A lot of people seem to think that setting up a website is expensive. It's not. In fact, it's ridiculously affordable to get started.<\/p>\n
Friends and family are always asking me how much it costs. So much so that I'm going to break it down in this blog post.<\/p>\n
This way I'll be able to direct anybody who asks me this question to this post and it will save us both a bit of time. Which is nice.<\/p>\n
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One minute!<\/strong> If you're wondering about the cost of actually setting up a website then you probably haven't done it yet, right?<\/p>\n In that case, you'll definitely want to check out my step-by-step guide to making your own website. Ya know, once I tell you how much it costs.<\/p>\n I think one of the reasons people think it's expensive to set up a site is because some<\/em> local web design companies charge high prices. Especially if you're a small business.<\/p>\n The truth is that you don't need hundreds or thousands of dollars to set up a website. Lemme breakdown the costs so you can see just how cheap it is.<\/p>\n Without a domain name, you don't have a site. Unless of course, you use one of those crappy free website builders. But nobody who is serious online uses them, do they? \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n So the first purchase you make online would usually be your domain name.<\/p>\n Good news is that there's a lot of competition for domain name registration and it has driven the price down a lot.<\/p>\n How much?<\/strong> Well a typical new domain registration will probably cost you in the region of $8-12 a year<\/strong> for a .com, .org or .net. Others will vary and might be more or less. I register a lot of UK domains because, well, I'm from Blighty, and they cost me about $7 — a steal I'm sure you'll agree.<\/p>\n Woah there!<\/strong> Watch out for the renewal costs of domains. Some registrars<\/a> and web hosting companies charge you double or triple the price to renew them when they expire.<\/p>\n Instead, you can transfer them to a new registrar like Namecheap<\/a> or GoDaddy and only pay the new registration price. Easy.<\/p>\n P.S. If you're starting your first website, DO NOT BUY A DOMAIN. You'll get one for free when you register your new hosting account. You're welcome.<\/p>\n Another misconception is that web hosting is expensive. It ain't. Unless you consider $5 a month to be expensive, of course.<\/p>\n I've covered some of my favourite web hosting companies in the article Cheap Web Hosting Choices For Your Website<\/a> and if you read that article you'll know that hosting is even more competitive than domain registration.<\/p>\n A no-brainer tip for getting even cheaper web hosting is to register it over 2 or 3 years. You'll get significant discounts for it and it means one less thing to think about as you build your site. Which is nice.<\/p>\n Special hosting deal!<\/strong> I've hooked you up with a special $3.99 a month<\/strong> rate for unlimited web hosting with Web Hosting Hub<\/a>.<\/p>\n They are really reliable, amazingly cheap for those starting out, and they give you unlimited everything (within reason). I use their sister company InMotion Hosting and the service is awesome. Seriously. Check them out, yo.<\/p>\n Okay, so far we've established the following:<\/p>\n So basically the cost to start our new website is currently at an eye-watering $4 a month. Massively expensive, eh?<\/p>\n But what about software to create and manage the website? That surely must cost an arm and a leg.<\/p>\n Nope. It's free.<\/p>\n I use a little bit o' software called WordPress to power almost all of my sites. It's free, easy to use, and massively popular. Over 50% of the top 100 blogs in the world use WordPress, and over 20% of all websites use it.<\/p>\n Fair to say it's well established. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n For beginners it's the perfect platform to build your website on and if you're researching how much it costs to set up a website then the fact that it's free will be music to your ears.<\/p>\n Now if only there were some guide that shows you exactly how to build a site on WordPress…<\/p>\n Oh wait, there is!<\/strong> I've written a complete guide to installing WordPress and creating a website in 10 minutes or less. Lucky you.<\/p>\n For the princely sum of $3.99 a month you can have everything you need to set up and launch your website. So, as far as actual set up costs are concerned, it's cheaper than a Starbucks. And it's caffeine free.<\/p>\n There may be other costs that you need to consider later, but they aren't essential<\/em> to starting. They might be things like:<\/p>\nThe cost of setting up a website<\/h4>\n
The Cost of a domain name.<\/h5>\n
Cheap web hosting.<\/h5>\n
Website software.<\/h5>\n
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Any other costs for starting a site?<\/h4>\n
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