RESOURCES
Thanks for visiting my resources page. Some of these links are affiliate links and some are not, all of these links I recommend as my personal favourite choices in each of the following categories:
FREE 5 DAY WEBSITE CHALLENGE – From Shannon Mattern
Shannon is a great teacher and I have taken and retaken her free course a couple of times. She stays up to date with the best new programs and updates, she makes it easy and accessible to actually build your own website for under $200. SO GOOD!
Hosting
Be aware that after your initial term, say you choose 1 year at $3.95/month. After that one year is over the rate rises to $7.99/month, which is still good but if you were to choose a longer term say 3 years, your rate would not raise for 3 years. So I would choose the longest term that you can afford.
WordPress Theme, Optin Plugin… Everything you need
I found this theme/company about 2 years ago now and I absolutely love them. It is a premium WordPress theme, how it works is you buy a membership for $89/year and you get access to the theme, a gorgeous optin plugin called Bloom and all of the other Elegant Themes products. (I use this theme on all of my websites) They have excellent support and new updates all the time, free layouts, I would say hundreds of thousands of tutorials on Youtube to guide you through creating exactly what you want. I LOVE ELEGANT THEMES!
SSL CERTIFICATES
Check with your hosting company, some companies offer free SSL certificates (Bluehost for one). Also the easiest installation methods are when your hosting company issues the SSL certificate then they can validate it quickly for you and sometimes they will even install them for you. However, as is the case with GoDaddy (my current hosting company… for now) they can also charge whatever they want ($99/year…yikes). So even though it is a bit more work I use SSL.com ($36-$49/year). For a walk-through tutorial on how to install your SSL certificate from SSL.com join my FREE “Secure Your Website Yourself” Course.
BACKUPS & MAINTENENCE
Manage WP is a free online tool to connect your websites all in one place, with easy one click updates, backups and more this is the way I keep all my websites in tip top shape.