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Who do you believe would be the best person to build your website? YOU ARE!
You don’t need to go to college to learn how to build a website; I taught myself, and I’m sure you can as well. It does take time, but it’s not as difficult as you may think. Most web designs don’t code, they, like me, use a Page Builder, like Elementor.
There is no specific cost of a website simply because there are many kinds and it can also depend on the geography. WebFX is a full-service Internet marketing and SEO company. They’ve been in business since 1996 and are considered very reputable. Below is a video by them that might answer some questions for you.
Whether your business operates offline or online, it’s crucial to build and maintain a website in today’s digital world.
How much does a website cost? The average cost to build a website is $12,000 to $150,000 – with a website builder. The cost of a website builder is $0 to $500 a month. Meanwhile, routine site maintenance costs $400 to $60,000 per year or $0 to $5,400 per year with a website builder.
Below is a table from the Expert Market, you can see that prices vary. Everywhere you look you’ll see differences in costs. I chose the table below because it seems to be at mid-cost.
| Costs of New Website (Year 1) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Feature | One-Page Website |
Small Website (8 pages) | DIY |
| Domain | $9-$14 | $9-$14 | Included |
| Hosting | $33-$74 | $33-$420 | Usually included |
| Design and Programming | $1,000-$8,900 | $4,000-$24,000 | $0-$540 |
| Content (coywriting) | $100-$750 | $800-$3,500 | DIY or Outsource |
| Maintenance | $360-$1,850 | $1,080-$12,600 | Included (DIY) |
| Total for First Year | $1,502-$11,.618 | $5,922-$40,534 | $0-$540 + Your Time. |
Good Website
Without SEO (Search Engine Optimization) it isn’t impossible, but it is difficult to let people know about your site. Aside from SEO, how a website is structured is a big factor in keeping visitors interested.
A good website has the following, but is not limited to:
Structure
- Good Content
- Clear Navigation
- Plenty of White Space
- Color Palette
- Optimized Images
Back Bone
- Smooth and Fast Host
- Complete Maintenance
- Alt Text
- Proper Schema
- Complete SEO
- Keywords
- CMS (Content Managemant System) (optional)
Bad Idea
Below are a few sites advertising how you can build a website. YET, what they tell you and how they tell you is not exactly what you need or don’t need. There’s a lot of babble going on. These are not instructors; nothing more than salespeople. Further down this page you’ll see some great videos and they are free.
The main thing they aren’t telling you is that once you have them build your website it isn’t possible to move it to a different platform or even to a different host. You’re stuck there and if they choose to raise their prices/rent there’s nothing you can do.
Make Your Own Website in Minutes
Most web designers, like me, do not code, they use on of the many Page Builders. I recommend Elementor Pro, or you can use their free version. Elementor works with any host and any theme. And they have a fee YouTube course.
Bit About Websites
- Number of websites built with website builders: About 18 million websites are built with website builders alone.
- Number of websites built with hosted solutions: About 23 million websites use a hosting provider and a website builder.
- Website builder market size: The global website builder market was valued at USD 1,762.62 million in 2021, 3,754.2 million in 2023, and it is expected to have 44,322.2 million in 2033.
- Website builder market share: GoDaddy Website Builder has a 65.61% market share in the web-hosting market. GoDaddy, along with BlueHost are two I would not recommend.
Here is some information about web developers:
- Number of web developers: There are 27.7 million web developers globally.
- Percentage of male developers: 81.7%
- Percentage of female developers: 17.4%
- Age range of developers: Most are between the ages of 25 and 34.
- Percentage of self-taught developers: 63.8%
Below is a list of Page Builders I’ve used and a few others.
Page Builders
I started learning how to build websites with SiteOrigin, but there wasn’t a whole lot you could do back then. And of course, I was lost and confused anyway.
I tried Beaver Builder, but it was not user-friendly at all. It may have changed by now, that was years ago. I tried Visual Composer, and it was similar to SiteOrigin. I took a look at Gutenberg, and it’s mainly blocks, which I didn’t like. I took a look at Divi, which is kind of a mix of Gutenberg and Beaver Builder. I also took a look at Oxygen, which is very expensive and extremely confusing.
All Page Builders have a learning curve, and more than likely they all add new functions. I wouldn’t say that any of the ones mentioned above are bad; they’re just not my preference. I’ve been using Elementor Pro to build websites for many years. I believe it has the largest variety of functions, it’s user-friendly, and the support is great.
A Few Free Courses
Coursera has a lot of courses on many different subjects, and they have a free one on how to build a website for WordPress. I didn’t take the course so I don’t know how good it is, but Coursera has a good reputation, but there’s another one below that I think is better.
If you want to build your website with Elementor Pro, here’s a 4-hour long free course by Darrel Wilson. He has a lot of different YouTube videos and they’re all good. Elementor also has a free YouTube course as well.
There’s also WordPress.com, not the same or connected to WordPress.org. WordPress.org is the most popular platform in the world, having approximately 43% of all websites on its platform.
WordPress.org is open source and has hundredd and hundreds, if not thousands of free themes and plugins (you usually don’t want to use a free theme, I explain this in the Hosts & Themes tab). To use WordPress.org you need a domain name, a host, and the ability to code or have a Page Builder.
You may want to try Doubly AI. I watched the videos and it’s interesting. It looks like it could do all that you need, but I like to build my own. Besides, I don’t trust the government.
What To Do?
Free Website/Blog – WordPress.com would be perfect for you if all you want to do is build a simple website or blog to share with friends. It would not cost you a dime, but you wouldn’t have your own domain (explained below). The type and amount of plugins is limited and you’ll need to update the plugins and theme, which would be enough maintenance for a site like this.
Almost Free Website/Blog – Same as above, except if you want to share it with the world, you’ll need to purchase a domain.
Automatic is the founder of WordPress.com, amongst other things, and everything they do is very good. The good thing about WordPress.com is that you don’t need anything to create a website. The bad is that you can’t add anything for free, and if you do add, it can get quite pricey.
Yet, this is not necessarily a bad thing if you’ve never built one before. My first website, JerryandGod.com, was built with WordPress.com and I didn’t pay anything. If you decide to go this route, here’s a good video to watch.
As I learned more, realizing I wanted more for my web design, I purchased a domain and opened an account with SiteGround, an excellent host to start with. I then paid Automattic to move it because I didn’t know how to do that back then.
Before I purchased the domain it was jerryandgod.wordpress.com. If anyone had typed in jerryandgod.com they would have gotten something like the image shown on the side.
If you want to be able to get your website out in the world you must have your own domain. Yet, there’s more than that, as explained directly below.
Fully Owned Website/Blog – If you want complete control of your website then you’ll want to build it on WordPress.org which is 100% free. As I said above, it has hundreds if not thousands of free plugins and themes, but you need to be careful about what to use.
WordPress.com is a platform and your host. WordPress.org is only a platform, you’ll need to get a host (see the “Hosts & Thenes” tab).
Here’s a good 8-hour-long video to learn how to build a website on WordPress.org.
WordPress.org – As long as you pay the annual cost of your domain ($10-$15 annually) no one can take it away from you. Support is horrible, but you can usually google the problem and find what you need.
WordPress.com – You don’t own the place your website is on. Even if you own the domain, you don’t own the place and they can remove it for any reason they choose. The same as if you have your website on Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, etc. Support isn’t as bad as WordPress.org, but it’s pretty bad.
If you don’t have the time or the desire to learn all this then my Plan 1 or 2 might be of interest to you.
The Dying Website – If you already have a website, and it drags and goes putt-putt-putt, that means it’s not being maintained and sooner or later it will crash. Like when the gas in an automobile or lawn mower putters, you know it’s almost out of gas and it’ll stop.
It’s the same with a website; if it’s not maintained it’ll die. Yet, when the car dies, all you have to do is fill it up with gas and it’s good to go. When a website crashes, it’s a bit more complicated and can be costly to fix.
If you have a dying website, depending on the website and how it was built, you might want to look at my Plan 3.
The Winner Is?
Let’s imagine, you’ll need a huge imagination to imagine the following (is that proper grammar?): you decide that you don’t like the website or it’s too expensive so you cancel.
Can you imagine someone actually doing that, since my websites are outstanding? I guess it could happen, stranger things have happened. Biden managed to become president, but I don’t think he realizes that.
Don’t worry about it, and don’t think, “Oh no, he did all that work so I have to buy it.” I’m a perfectionist and I wouldn’t want you to buy it if you aren’t happy with it. I’ll be able to sell it to somebody. And we can still be friends.
If you read all of the About page, remember that when I had my Dale’s 24-Hour Typing Plus business I was a high school dropout writing A & B-grade essays for college students.
ANYONE can do ANYTHING they set their mind to.
I Repeat, You Don’t Need Me
but
if You Don’t Want to Do it, You Want Me!
