Grow Your Business

The Best Platform To Create Your Website

So you’re thinking about creating a website, or maybe you already have one but you are not too sure if you are using the right platform.
Don’t worry, I got your back on this one.
Because this time we are going to talk about…

The Best Platform To Create Your Website

But before I tell you what is The Best Platform To Create Your Website, let me show you the things you should consider in choosing a platform.
These are:

Purpose – Is your website for short-term or long-term use? Will you do blog, sell products or services, do webinars, schedule events, or simply use it as a landing page?
Security – Will it protect your website and its contents from hackers?
Flexibility – Will you have all the functionalities you need and will these functionalities be flexible to suit your needs as your business scale up?
SEO Friendly – Will your prospective customers be able to find your website and its contents when they search for it on the internet?
Cost – How much will it cost to run your website and does it suit your budget?

Now that I have laid the considerations out there, let us take a look at The Best Platform to Use to Create Your Website.
I highly recommend WordPress.org and below are the reasons why based on the above considerations.

Purpose
WordPress can cater to the different needs.
If you are a blogger, then WordPress should be your top choice as this is the best blogging platform out there.
It also has ecommerce plugins so you can sell items, accept orders and payments.
You can also book appointments for your services, as well as conduct webinars.
There is also this plugin that I love called Pretty Links that allows me to customize my URLs.

Security
Protecting your website, as well as your visitors, from hackers is must. An SSL certificate usually comes when hosting your WordPress website.
And since WordPress is a self-managed platform, you own all of your contents.
What do I mean by this?
There are platforms that when you upload your contents to your website, your contents will belong to the company that owns the platform.
So when the company decides to shutdown, all your contents will be lost with your website. This is particularly true to website builders that offer free hosting.

Flexibility
As I mentioned above, you can add plugins to WordPress based on your business’ current needs.
WordPress is very customizable when it comes to themes, designs, menu and settings.
And since it is self-managed, you can move your website to a different host if you feel the need for better speed, capacity to handle visitor traffic, and security.

SEO Friendly
WordPress is very SEO friendly.
SEO or search engine optimization makes your website easy to find on the internet.
It also means that your website loads fast when opened, or when buttons are clicked or forms are submitted on your website.
These make your website user-friendly which enhances visitor experience and can help in driving traffic to your website.

Cost
WordPress is a free platform.
Although you might need to pay for web hosting, it is very minimal – you can find web hosts that cost less than $5 monthly.

Now you might be thinking, if I am still going to pay for web hosting, why not choose a platform that offers free hosting?
This is because free hosted platforms do not offer plugins for functionality and SSL certificate for security.
You will only get these features when you upgrade to their paid version, and paid versions are usually $15 and above monthly which is more expensive than paying a separate web host for your WordPress website.

QUICK NOTE!
You are still free to choose the free hosted website, especially if you are starting out and have little to zero budget to spend for a website.
If you are aiming for a short-term use and you only need a landing page or a website to direct you visitors for more information, then for sure, take advantage of the free hosted websites.
BUT!
If you need a website for long-term use like for a blog or selling your products wherein you will be uploading lots of contents to your website, I strongly recommend to use WordPress and pay for hosting.
Why?
Just imagine, two to three years down the line and your business has grown and you have built a huge community of customers, then suddenly your website got shut down… what will happen to your business?
I mentioned earlier that these free hosted platforms will take ownership of your contents as soon as you upload them to your website.
But if you self-manage your website using WordPress, you own all your contents so they are safe with you and you don’t need to worry losing them, nor your customers and business.

Okay, just for a recap, make sure to self-manage your website using WordPress.
And make sure to take in consideration the following for your website creation:
Purpose
Security
Functionality
SEO Friendly
Cost

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