Since you're here on the 101 class, you probably don't know how to code. That means you need some software that makes it so you don't have to. You have a myriad of options and I'm going to narrow it down a bunch. Which to pick depends on what your priority is. For example, do you want a store? Is a blog the most important part of the site? Are you looking to get your services out there?

WordPress

For clarity's sake, I'm talking about WordPress.org, not .com. The dot com version is hosted and is good for getting a blog up on the internet but overall functionality is lacking. If you pay for the functionality you need, it's too expensive. The .org software is free also, but you need to buy hosting from a company to get it up on the internet. (There are some free hosting platforms if you just need to get started and don't anticipate a lot of traffic. They might be perfect for local businesses who aren't trying to attract the whole world.)

WordPress is often considered the "gold standard" for website software and there are plugins to get it to do whatever you need. The problem is that you need quite a few plugins for whatever you do, and you're essentially building a Frankenstein. The body can reject any of the parts at any time. Another problem is that because WordPress is enormously popular, it's the target of hackers, so being vigilant about running updates and security is necessary. You can't put it up and forget it.

There's also a higher learning curve with WordPress than the others I'm about to mention. However, there are loads of YouTube videos, forums, guys on Fiverr that can help you.

I'm not saying any of this to dissuade you or because I don't like WordPress. I run Wordpress sites. You can build anything with WordPress, but it was made for blogging, and out of the box, that is what it is. There is no better software if a blog is central to what you need to do.

Wix

Lots of people use Wix to build great looking sites. I've never used them, but friends are. Google deindexed all Wix sites once and I have never gotten over it. If you're not found in search, that is very bad for business. Anyway, Wix is an option, however, the paid plans are quite a bit of money, and you can never move your site once you build it. You are stuck there.

Squarespace

Squarespace builds super gorgeous sites. I've not used them, but friends have and everything always looks great. What has always tripped me up about Squarespace is that they price by how many pages you have, and I build websites with like, 200 of them. But if you are wanting a simple, beautiful site the easy way, this is a good option. Like Wix, it is not cheap and you are stuck.

BigCommerce

Like the name implies, this is for e-commerce. In other words, you want a store to be the focus of your site. This is my BigCommerce site. If you are selling just a few things, you can use any of the above suggestions. If you are selling lots of different products or moving pretty decent volume, you need software designed specifically as an online store, because it is so much more than just your web presence. E-commerce software has a backend that tracks orders and inventory, calculates taxes and shipping, notifies customers, deals with product reviews and so much more. You do all this manually if you are running things from your regular website. This is more complicated to set up, but it saves you in the long term. You can get a free trial here.

Shopify

This is very similar to BigCommerce. At the time that I signed up with BC, they seemed to have more features that I wanted. Shopify would have cost me a lot more money. You can compare, contrast and do the free trials from both of them. Get your Shopify trial here.

WooCommerce

This is an e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It's free, which is quite a contrast to BigCommerce and Shopify above. Again, if you do WordPress, you'll have to buy hosting somewhere, and for e-commerce, you'll need an SSL to keep your customer's data safe. You'll need to be vigilant about security. If you are needing a store and pinching pennies, WooCommerce + hosting + SSL + the cost of any extensions you need to run things the way you want them may be cheaper than the other two. I went with BigCommerce because I just didn't want the mess, and I'm not on the hook for security, and they are monitoring the site 24/7 for problems. I simply can't do what an entire tech team can do.

To sum this all up, if you're:

a service-based business that needs a way to get out there, pick WordPress, Wix or Squarespace
an author or a blogger, pick WordPress or Squarespace
a musician who'll mostly direct traffic to Gumroad, CD Baby, Amazon or elsewhere, pick WordPress, Wix or SquareSpace.
store that sells lots of physical or digital products, pick BigCommerce, Shopify or WordPress + WooCommerce.

Let's Say You're Going Wordpress

.org, not .com, remember? You need a place to put it. Hosting is where all files for your website are stored. Hosting runs the gamut from free to quite a bit of money per month. You don't even wanna know what I pay. But when you're starting out, it is not necessary to spend a lot, and you can scale up later as your needs change or your hosting does.

Hosting companies seem to not keep their ownership very long. Like other tech companies, they get bought out by companies that you may not want to keep doing business with, so staying flexible is a good thing. Bluehost used to be Mormon-owned, and although I don't agree with LDS views, I appreciated the integrity and the ethics they brought in. Knowing that I am not sharing rack space with porn sites etc was a good feeling. They built up a really good reputation and that is why you see them so heavily recommended online. However they were purchased by EIG years ago. EIG is making an attempt at a monopoly in web hosting. It makes me uncomfortable. But more to the point, the service is abysmal and they don't care. Their customers leave to take their business elsewhere and wind up on another platform owned by EIG with the same crappy tech. I started looking down the road at what else could be an issue. If they own it all, they can censor it all. Even if that's not their interest, it just takes one powerful person to lean on EIG to do so. With that in mind, years ago, I talked Dave Hayes (Praying Medic) into getting off Bluehost. He is now on Vanwa Tech and as you might know, testing the free speech. I like that they quote me on the homepage.

You can keep up with what EIG owns at this blog post.

I am currently with Stablehost, and they've been sold out. The hosting is no longer what it used to be, but Freedom Flowers is getting the same treatment, it's just newer sites that aren't getting it as good, so I no longer recommend them. I may move over to WPX.

Siteground comes highly recommended, their tech support is great, they will install Wordpress for you for free. Renewal is where it gets pretty expensive. Given their service quality, this may not be unreasonable, but you should know up front that second year rate hike will be a lot. They also have some conservative data storage limits. If you're just starting out, it's a non-issue, but if you're thinking of moving, check your current data against their limits.

They also have something called a monthly allowance of “CPU seconds per account”. Basically this limits how much resources your site is allowed to use per month. The potential problem here is if you go over this limit regularly, then they may put your site on hold until the next month when your monthly allowance resets. This is only a problem if you all of a sudden go viral for something. I have a friend who periodically has this happen and doesn't care. Shoot, if I go viral I want to ride that for all it's worth. All in all, I was on Siteground for years and I think it's a solid choice.

If you're wanting something free, Accuweb is the one I chose. If you just want to play around and see if you are capable of building a website without investing, this is a way to get started. You can always upgrade at a modest fee later, and from there you can transfer elsewhere if you'd like. You still need to buy a domain name.

As I said, I'm planning a move to WPX at some point, probably when my current paid plan winds down. I have multiple sites which makes the $20 a month worthwhile.

Picking a Web Builder and Host

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