Skip to content
Home » Posts » Is WordPress the right choice?

Is WordPress the right choice?

There are several ways to build a website. What are they?

  • Website Builders (No Coding Required)
  • Content Management Systems (WordPress)
  • Custom Development (Coding from Scratch)
  • Using Frameworks and Libraries
  • E-Commerce Platforms
  • Hiring Professionals
  • Static Site Generators
  • Low-Code/No-Code Platforms

A note: Everything you see above. Besides text formatting, what you see is done using CSS. Understanding CSS.


I want to talk about WordPress and keep asking the question. Is WordPress the right choice?

A WordPress Theme

Let’s start with the idea of building on a WordPress Theme, one of the many hundreds of WordPress Themes already built and available to you for prices from $20 to $200 and more. But why would you choose WordPress? Maybe I’ll visit that singular question in another post.

So you want a website and you’re considering building a WordPress website, you may have been given other options but which is really the best for you?

No 1 CMS

Let’s consider the possibility that someone has mentioned that WordPress is the No.1 CMS, assuming you know what a CMS is. When you have purchased a domain and some web hosting, you’re hosting provider may have offered you a variety of options for building your website, and one of those options was a WordPress website offer. 6 months free, with free security certificate known as an SSL, the HTTPS bit in your domain name, or some super low hosting price of 99p per month for 6 months.

SSL: Security layer for your domain name. Without it all browser will display a warning message before displaying your website. To find out more about SSL visit this link SSL Certificates.

You can have a website for FREE!

So why WordPress?

Because you’ve heard it’s free, or because you want an ecommerce shop and either Woo Commerce or Shopify has been mentioned. Let me just add, WordPress was created for Bloggers by a community of developers who wanted a free website builder. “The freedom to build, The freedom to change and The freedom to share.”

Then someone repurposed WordPress. That lead to a boom in WordPress Theme development for PROFIT!

BUT! Really? WordPress is a fantastic choice. It’s the biggest website creation CMS available today, with thousands of themes to choose from a massive support community. It’s user friendly to a degree, yes, YOU can build a website using WP but if you want a truly great websites with all of the possibilities and have a desire to grow, you will need a professional. And you will need to spend money, you can have a free website but if you want a great website you will have to spend money. Now, how much you spend is up to you, you set your budget after doing your homework and then you plan for growth at a later date.

Getting started.

Let’s take a look at the process for starting a WordPress site if you haven’t yet obtained a domain name. Good luck with that.

Then you decide if WordPress is the right choice, or if there something simpler and similar that meets your needs, and your pocket. There are many alternatives. I know most of them. I have built my own Theme and I have built completely FREE websites. Remember a Website can consist of one page, usually at least 3 pages, Home, About and Contact.

Later on we’ll look at the issues a new user might have, and where, purchasing a WordPress theme may take you, Remembering of course that you can still have a free WordPress site, but that’s no reason to choose WordPress I promise you. You will be bombarded with messages to buy a Pro version, and upgrade Plugins. “Rich people get richer by renting property, poor people pay rents.” Why do I say that, because “You get nought for FREE!”, renting (monthly fees) will mount up. You could find your WordPress theme and Plugins costing you £120.00 per month (£1440 pa, or £7,200 over 5 years), and more. If your costs are too high then negotiate a better deal. Then there’s the skills required to manage it. So, when you go the WordPress route, with WordPress hosting you have no choice but to upscale your business because of the costs.

I am a developer, maybe not a highly experienced developer but I am a developer. I can make FREE stuff work or I can make FREE stuff.

I recommend Fasthosts, I have been using Fasthosts for over 10 years, I’ve tried others but I always return to Fasthosts. Straight forward pricing with great customer service. I said it!

Phillip Donnelly. Photography, Packaging, Printing, Buying, Logistics, Warehousing, Manufacturing and Sales. Just reminding you of my experience.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you going:

1. Choose Your Hosting Provider

  • Select a hosting plan: You need a web host to store your website’s files. Popular hosts for WordPress include Fasthosts, GoDaddy, Bluehost, SiteGround, and HostGator, which often offer WordPress-specific plans.
  • Your Domain name provider does NOT have to be your web hosting provider.
  • Register a domain: Many hosting providers offer a free domain with their plans. Your domain is your website’s address (e.g., www.yoursite.com). be careful here, ask the question. Who own the domain name and what are the renewal costs.

So you have a Domain name or two or even three, I can explain why might have more than one domain name for your business. Now you’re considering the WordPress option and you want to try WordPress. Once you start building with WordPress you are not tied to WordPress unless you have purchased WordPress hosting with SSL. You do not have to purchase WordPress Hosting, just Hosting for your website. Choosing WP hosting may tie you to WP.

2. Install WordPress

  • Before this next step, let me tell you that you can install a WordPress site on your personal PC, at home! In fact, if you have a WP site then you will really want to do changes on a local machine before uploading to your hosting service. In fact, for a business, it’s imperative to maintain your WP site on a local computer. You can actually have a personal website on a home computer with a fixed IP address so that you pay ZERO hosting. That’s another post and/or video for me. Right, now for how it works with hosting providers.
  • One-click install: Most hosting providers have a one-click WordPress installation option. – See my post about INSTALLING WORDPRESS.
  • Manual installation: If needed, you can download WordPress from wordpress.org and upload it via FTP to your hosting account, but most users prefer the one-click method.

3. Set Up Basic Site Information

  • After logging into your WordPress dashboard (usually found at www.yoursite.com/wp-admin), go to Settings > General to set your site title, tagline, time zone, and language.
  • See my post about the Basic Site set-up. There are of course lots of videos on YouTube.

4. Choose a Theme

  • Browse themes: Go to Appearance > Themes and explore the available free themes, or search for themes on external sites like ThemeForest for premium options.
  • Install and activate: Once you find a theme you like, install and activate it. You can customize it later.
  • See my Post about Theme Choices.

5. Install Essential Plugins

  • Plugins add extra functionality to your site. Here are some commonly used plugins:
    • Jetpack: For security, performance, and analytics.
    • Yoast SEO: Helps optimize your content for search engines.
    • Contact Form 7: Allows you to add contact forms.
    • WooCommerce: If you’re building an online store. You will need a developer.
  • Install plugins from Plugins > Add New and activate them. be careful here, deactivate unused Plugins.

6. Set Up Important Pages

  • Common pages include:
    • Home: The main landing page.
    • About: Information about you or your business.
    • Contact: Ways for visitors to reach you.
    • Blog: If you plan to publish blog posts. You don’t have to have a Blog, a Blog is posts. An information site would use posts.
  • To create pages, go to Pages > Add New
  • To add a posts go to Posts > Add New. Review Categories in posts. Posts can be added to a menu using Category’s.

7. Customise the Appearance

  • Go to Appearance > Customize to modify your theme’s colours, fonts, layout, and more.
  • Some themes come with their own settings panel for further customization. Neave is great for this (another post/video).

8. Configure Permalinks

  • Go to Settings > Permalinks to set a URL structure. A common choice is “Post Name,” which keeps URLs clean (e.g., www.yoursite.com/sample-post/).

9. Add Content

  • Pages and posts: Add content to your pages (like Home, About, and Contact) and start writing blog posts if you plan to have a blog.
  • Media library: Upload images, videos, or documents you’ll need on your site.

10. Test and Launch Your Site

  • Preview your site on various devices (desktop, mobile, tablet) to ensure everything displays well.
  • Make any necessary tweaks, then publish your pages.

After going through these steps, you’ll have a basic, functional WordPress website! From here, you can expand, adding more advanced plugins, experimenting with design, and fine-tuning SEO to reach a broader audience. Let me know if you’d like more details on any of these steps!

Think LOCAL (a local dev environment).

Sounds easy enough doesn’t it! Right! Think LOCAL, do all this on your local PC or Laptop before going anywhere near a paid service. If you have a home computer/server then there is nothing stopping you from accessing that server from any location in the world (almost!). Or have someone set this up for you and show you. Like me for instance!

Sorry! As you can see, I have plenty to do on this post, plenty of work to do but I wanted to get this information out asap. So, still to come….

So, let’s look at the first action. Choosing a Hosting Provider in this Post. LINK

Now let’s look at Choosing a domain name. LINK

As you can see, I haven’t finished this post yet, so please re visit and consider what I have said so far.

1 thought on “Is WordPress the right choice?”

  1. Pingback: Creating an ecommerce website. - Phillip Donnelly Tech Consultant

Leave a Reply