How to build a website and where to host?

Most folks use WordPress and shared hosting like HostGator or Bluehost.

It depends on your skills and budget. Wordpress is definately the best platform for blogging, but if you don`t have the skill to install it, you can start with Blogger and no need for hosting. Also you can assign your own domain name to blogger.

Wordpress is your best option for sure. You could either use their free themes (which are kinda boring if you ask me), instead i'd suggest you go to themeforest.com or any other site selling wordpress themes.

Website - Hire a web designer.
Hosting - Hostgator

Avoid messing around on any free platforms. You're just wasting your time. Own your own properties.

For your website I recommend WordPress since you're new. If you want to be in IM for the long term you should start learning how to create your own sites (HTML, CSS...). Those skills are basic for anyone who wants to make money online.

For hosting I actually recommend a VPS. You can find one as cheap as $10 and they are not only faster, but you get your own unique IP which will improve your e-mail deliverability and probably even your SEO as you're not sharing IPs with hundreds of other spammy sites. Some people say that IP doesn't matter, but I'm pretty sure it does.

WordPress is the most user-friendly blogging platform. Also based on my experience, Hostgator has the best hosting service.
You can find a lot of tutorials in YouTube on how to build a website. I have built my own website relying only on YouTube videos.
Good luck!

Yes, Hostgator is a good host.
I am very pleased with their customer service - they always get back to me within a few hours with a good answer to any question I may have.

This can be very important when you have your first website as there will almost certainly be questions you will need answers to. Not all hosts provide such a good and helpful customer service, so this is one aspect to consider.

Also Hostgator's costs are pretty reasonable.

Hope this helps.
Ged

You can use wordpress and then you can choose what particular theme you want to use for your site. Here is a video about choosing a wordpress theme
I suggest hostgator for hosting there customer service 24/7.


I hope this helps.

Regards,
John Lagoudakis

Best hosting I prefer is hostgator also host rocket. If need free use wordpress or Weebly - Create a free website and a free blog

Also, dont know if you know or not. but do you know what a domain is? if you dont thats just the name your buying for your sites url, like Petertomas.com you can check on Godaddy to see what names are available. Maybe you already know that but just incase you dont. also like the rest , im using host gator as well. you can find tutorials online like youtube on how to install wordpress on your website. hostgator has some videos on youtube as well on how to do that. hope that helps, as for the side being good and getting traffic, you should search around the forums on how to get free traffic to yoursite, and then take alook at SEO courses for basics. or check for some seo stuff in the special offers section.

Use Wordpress platform to create a website. It's very easy to use and best for bloggers. For hosting a personally recommend HostGator.

The free options - weebly, wordpress, blogger are good to start, but if you want to have your own site the best way is good hosting like hostgator, bluehost, wordpress install and some basic plugins and theme. You can search for "best wordpress hostin" and "basic (essential) WordPress plugins" and make complete blog/website. Wish you luck!

Hello Peter,

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, and there are both free and paid courses on learning how to install it, use it, protect it (from hackers, etc.), backing up your files, etc. You should learn it as soon as possible - it will definitely serve you well in the future.

Blogger and WordPress.com (WordPress' own site where you can have a blog on there for free, much like Blogger) will allow you to have your blogs posted for free by them. That wouldn't be a bad way to start, especially if you are struggling to install and/or use WordPress, and you can use those blogs to help boost your own hosted blog in the future by providing links to your blog and vice-versa, etc.

Tumblr is another option to consider, and it's quite popular being that it's relatively new compared to the aforementioned two. I would utilize that as well for sure.
It's true that your content is not in your control and can be removed at any time, which is why you should eventually have your own hosted blog, but to get started quicker and to use them as aids to help boost your own site's ranking, you can and probably should use them as well.

Certainly, you want to get started right away. Therefore, I'd utilize the three free ones while building up my WP hosted site, then utilize all of them to help each other rank higher in the search engines. This will take time, of course, but by cross-linking them and utilizing all the platforms, you can get your message out to more people (more sites mean more chances to get eyes on your content) and help all your sites gain higher search engine ranking. Plus, you'll be familiar with all of the blogging platforms as well.

Hope this helps- good luck!

Take care,

Joe Chengery

Hello again Peter,

I just seen your last post:

WordPress.com is their site where they host your blog for free - it's much like Blogger or Tumblr in that you don't have to host your blog - they do it for you. Of course, your content can be removed at any time if they find it objectionable and, I believe, too salesy. You have to use it for more content and helping people - you can direct to your main blog (the one that is self-hosted).

WordPress.org has the WordPress blogging platform software that you download and install on your domain's server. However, this is usually unnecessary, as most hosting providers already have the WordPress software available as a download within your administration area, including HostGator and BlueHost, amongst others.

As I said in my last post, I'd do both - WordPress.com will be quicker and allow you to get your content out right away, which can help lead people to your self-hosted site when it's ready. Then, you can use both to help your rankings in the search engines (via cross-linking, social media sharing and liking, etc.).

Hope this helps- good luck!

Take care,

Joe Chengery

Peter if you know nothing about web design, you're much better off hiring someone to help you. You don't want to waste weeks trying to figure out Wordpress.

Some fantastic advise on here, Wordpress is the way forward. There are many videos on YouTube but to start you need three things

Domain name (URL)

Hosting

Website

Don't rush into your domain name, do some market research first, use google keyword tool to test the market

Hosting all above are great, wpengine is the best and most expensive, then rack space then any other like host gator, blue host etc,

I have my own server and would be happy to install Wordpress on it for you so that you have the framework, I would then look at your budget, do you want a bespoke design or a template

You can get good templates from themeforest but be careful, there is another thread on here about someone having trove with Wordpress because of bad code, make sure that any themes or plugins you use are tested, have good rep and are updated frequently. Always check the version number of a plugin to make sure the developer is working on the bugs

Great start though, overwhelming but stick with it, once you break through its an amazing journey

Go for wordpress and choose a free hosting plan some companies offer with website.

You can get hosting for a buck a month at dollarhosting.info and there free website templates & builders all over the net.

Joomla is much more intuitive for the beginner, which is why I recommend using it. If you need a free hosting account, see: serversfree.com, it is one of the best free hosting solutions out there, its equal to paid hosting imo and you get a free sub-domain of serversfree.com, which is entirely rank-able. here is a tut on how to install Joomla>>> First create a account on serversfree.com then create a mysql database then install Joomla and input your mysql database details into the installation prompts of joomla. bingo piece of cake. you did it. easy huh.. And if you elect for paid hosting search for a company that will give you a free domain name [URL] with the hosting account such as hosting24.com. happy trails.