Most of us are conditioned to always associate cheap with inferior quality. However, that truly isn’t always the case.
Today, achieving an exceptional quality of things on a cheap budget is possible. Doesn’t matter if you are a beginner on a tight budget looking for a start-up website or a professional looking for a bargain, we have got you!
We have curated a list of pocket friendly steps that you can follow and get the website of your dreams for cheap.
• Determine the purpose of your website
Determining the purpose of your website is the basis of fulfilling that purpose.
What is your website for? Is it for ecommerce or for writing blogs or something more?
You need to ask yourself if you want to use the website to monetize it, to increase your business or just to share valuable content.
It’s very important for you to answer these questions in the beginning itself. This is because, different purposes are going to involve completely different steps in creating them.
Strategizing every step of making a great successful website depends on this sole step. So, ensure you don’t skip it at any cost!
• What’s your budget?
Being vague and wanting to create a website for cheap isn’t going to take you far.
Instead of generalising the term cheap, you need have a clear idea of how much you can spend for the website.
If it’s possible to hire a professional or even a freelancer to build your website for a bargain then, you should go for it.It will save you a lot of time and energy.
However, if you feel that in your budget hiring someone to build your website isn’t possible then, find out the places where you will have occur costs.
You need to divide your budget into all the possible costs right from the beginning to final step.
If you are clueless at what steps you are going to have to spend then we have the possible solution for your dilemma. Most website creators spend on purchasing the domain name, for webhosting or while making the website look attractive, etc.
Make sure you take all these factors into account while planning your budget!
• Choose a website building platform
In the past building a platform for websites was not a piece of cake. It involved hard-core coding that made building a website for amateurs an impossible task.
However, now things have completely changed. You don’t necessarily have to know about all the HTML jargon in order to build a website.
No matter what your skill level is, you can completely depend on the content management systems (CMS) to not only help build a platform for your website but also help manage it.
Since you are probably on a shoe-string budget, getting started with free website building platforms is recommended.
Undeniably, WordPress is one of the most popular and easy to use website for beginners. Apart from being absolutely free! Andeasy on your pocket, WordPress is great for any type of website.
Be it a simple start up blog or a professional ecommerce start-up. With WordPress you can easily edit every detail of your website and if you face any problems maintaining it, you will be provided great support from the WordPress community.
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• Choose a webhost
If you don’t already know, a webhost is where your website is going to be on the internet. Suppose, you have rented a flat in a building then, your flat is like your website and the building is going to be the webhost for which you will have to pay rent to keep the flat.
Choosing a reliable webhost can be a task especially, if you are on a tight budget. However, if you do not want to pay for an individual server then, you can always go for shared hosting plans and save a few bucks.
However, sharing a server comes with its own list of problems. Not only is your website at a risk of tampered security but also at a risk of loading very slow. This will not only repel the traffic away from your website but will also make your site look bad in the eyes of google. And no one wants that!
While considering cheap web hosting companies, there are a lot of factors that you to take into consideration. You need to consider the storage, add on domains, malware and pam protection,data transferlimit, google tools, technical support, etc. while selecting the hosting plan.
Since creating a website for cheap is going to require for you to save up on every step of the way, we suggest you to search for discounts and coupons on the internet. You never know when you’ll find a great deal!
If you are Confused with the large selection of webhosts available, Interserver, A2Hosting, InMotion hosting are some of the web host providers that we suggest you should definitely checkout. These are a perfect combination of affordability and reliability!
• Choose a domain name
Choosing the right domain name is as important as breathing.
Well, not really! But still, your domain name is going to be your unique identity in the world of internet. So, create it wisely!
While creating a domain name, there are a lot of things to keep in mind. You need to ensure that your domain name is keywords optimised, easy to spell and doesn’t appear scummy.
But, on a cheap budget comes the biggest question of them all. Do you have to pay for it?
If you have chosen a free website builder like WordPress then you are in luck. You can register your domain name for free. However, you will have ‘wordpress.com’ attached to your domain name. If you don’t want that then, you will have to pay for an upgrade to get rid of it. You can also purchase domain names to ensure a more secure and unique domain name.
For a professional looking website, excluding the website builder identity from the domain name is more advisable.
Don’t worry, it won’t cost you much!
• Design and add content to your website
We are assuming that you have already built up your website through the above mentioned steps. So now, you need to focus on adding an attractive design and user friendly content to your website.
If you have money to spare for website designing then, you can always hire a professional. However, if you still want to save up a little then, you can design your own website using version website editor programs. But, that’s one hell of task if you are a beginner.
In that case, you can always rely on free website builders to make your life easy. Most of those come loaded with free themes suiting the needs of different types of websites. If you want, you can even purchase the premium versions of the themes to make the website more attractive.
What now?
Now that you have perfected your website, you want to jump in and launch your website! But, hold your horses.
No matter what your budget or skill level is, testing the website that you have created is unavoidable. You can’t deny the importance of promoting the website either.
Even though, these two steps might not appear to be part of creating a website, they are a very critical step. And, we can’t take a chance of not mentioning them!
• Test the website
Once you have created the website, you need to then test it to ensure there are no problems with it. You need to run it different browsers, make sure the design is user friendly and mobile optimized, display is on place, etc.
This step has to be done before the final launch of your website without fail!
• Promote the website
There is no point of creating and spending a lot of time and efforts on a website, if it’s not going to be seen by anybody.
No matter what your website is for, without hustle you won’t conquer your purpose. You need to advertise your website in order make it known and to even make it a reliable source of income.
Follow these above mentioned tips and you are going to create an inexpensive website in no time!
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