Welcome - This is going to be a journey we can take together...

An Introduction and Background

I have had a lot of people ask me about building websites.  I use WordPress to make sites for my clients, So I thought I might take the time to put together a little "Walk-Through" on how to get started building a website using WordPress.

Now, I will be up front about this whole thing - I am in no way affiliated with WordPress.com, WordPress.org, or Automattic (The makers of WordPress) except as an unpaid member-user. That is to say I am the same as the rest of the general public and do not work for them or receive any financial gain from them.

I am however the director of ProTech Network, a community betterment non-profit organization whose mission is to support the technology needs of ministries and non-profits.  We help churches and non-profit organizations through computer refurbishing, technical help, website construction, information technology support, and organizational education. We also provide support to small organizations to help them get benefits from large donor organizations such as Google, TechSoup, and MicroSoft just to mention a few.

Website Construction:

One of the key areas where we help ministries and nonprofits is in helping them build their websites. In an effort to keep things simple for our clients while still giving them powerful tools to present their story, we use WordPress to build websites.

There are a few basic considerations to keep in mind when building your website:

• Goals
• Costs
• Content

Your goals are your first consideration, and will shape everything you do with your website. Your goals are determined by asking yourself, "what do I want to accomplish with this website?"  Without a well-defined goal, your website will never satisfy you because your website doesn't tell the right story.  During the design process you want to keep re-evaluating your work to make sure it is accomplishing your goals.

The costs to consider in website development include, but are not limited to:

• Domain name registration (The is the website name, as in myexample.org)
• Domain hosting service (The server where your website files reside)
• Purchase of properly licensed content (so you don't get sued for infringement)
• Labor (in the event you hire someone to help you build the site for example)
• Fees for other services (such as online credit card processors for example)

Content on the other hand is one of the most difficult areas to deal with. It's like sitting down to write your first novel - you have lots of great ideas, but don't know where to start or how to tie everything together.  Most of the time, websites are not built by the person telling that story, and they have to draw the story out of their client. Because of this, I recommend assigning homework. Ask them to write down the answer to a few questions:

1. Who do you want to reach? (be specific)
2. What do you want them to know? (try to sum it up in a paragraph)
3. When will action be necessary?
4. Where does it take place?
5. Why should anyone need to know or act upon this information? (explain it as if I am a child)
6. How can knowing or acting on this knowledge make a difference?

When you have the answers to these basic questions, you can begin to develop your website content in a manner consistent with your goals and possibly achieve your desired effect through the use of a website.

In future posts, I will get down to the "Nitty Gritty" of setting up a website using WordPress, but if you want to start shopping around now for the best pricing on domain registration and hosting services feel free.

A word of caution: you may want to wait on purchasing anything until we move on to the next steps. I may be able to save you some money and headaches - remember, bargain basement prices are sometimes too good to be true and can cost you more than you saved in the long run.