WordPress Web Hosting in 2020

The powerful website creation tool is still a titan in 2020. WordPress has evolved from the purely-blogging platform of choice to the default design system for websites of any nature. The WordPress team has a tentative calendar of new releases and it seems that we’ll dart from the current version 5.3 to version 6 in the next 24 months. WordPress version 5.4 will be the first significant update for 2020 barring any major security issues. You would rarely be disappointed with running WordPress to create and manage your website. I have used WordPress for websites of all sorts. WordPress is going to be around for a very long time. We are, of course, using it for this blog as well as hosted on our own local web hosting servers. If you can spare a few hours to learn how this content management system works, you would indeed develop a very useful skill.

What do you need to run a smooth WordPress website for your small business?

Register a domain name

This is the start of all things on the web for your small business. Without complicating anything, your domain name is your .co.za or .com which will be used to find your website and email address. You can get one from the 1-grid.com website. Have a look at variations other than .co.za or .com as well. You must just fancy a .guru or .africa.

Get Web hosting that supports WordPress

Web hosting is the service that allows your website to have a physical home on the Internet. Your website files and database (which is what WordPress will produce for you) need to be hosted on a server. Web hosting makes this possible. You then need to be sure that your web hosting provider is capable of running WordPress. The self-hosted version of WordPress is 100% free. The web hosting plans on this page all accommodate WordPress with no effort and the control panel you get access to has a simple 1-click WordPress installation feature.

Find a cool WordPress theme

WordPress themes are available from thousands of vendors and developers. There are pre-loaded themes when you set WordPress up for the first time. Once your installation is done you can literally choose from millions of styles and color profiles to suit your business. Themes are generally free but there are premium themes available if you need something that is of a very high standard. Paid themes also come with support so you can be guided if you so need.

Install some nifty plugins

While themes address your overall website look and feel, you make look for added functionality like sliders and contact forms. No sweat, WordPress plugins are there to help. I have almost not found a plugin to address a problem that I had on a WordPress website. The really nerdy fun part is that you can also build your own plugins and offer them to other WordPress site owners.

Set up Google Analytics

It’s good practice to measure your website’s performance. Google Analytics gives insights into your website traffic, page performance and so much more. It’s free and it’s an industry-standard tool. Once you have it set up, you simply install the Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and you can measure your website’s behavior.