Wordpress.com Website Builder
Wordpress.com is a free-hosted web-based website builder that is easy to use. However, it has its cons as well as its pros. Read below our full review.
This is a quick & simple review of the free hosted web-based website builder Wordpress.com as used to build an example website - Wordpress.com - A Review.
Wordpress.com is a free hosted version of the famous and sometimes infamous web design program - Wordpress.org. See difference between the two here. Below is an account of my personal experience with the former when making a simple example website.
Themes - In this case a blank slate was chosen (no theme). I built a design that has a simple page width image with text overtop, a place for 3 images below that and widgets in the footer. Clean, simple, elegant - typical of what is to be expected of a website today. There are many fee and paid themes to choose from. However, like any theme (as well as the web-based website builder), there is a learning curve to figuring out how to make what you want fit inside the template box. IE - there is a learning curve to the quirks of the website builder as well as the theme chosen. Without getting into the long-winded nitty gritty monotonous detail of how to use every single theme within Wordpress.com, I’ll simply say that once you choose your theme (there are a myriad to choose from so don’t have paralysis of analysis), I would suggest going to the theme’s information page to read up on its capabilities and learn more on how to change what where (ie: theme customization in appearance/widgets etc., page specific types / settingse etc., or other settings etc.). Google searches for specifics also helps. Just be sure to specify Wordpress.com from Wordpress.org.
The downside to using a free hosted web-based website builder (in addition to needing to use a theme) is that from an optimization standpoint for page speed, capabilities are limited. Case in point - without upgrading to a paid business plan to be able to add plugins, SEO and other customizations is limited.
The upside is it is free hosted, and can be managed via the web. WordPress.com also manages site security and page speed in-house (and they do pretty well at it). However the downside to this is that you're stuck with the host as it cannot be moved to another without rebuilding it. Another plus is that as a blogging platform, it is easy to make blog posts, which is good for seo, that can be shared among your social media channels, which is also good for seo. For an added fee, you can connect your Wordpress.com website to a custom domain name or add other available bells and whistles (plugins). Support is always available. Resources: First Steps & Learn to use Wordpress.com.
Depending on your needs (including maintenance) as well as budget, I can most likely build for you a custom website that can look almost exactly like your favorite Wordpress.com template but is more technically sound in terms of on-page seo and html errors. Either I can maintain the website for you or show you how to via my affordable desktop software. You can read the full review here for more information on this tool. Contact me for more information.
Rob Shurtleff
The Website Guy
Wordpress.com is a free hosted version of the famous and sometimes infamous web design program - Wordpress.org. See difference between the two here. Below is an account of my personal experience with the former when making a simple example website.
Themes - In this case a blank slate was chosen (no theme). I built a design that has a simple page width image with text overtop, a place for 3 images below that and widgets in the footer. Clean, simple, elegant - typical of what is to be expected of a website today. There are many fee and paid themes to choose from. However, like any theme (as well as the web-based website builder), there is a learning curve to figuring out how to make what you want fit inside the template box. IE - there is a learning curve to the quirks of the website builder as well as the theme chosen. Without getting into the long-winded nitty gritty monotonous detail of how to use every single theme within Wordpress.com, I’ll simply say that once you choose your theme (there are a myriad to choose from so don’t have paralysis of analysis), I would suggest going to the theme’s information page to read up on its capabilities and learn more on how to change what where (ie: theme customization in appearance/widgets etc., page specific types / settingse etc., or other settings etc.). Google searches for specifics also helps. Just be sure to specify Wordpress.com from Wordpress.org.
The downside to using a free hosted web-based website builder (in addition to needing to use a theme) is that from an optimization standpoint for page speed, capabilities are limited. Case in point - without upgrading to a paid business plan to be able to add plugins, SEO and other customizations is limited.
The upside is it is free hosted, and can be managed via the web. WordPress.com also manages site security and page speed in-house (and they do pretty well at it). However the downside to this is that you're stuck with the host as it cannot be moved to another without rebuilding it. Another plus is that as a blogging platform, it is easy to make blog posts, which is good for seo, that can be shared among your social media channels, which is also good for seo. For an added fee, you can connect your Wordpress.com website to a custom domain name or add other available bells and whistles (plugins). Support is always available. Resources: First Steps & Learn to use Wordpress.com.
Depending on your needs (including maintenance) as well as budget, I can most likely build for you a custom website that can look almost exactly like your favorite Wordpress.com template but is more technically sound in terms of on-page seo and html errors. Either I can maintain the website for you or show you how to via my affordable desktop software. You can read the full review here for more information on this tool. Contact me for more information.
Rob Shurtleff
The Website Guy