Many times I get surprised when someone asks me a question about owning a website, creating one or both. To most it seems like a complicated task or a chalenging investment. It probably was ten years ago when skilled web designers weren’t as numerous. Today it can take just a few minutes to set a professional website or blog up. Literally!

Take the example of janvierdesigns.com … I registered this domain with bluehost.com within a minute or two for $10/year. Using easyscripts in cpanel I set up a wordpress blog in the root directory of janvierdesigns.com  within less than five minutes. In total, it took me close to 6 minutes to set up janvierdesigns.com .  When I share this story, some people find it hard to take, and that is why I am sharing in this post how to do that and why it is the best way to approach website design.

1. You will start with a domain name. That is the somethingyouwant.com  part of the site. It adentifies your website among the billions of others on the Internet. Usually a domain name is under $10 a year. It can be registered with a different registrant than your hosting company. In my case I do both through  bluehost.
2. Once you have your domain registered, simply assign it to some hosting package. In most cases hosting packages come with “addon domains” option. This allows you to add extra domains to your main hosting account at no extra cost. For example, with bluehost you sign up for the main domain, let’s say mysiteof choice.com This costs  $6.95/month. Now, you would need to register another domain name and add it as an addon domain on the main account (mysiteofchoice.com) via the control panel.
3. In the addon directory, install wordpress. The easiest way to do this (which is what I use) is to use easyscripts. It takes a few seconds when you use a package installation software such as easyscripts or fantastico. These package installation softwares, with a simple click you create the necessary database, database username and assign necessary privileges as well as copying all basic files to show your website. At least in the default format. At this stage the website is already set up.
4. Customize your site/blog.
   This is the stage where you can install other templates/themes add plugins and many more cool features that don’t come with “traditional page after page” website creation.

There you have it. Once your site is up and running you can create pages and posts at simple clicks. There are many advantages that come with way of website design I discuss in “web design that rocks”. Get there and learn more. If you don’t understand the whole “addon domain” thing, please feel free to visit my post on that  topic here.