Hi, my name is Aleksandra Kendalo. You can see me with my boys after a long day at the park in this picture. My boys are so cool; they make me laugh, sometimes they drive me crazy. But I am glad I can be with them, and I can influence them to grow into kind, empathic, intelligent, caring individuals. I feel lucky that I am a mom to those two boys and can spend more time with them. It was one of the reasons why I was outside of my career for a while.
My other passion in my life is marketing. Creativity, innovation, constant changes, and dynamics are why I love marketing. I am someone who loves moving and learning something new. Before I had my children, I was 110% dedicated and energized in my marketing career. I advanced from an entry-level specialist to senior manager in the headquarters of a big corporation in Russia.
Being out of my profession for a while was challenging to return to my career. However, I knew it would not last forever and strongly believed that I would return one day. And WordPress helped me come back to my path and feel that I fit the way I had before. It turned out that WordPress is an easy-to-use platform that doesn’t require much time or money. It only needs a healthy dose of curiosity and a bit of patience. So, after a few weeks, I was surprised by how easily I crafted my first website.
How to choose between WordPress.org and WordPress.com
For the first time when I googled WordPress, I was confused that there are two options WordPress.org and WordPress.com. I figured out that WordPress.com is an online automated blogging service with the ability to add some extras such as a domain or specific layouts for a monthly fee. Similar platforms are Wix and Squarespace. With many restrictions in customization.
On the contrary, WordPress.org offers many options in themes and features. It’s more complicated to master but has more space in customization. How it’s saying on its website, “Get your hands dirty, and host your website yourself.” But don’t worry, you do not need to be an expert in coding to work on WordPress.org. It has a friendly and intuitive interface, where more choices and flexibility in themes, functionalities, and customization overall.
Complete WordPress tutorial for beginners
There are many options available in google search, many videos on YouTube; premium, free or low-cost courses. It was overwhelming. I spent hours and hours watching, reading, again watching, and again reading. But thanks to my previous analytical marketing experience, I was able to effectively research and choose only valuable sources. I discovered an incredible Udemy course – a complete guide on WordPress basics.
This tutorial guided me step by step from installation to developing a fully functional and responsive website. I came into with zero knowledge and had finished a local business website at the end of this course.
What is more, it’s a self-paced course that allowed me to learn on my own time between my mommy duties. It took me around 2.5 months to finish this course. It can be different, depending on how many hours a day you are ready to spend. There are 9.5 hours of videos covered WordPress foundation. The course content will look like:
Each lecture covers in detail all sections of WordPress for beginners and gives all answers needed to build a functional and mobile-friendly website.
The other online sources, that I loved to visit:
- WPLearningLab. Such a talented and supportive WordPress educator. His lessons can be helpful for beginners and advanced users.
- Go Tech Ug. Amazing WordPress enthusiast, He is always a first choice If I have a question on Elementor Page Builder.
- Popular Ferdy Korpershoek. I enjoy watching him because of his positive and optimistic attitude.
- Facebook page group where I can get peer-to-peer support
How much it can cost to build the first website?
It depends on your needs and how you want your website to be. But always the price can be broken into.
- Domain Name. It’s a unique website name. It can start at $17 a year
- Website hosting. Simply, it’s an online service that provides a webspace to store websites files. Affordable hosting plans start at $60
- Design or WordPress Themes. WordPress offers many free website templates.
- Plugins and Extensions. For every website, my spending tends to be 0.
From my personal experience, the best part about WordPress is that it’s straightforward and has lots of custom features to make different types of websites. And I am sure if you are willing to learn something new, you can build a fully functional website on your own.