Beginner’s Guide to Supplementing Your Income with a Website

With the plethora of helpful tools, guides, and tutorials out there today, making your very own website and creating an income from it has never been easier. It’s an ideal side-income for a hardworking parent, as the amount of time you decide to invest in it is completely up to you.

Running your own website could also allow you to spend more time learning and creating your own content on a topic that interests you. While there are already hundreds of websites covering just about everything, your unique approach could make you stand out among the rest.

We’ve put together a guide outlining the basics, so that you know what to expect, as well as the potential costs.

Using a Website Builder

Before the days of website builders, people had to manually code every aspect of their site. You’d have to learn a few programming languages to do this yourself, but these days it’s far from necessary. For this guide, we’ll be using WordPress, as it’s by far the easiest and most flexible option, not to mention being free.

Using WordPress is as simple as creating an account and selecting a few options. One of the most important is choosing a theme for your site. You can always opt for a free theme in the beginning as it’s easy to change it when it comes you want to invest in something more unique. Premium themes can cost anywhere between $25 and $200.

Registering a Domain

While WordPress does offer a free domain option, having your own domain is essential if you want your website to rank high in search results and look professional. Shopify is a great option for domain name registration. The entire process is automated, making them an ideal option for beginners.

As for cost, you can expect to pay around $29 per month for the basic option, which is more than sufficient in the beginning. Fortunately, Shopify offers a two-week free trial for you to try out before putting any money down.

Plugins

While WordPress offers the basics for creating a website, you’ll need to make use of plugins in order to gain additional functionality. Many essential plugins are available for free. These will help you obtain analytics on how people use your website and where they come from. Other plugins can add extra features to your site, such as a contact form.

Monetising

Once your website is set up and ready to go, the next step depends on the path you choose to take. Do you want to make money from ads while writing a blog? Or do you want to sell a digital product such as your own eBook? You could also sell physical products through your website. You could even build great websites and then sell them for profit.

Conclusion

Creating a website makes for a great learning experience and allows you to get an in-depth look into an integral part of modern society. Who knows, your website might just turn into something big. All you need is a willingness to learn and some old school work ethic.