recipes and many for many other everyday tasks.
Therefore it makes sense you might want an online portal to share information. For many this portal is only used for social interaction, which is taken care of by setting up a Facebook account. For large companies an expensive professionally designed website is more fitting.
So what about the inbetween? There are many small companies or organisations which require an online portal but without the cost? There is a free solution based on the open source concept called WordPress. I want to share with you the reasons I decided to use WordPress to build my website, and also show you how you can do the same.
Why did I choose WordPress?
There was a thought process behind what I wanted my website to achieve, it needed to fulfil the following including the reasoning why:
Easy to build without expensive software. I don’t want to have to purchase and learn an expensive program just to build a website.
Easy to update on a regular basis from any computer. Static webpages are boring. Regularly updates keep visitors coming back, therefore it should be easy and fun to update.
Professional looking. First impressions count, the first glance at your website will set the tone of what visitors expect to find. If you want to be taken seriously you need a website look that helps convey your message.
Allow comments as a source of collaboration. A feedback loop is key to improving any kind of process, therefore connecting with visitors to understand their impressions of your website is an important.
This thought process led me to WordPress, an open source publishing platform that fulfils all of the above.
Read more on the next page…
