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The WordPress Website Launch Guide

We set out to create the WordPress Website Launch Guide to help new and old WordPress users get everything they need to launch their website in one simple guide. We know that a single guide can't cover every scenario or need of every website owner. But we believe that if you call into the broad category of needing a website primarily for "marketing" reasons and fit somewhere into the Small Business, Church, or Entrepreneur zone, this guide is for you! Without further adieu, The WordPress Website Launch Guide.

"Success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose."

- Dictionary.com

Overview

WordPress is packed with great features all by itself. However, there's also some recommended plugins and features that you can take advantage of to accelerate your build and grow your audience as fast as possible. Here's the pieces we're going to cover in our launch guide:

  • Hosting & Domains
  • Visual Page Builder
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Website Security
  • Email Signup Forms
  • Images and Media
  • Website Speed
  • *Bonus* Podcasting

Hosting & Domains

Buying a Domain Name

The first thing you'll need to get your WordPress website launched successfully is a website Domain and website Hosting.

A website domain is simply a name or alias. As you may know, websites run on servers (powerful computers) connected to the web 24/7. Servers are publicly accessible by a unique IP address. You can think of an IP address like your physical home address, it's unique to you and carries permanence. The geniuses that made the Internet decided some sort of easy to remember naming system would be better than telling everyone a random set of numbers to find your website. Right then and there, Domain Names were invented, the Alias for your website.

You can buy your domain name from many places, Google Domains, Namecheap and the list goes on. Out of convenience, lots of people like to buy their domain name from their web hosting company. We in fact offer the same service through Sierra.host, Domain Names. Buying a domain name is very straight forward, go to the domain registrar, start searching till you find something you like and follow their checkout procedure.

WordPress Website Hosting

Unlike buying a domain name, where you host your website really matters. Before we get ahead of ourselves, lets answer the question, "What is website hosting?"

Website hosting is really just a service where you rent space on a server (aka, someone's computer at a big office called a data center). That server stays on 24/7 and serves up your website to anyone who visits your domain. While that sounds reasonably simple, not all webhosting is the same. If you do any amount of shopping you'll quickly learn that there are hundreds of different options. WordPress website hosting has become common. However, because of its common, it also means that there are a lot of bad hosts out there. They'll typically try to woo you to their services by being cheap. Inevitably, the cheap price tag means bad service. Sometimes this bad services shows up as:

  • Slow website - takes ages to load a page
  • Frequent Hacking - Your site gets flooded with SPAM or information gets stolen
  • Customer Support that can't seem to figure out your issues
  • Constantly trying to get you to upgrade your hosting plan
  • Frequent downtime thats unexplained
  • The list goes on...