In this article, we will explore how to build your own website with WordPress. Everyone thinks about building a website at one point or another. Not everyone follows through with their plans though. The expense of hiring a web designer or having little knowledge of the topic of website building is enough to possibly hinder one from creating a website. This, however, doesn't have to be the case by using WordPress.  WordPress is a powerful blogging and content management system (CMS), of which you can build and manage your own website for no cost at all.

Which WordPress Method to Use

There are actually two methods of using WordPress to use to build your own site. You can choose to download their software and install it on your own web server or you can choose to have WordPress host your content on their site. Regardless of what you choose, there are many advantages to having your own website and using WordPress to build it.

Depending on the method you choose to use, you'll visit a different site. Wordpress.org is a place where you can download the software and instructions on how to get started. Here, we're going to go to WordPress.com and click the orange button labeled "sign up now" on the right hand side. From here, you're prompted for your personal information including: name, email address and the name of your blog/website. After filling out the form, click submit and wait for a confirmation email to be sent to your e-mail inbox. Once you receive the email, click the confirmation link.

Building Your Website Using WordPress

Now, you're ready to begin building your free website with WordPress! The first step is to choose a theme. This will be the template and skin for every page of your website. You want to make sure that you choose one that matches your goal as a web master. As an alternative to choosing from the WordPress gallery of free themes, you can purchase one for a more custom feel. And for a really unique feel, you can hire a web designer to make you a theme from scratch.

At this point, you can start creating your pages. Using the tools offered by WordPress, building a site is very easy. You have the option to create pages and then fill them with your own unique content. You can add media like videos and flash in HTML mode. You can create a custom banner, a tagline or just keep the ones that come with your theme. With WordPress, you're in complete control of what goes in and comes out of your site.

Naming Your Website

Now that your pages are built, all that is left is to name your website and purchase the domain name. As a default, your site will be given a subdomain name, for example YourName.wordpress.com. To make your name more user friendly and memorable, you'll need to choose a custom domain name and pay a small fee to register it. A registrar like register.com or URLfreedom.com, are two websites which offer domain names for sale. The fee is typically no more than 10 dollars a year. Once you have a domain name, access your control panel on WordPress.  Here, you can choose to park the domain name so that every time someone visits it, they are taken to your site.

Using WordPress is quite simple and is user-friendly, especially for beginners to use in order to create their own website.