Why entrepreneurs on a low budget should Learn WordPress

Last updated on October 30th, 2020 at 04:29 pm.

Create a video Blog with WP

Update

After writing this post, I created a full WordPress Tutorial for beginners, which you can start watching here

WordPress is an open source CMS that currently powers most of the websites and blogs on the internet. Over 14 million websites and counting. The open source WordPress CMS is a self hosted solution, meaning you can create your own website and choose any cheap web host to host your website. It is not as difficult as it sounds, I  believe anybody can learn anything they put their mind to. And I believe you can learn WordPress too because it is quick and easy to learn.

Some people would not want you to have this knowledge because they feel hoarding information is better for their web development business. Well, I don’t care. If you can’t afford to hire someone to do it for you, you MUST learn to do it yourself or find someone who can do it for you at no charge. The latter choice is better but good luck in finding someone who can do it for you the way you want it done, at no cost.

At this juncture I am inclined to tell you about Derek Sivers. Derek Sivers created CD Baby. Derek Sivers had no prior knowledge of web design or development. He first learnt a few  lines of code for creating an online shopping cart and created the first version of CD Baby. He then learnt PHP and Ruby on Rails well enough, progressively and for along time handled the website code himself. The code was his and the business was his. The current website does not run on his initial code, it was changed when he sold CD baby. Most important thing to learn from this is to know that you can learn and you will NOT regret the knowledge because you don’t know what that knowledge might achieve for you.

Moving on, a brief and simplified quick walk over, before we look at the benefits you will get in the short and long run. It is easy to learn WordPress in 2014 because resources are everywhere.

You have two options :

One:

You can sign up on WordPress.com and create your website there and upgrade so that you can have a custom domain, ie, instead of having MyShoeStore.wordpress.com you can have myshorestore.com. This may come at a slightly higher cost and you will not get the much flexibility you get with your own hosted website.

Two:

You buy your domain eg example.com. However, before you buy your domain ensure the web host has one click install for WordPress.

Some of the Web Hosts I have used that have one click install include: BlueHost, Hostgator, Sasahost, ipage,

Feel free to use whichever web host you prefer. Once your account is set up, login and install WordPress, your web host will definitely be able to assist you with this. If they don’t turn to me, I will assist you.

Once WordPress is installed,  you may create pages and posts and menus and install plugins and themes etc. This is what you will need to learn. It is very easy to learn and you don’t need to convince yourself how tough it will be. It is easy. You MUST be willing to learn and spend a few hours in learning. Some things you will learn with time, that is, as the need arises. For instance when you are launching your online store you can learn how to create your online store yourself by adding an ecommerce plugin such as WooCommerce to WordPress. Knowledge is beautiful, don’t scare yourself away from acquiring more knowledge.

>> However, if you do feel that this is too much for you and you prefer to spend the money on hiring someone else to do the work for you, check out the following, they will definitely get you online in no time:

  • Twigasoft Technologies  (No longer doing websites)
  • Pembehost Developers (No longer doing websites)
  • Errand Market Designs (No longer doing websites)

Take your pick. But I personally would be happier if I knew I encouraged you to learn how to go about it yourself.

Quick start WordPress Resources :

Go to any of these website and search for; Learning WordPress for beginners. Or better off, learn in bits by searching for the task you need to carry out. If you need to create a new page, just search for; how to create a new page in WordPress, If you need to change the theme; How to to change themes in WordPress. You do get the idea, right? The sites are:

I can guarantee you, it will not take weeks or months. Getting started will literally take you hours to grasp the basics of what you require.The basics to successfully get your website up and running. Learn to learn. And learn one thing at a time, for instance, if you need to install a new plugin, just search on how to do exactly that. Learn progressively but do not veer from your overall business objective by getting addicted to making WordPress websites. Anyway if that happens to you, I will be happy too.

Okay. So back to the title of this post. Why should you go through this process? Is it really worth it for you? Or should you go ahead and get to the web developer hiring process? Well read on.

Why you should learn WordPress when starting out:

WordPress is Cheap and Affordable

All you will need to buy is the domain. Any other expenses can be avoided. I will tell you a fact, customers most of the time do not care for the appearance of your website. Customers who visit your website are on a mission and if you do not meet their goals they will leave your website whether it is beautiful or ugly. When you create your wordpress website, the most important questions you will need to ask yourself are:

  • What are my objectives on this website as the business?
  • What are my customers objectives when they visit my website?
  • What should my customers be able to do on this website?
  • How can I achieve my goals and my customers goals on this website?

Based on the  answers formulated from above questions, create a website that will be useful for you and your clients as well. Get rid of useless elements such as meaningless images on the website and put the important elements as necessary.

If you only spend money on buying the domain and do everything else yourself, you will save and learn at the same time.

You will also not have to spend money on your wordpress website maintenance, since you will have the basic knowledge to carry out these tasks.

If you can afford to start with the lowest investment possible, then start with the lowest investment.

It is also possible for you to have the most amazing looking WordPress Website with premium themes. The number one collection for WordPress Premium themes is on ThemeForest. When you create an account on Themeforest you will be able to buy whichever theme you want. All themes have a demo page so you will see which Themeforest themes please you, before making a purchase.

Your WordPress website will grow with you

This is my favorite part about WordPress websites. I know I can achieve anything with WordPress, I can build anything with WordPress. What does this mean? There are over 20k plugins on wordpress.org. Before I can think of building a plugin I need for a website I scan the WordPress collection first. You certainly won’t need to learn to develop plugins, you will need to learn installing them and using the ones you need.

Your website will grow with you. If you will need to add a web page, you will do it yourself. If you will need to add polls, you will do it. If you will need to add a forum on your website, you will. The most beautiful part of growth will be an e-commerce capability. The solutions to achieving a full ecommerce with WordPress will be within your reach. Plugins are the key.

Consider how much you will have saved in growing your website step by step. And you don’t need coding skills too!

SEO is Easier with WordPress

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of trying to get your website to rank well on search engines organically. Organically means naturally without paying SEs (Search Engines) a dime.

As a beginner, the plugin you want to know about is called All in one SEO. That plugin got my first website on the first page of Google and Yahoo when I was still a newb. So you can do it too.

Crash course on SEO in WordPress:

Meta tags: Once you install All in One SEO, for every page/post you create, scroll down and add title that describes your web page and business well enough in less than 70characers. Add a description that describes your page in less than 150 characters.

Content: Referred to as copy. Use keywords related to your business within the content of the page. Do not misuse keywords. Use headings (h1, h2 etc) to separate content on the page.

Images: Once you learn how to upload images, this will be a walk over for you. Before uploading your images, give them a suggestive name that relates to your business. Once you upload the images, give them a title and an alt attribute. Have you ever seen image results on Google? This is how it comes to be so.

The Learning curve is not steep / easy to learn

I said this earlier, WordPress is the quickest CMS to learn. You can practically be online in an hour. That is from zero knowledge to deployment . Whatever you want to learn, Google and YouTube are your friends. Take advantage of the resources I listed above.

Blogging capability by default

Initially WordPress was considered more of a blogging platform and not a full Content Management System. With WordPress, blogging capability comes by default. Create a page, name it blog or whatever you want and on the general settings area choose the created page as the blogging page. Just like that and your blog is ready. However if you are creating your website as a blog, you do not need to set the blogging page on the general settings page, since blogging comes by default. You can start posting articles as soon as you install WordPress.

You might end up making money on the side

You have the knowledge. Why not make some money from it. If you hear of somebody  looking for a website, why not pounce on the opportunity. Charge them and create it with WordPress. Whatever you can do, you should be able to earn from it. Why not your WordPress skills. Even better you can freelance part time making WP websites.

…………………………..

Derek learned something new because he needed to make a website to sell his music. It was affordable for him and made the multimillion dollar CD Baby. Do not be afraid of what you do not know, learn it and understand it.

Update

After writing this post, I created a full WordPress Tutorial for beginners, which you can start watching here

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