What’s the Cost of a Basic WordPress Website?
There are a lot of myths out there regarding the cost of a basic WordPress website. Some say it’s free, some say it costs a lot, and some even say it’s not possible to put a price on web content. While it’s true that a free WordPress account comes with many features that you can take advantage of, the reality is that building a quality website can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
The Cost to Build a Quality Website
If you’re looking to create a quality website with a professional-looking design, you’re going to need to invest in the tools to build it. With that being said, it’s important to remember that there are lots of free tools that you can use to build a basic website with basic content like text and images. While there are free tools like WordPress that make it very easy to get started, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done manually.
So, what exactly does it cost to build a quality website? Let’s take a look.
The Design
When people think about the cost of a website, they usually think about the design and how much it will cost to hire a designer. However, the truth is that your existing skills as a web designer or graphic designer can be harnessed to build a professional-looking website for little to no cost at all. It’s only when you start adding on a lot of features that you need to start paying for a designer’s work. So, if you’re looking for an excuse to learn more about web design, this is the perfect opportunity to do so.
The Content
Your content is one of the most vital parts of your website. After all, you’re paying for the design, and you’ve even got the investment in web tools to build the site and manage the content. So, you’re going to want to make sure that you put in the time to write high-quality content for your website. This means hiring writers, paying for content, or using content generators like Fannie Lou Hesse’s Blogger within WordPress.
As you’re investing in quality content to populate your site, you’re also going to want to ensure that you’re investing in the right keywords and that your articles and blogs are optimized for SEO.
Hosting
If you’re using WordPress as your content management system (CMS), you’re going to want to invest in a hosting plan as you’re going to need space to upload and store your content. As a general rule of thumb, you’re going to want to look for a host with a free basic plan or one of the affordable paid options that offers features like backups, security, and 24/7 support. Not all cheap web hosts are created equal, so make sure that you’re getting what you need for the price that you’re paying.
Domain Names And Web Hosting
If you’re looking to build a professional website, you’re going to need to consider investing in domain names and web hosting. A domain name is like the address for your website, and it basically maps to your hosting plan. So, if you’ve got a certain name that you want to use for your site (e.g., example.com), you can buy that domain name for a one-stop-shop that will handle all of your web hosting needs.
As you’re buying a domain name, make sure that you’re purchasing a relatively short domain name that is easy to remember and type. Also, make sure that you’re buying a top-level domain name (e.g., example.com instead of shopping.example.com).
Web hosting is where your site’s content is stored online. As a general rule of thumb, the higher the quality of your content, the better. So, if you’ve got a lot of text that you want to post, make sure that it’s well-researched and well-written before you hit publish. Not all cheap web hosts are created equal, so make sure that you’re getting what you need for the price that you’re paying.
Once you’ve got your domain name and web hosting, you’re going to have to decide what CMS you want to use to build your website. WordPress is one of the most popular and free content management systems out there, and it happens to be one of the most popular platforms for building websites.
Caching, CDNs, And SSL
In addition to deciding what kind of CMS you want to use, you’re also going to need to decide whether or not you want to use a content delivery network (CDN) to speed up page load speeds for your website. A CDN is a service that acts like a content cache, storing copies of your website’s content in various data centers around the world. So, instead of having your web server respond to every request for content, which can cause page load delays, a CDN caches sensitive content and serves it from a local copy instead. In addition to increasing download speeds, a CDN also adds a layer of security as it encrypts all content before storing it.
As an alternative to a CDN, you could also use a content security policy (CSP) to create a highly secure connection between your website and your visitors’ devices. A CSP is a security policy that controls the security of your website’s content, restricting the devices that can access your site to approved ones.
Domain Privacy
If you’ve got a specific topic or niche that you want to focus on, you may want to invest in privacy protection for your domain name. This is a service that will hide your domain name from public view on search engines and social media platforms.
Domain Whois
If you’ve decided to use a CMS to build your website and you’ve purchased a premium domain name (e.g., example.com), you’re going to need to invest in a domain name whois protection service. Whois protection provides ownership verification for your brand, giving you the ability to see who is trying to register the domain name under your brand and take action before they do so.
You could also use a simple Google search to find out who owns a particular domain name. If you’re looking to learn more, the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) maintains a complete database of domain name ownership information that you can access via their site (https://www.iana.org/domains/).
Site Maintenance
Just because you’ve got a website doesn’t mean that it’s going to run seamlessly all the time. You’re going to have to bear in mind that occasionally you’re going to have to keep on top of things manually. For instance, you may have to check and clean out your site’s content from time to time to ensure that it’s relevant and up-to-date. This is where a site maintenance plan comes in handy. A site maintenance plan is where you pay a monthly fee to have someone keep on top of things for you so that you don’t have to. This could be someone who is checking for broken links, updating content, or just keeping things tidy.
Depending on how much you want to spend on a monthly basis, you can find affordable and reliable site maintenance plans that will keep on top of all the basics (broken links, content, and general tidying up).
Domain Names And Hosting
If you’ve decided to use a CMS to build your website and you’ve purchased a premium domain name (e.g., example.com), you’re going to need to invest in web hosting that supports the CMS that you’ve chosen. For instance, if you’ve got a WordPress site and you’ve chosen GoDaddy, you’re going to need to invest in WordPress hosting with the addition of a tool like Easy-WP (https://wordpress.com/products/easy-wp/).
Now that you’ve got your domain name, web hosting, and CMS, it’s time to move onto the next step of properly publishing a website.