Do a Google search on website design or business websites, and you’ll find a lot of choices for template type sites. A template site is one that has been structurally designed to fit any business type, product, or service. The user pays for the base template and then has limited abilities to change features, drag and drop images and other features, and write the text they want. The user must work within the limitations of the template to get their site up and running.
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with these type of sites, and you can usually get started for free and then for a few pounds each month you’ll have your business website online. Depending on what you want out of a website, this could be enough for you. However, if you want more, or you may want more flexibility later to grow, then these are not the answer.
WordPress Can Be Free
There are almost 200 million websites built with the free WordPress software, and you can even host the site on the WordPress.com servers at no cost as well if you are really struggling to raise finance. The software has always been free and should always be. It is also open for development by third parties, so there are many thousands of themes for design and plugins for functionality, many free as well.
You can build it for free, and as your business grows, you can migrate your site to paid hosting for much more power and flexibility. This website hosting can be as inexpensive as under £8 per month. This gives you access to plugins that can do almost anything you want, from running a full e-commerce site to building a membership site for discussions and forums.
The beauty of this solution is that it can start out totally free when you need that, and then you can grow the site and build out functionality to whatever you want later when you’re making money to pay for it.
A Little More to Learn for Lots More Power
You will need to learn a little more than to use the simple template sites, but it is well worth it. Some of the largest sites on the Web are built with WordPress. Sites that use WordPress include TechCrunch, BBC America, The New Yorker, Sony Music; you’re getting the idea. You can start with an acorn and grow a mighty oak tree if you want with WordPress.
Using third-party themes, you can select design options, colour schemes, and layouts to create the site you want from scratch. Then you can use third-party plugins to add functionality to your backend management or for user interaction. If you want to force registration only for parts of the site for a fee, you can do it. If you want to sell your own writing, photos, or products off your site, you can do that too.
There is no better way to start and grow your online business presence than using WordPress.