Hello,
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Creating Your Website
Welcome to this new series on creating your own website. When I say website, I mean something more than just a blog. If you want a blog, you already have one if you belong to the Hive. On the Hive, there are many communities where you can create and post endless content totally free. PeakD and LeoFinance are 2 such communities. But that is all you can do. Post content.
With a website, you can do whatever you want as long as it is legal (almost everything is). You can have multiple pages each dedicated to a specific topic. You can sell products, on your own or as an affiliate. You can show videos and play music. The only limit to your own website is your imagination.
Where to Start
The first two things you need to decide are
- Where is my website going to be hosted?
- Do you want your own domain name?
Depending on the answer to #1, you may not need #2.
Where is my website going to be hosted?
There are many places to host your website. Some of which are free. (I will never recommend free website hosting. They are in business to make money. A free hosting account is going to have restrictions and may run their own ads on your site. The free site is a "lead magnet" to get you signed up.
That being said, you can get quality, reliable, website hosting for a low price. Researching for this post I found hosting as low as $3/month. When you are getting started a basic starter plan is adequate. Every hosting provider I have ever dealt with will let you upgrade your plan without losing a thing.
I am going to assume you are going to build your website using WordPress. Using WordPress eliminates the need for any programming. There are 100s of themes and 1000s of plugins available. If you want to do something, more than likely a theme or plugin exists to do it. If you like programming, you can do that with WordPress as well.
So, wherever you choose your hosting, make sure you can easily install WordPress. It usually just takes the click of an install button, answers a couple of questions, and WordPress is installed.
Bluehost is the official WordPress hosting site. It offers an introductory hosting price of $2.95/month for one year. They also provide your domain name free for the first year.
Your Domain Name
If you choose a hosting plan that allows you to have your own domain, you will need to get a domain name. Again, there are lots of places to get a domain name. A domain name usually costs $10-12/year.
You do not have to get your domain name from the same place you have your hosting. There are sound security reasons for not having your domain and hosting at the same place. If they are at separate places, you have to point the domain to the hosting. It is not hard but it has to be done.
Your best domain will end with .com but this domain extension has been around the longest so it may be tough getting the name you wanted. There are dozens of extensions; e.g., .biz, .org, .house. I don't think there are any limits to extensions anymore. (Check out the list of extensions at domain.com) Which extension you use can affect the yearly cost.
Your best domain name can be your name, bobcaine.com, or will relate to your website, youraffiliatesuccess.com. You want it easy to remember and it shouldn't be too long.
Do not be in a hurry picking your domain name. Take your time. Once you have a domain name you like, I would recommend waiting until the next day to purchase it. Make sure you still like it.
This is enough for today. I didn't think there was that much to write about those two topics.
Here is the Larry The Postman information.
My Splash Page
The Tracker
See You At The Bank,
Bob Caine
P.S, I know the first picture is not very good. I will work on a better one.