WordPress by far is the most used platform for having a website on.
A staggering 25% of all websites are managed through WordPress which would be around 75 Million websites.
This number is only going to continue to grow as their user experience becomes easier and easier.
They are entirely free to use, however you’ll need to provide you own hosting.
In the past, the notion was that you needed a ton of technical skills to set up a beautiful website and would need to be able to employ some advanced coding skills to achieve a professional-looking website.
While having that knowledge would prove useful, it isn’t required.
I had absolutely zero knowledge of coding and even to this day I know very little and I’ve managed to set up this entire blog you’re on right now by myself!
Below Are all of the tools that I would deem essential to run a successful WordPress blog or website!
Domain Registration
To have a functional website, you’ll of course be needing a domain name. When you’re choosing a hosting plan they will usually give you one free of charge.
To have a functional website, you’ll of course be needing a domain name. When you’re choosing a hosting plan they will usually give you one free of charge.
I however like to keep my hosting separate from my domains. If something were to happen and my host was having issues I could migrate my domain to a different host.
This isn’t something you’ll have to worry about in the beginner but if you’re relying on your websites as your sole income this simple precautionary plan could save your business.
You can pick up a domain from there website for $8.88 Per Year!
Hosting
As I mentioned above, WordPress is entirely free. However you’ll need to find someone that will host your site. (Make It Live And On The Web)
WPX is an amazing option and the best of the best. They offer customer support and speeds that you cannot find in another hosting platform.
WordPress Theme
The best theme that I’ve come across is the one that this blog is using. It was a complete game-changer for me and gave me the ability to really start producing content whilst having a professional-looking site.
The theme is what your website is going to look like.
And if you’re new to making a website, you could spend countless hours even getting the smallest things to look the way you want them if you chose the wrong theme or one that isn’t really conducive to what you actually want.
The best theme that I’ve come across is the one that this blog is using. It was a complete game-changer for me and gave me the ability to really start producing content whilst having a professional-looking site.
As well as being optimized for SEO and various other bells and whistles.
I did an entire review on this WordPress theme you can Read Here.
The total cost for the theme is $50 per year or a $99 fee for a 100-year license.
You can also use this on as many sites that you own with a single purchase.
Page Builder
Utilizing Divi Builder Plugin will turn your back-end WordPress website into what you could expect from a drag and drop page builder.
This will give you the ability to create beautiful looking articles, pages and an entire website without needed to know any coding!
Which is a life saver! If you’re familiar with WordPress, it can be overwhelming because it wasn’t created for every day users.
Using Divi Builder Plugin combined with Acabado Theme will allow you to take your website to the next level without spending hundreds of hours trying to figure out how to write code!
You can either chose to pay $70 Per Year to get access to all of their tools.
Or you can pay a one time fee of $199 to be granted lifetime access to all of their tools!
ShortPixel
We live in an age where everything can be sent to your door within a matter of hours with the click of a button.
In Lou of the amenities that we have available to us, we’ve become impatient.
So impatient that if you can’t get your website to load and be fully functional within 3 seconds you’ll lose over 30% of your traffic.
The number one cause of a slow website is due to images, sizes of the photos, as well as the size of the file, which are all major factors.
ShortPixel is an amazing WordPress plugin that allows you to compress and resize your photos as you upload them to your website.
Which makes blogging and creating a website much easier as you’re not having to compress and resize everything in Photoshop prior to upload.
WordPress Tips
While I could continue to list copious amounts of tools, features, or plugins that would make your life easier on WordPress.
I only wanted to keep the bare-bones essentials, as most new WordPress users will go overboard with plugins which is another cause of a slow website.
And the Acabado Theme was created by some amazing website creators, so it is packed full of features and optimizations that you’d need to integrate separately if you were using a different theme.
All in all, you can get a fully functional website/blog up for less than $100.
It is pretty amazing that you could potentially start a business that could generate you a full-time income with a measly $100 investment!
Want to learn how to start a blog step by step? Check out this post