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An image of a very frustrated mane pulling at his hairI survived week one

Well, I am one week in with 51 left to go to make this dream work. It has been a week full of challenges and, to be honest, most of them came from directions I never expected.

Here was the plan:
• Buy a domain
• Get a hosting plan
• Install WordPress
• Build a website
• Publish the website
• Relax and start planning week two

Here’s what actually happened:

• Buy a domain

  • OMG. There are so many companies selling domains. Who do you pick? GoDaddy? IONOS? Namecheap? Bluehost? Hover? The list is endless. I just wanted someone cheap without drowning me in technical jargon. (That “technical jargon” will definitely be a whole future post.)

  • I settled on GoDaddy and bought a legit-sounding domain name. It was cheap and easy.

  • Then I realised a domain is pretty useless without a hosting plan. This is where GoDaddy roped me in.

  • They are now my hosting provider. If I could start again, I’d probably go with Bluehost. GoDaddy is fine, but their renewal prices will make your eyes water.

• Install WordPress

  • This part was surprisingly straightforward. I bought GoDaddy’s WordPress Management/Hosting package, and it was all set up quickly.

  • I even tried GoDaddy’s AI website builder. It worked well, but the site it created was far too fancy for me. I deleted the whole thing.

  • So I decided to build my site from scratch using WordPress’s Gutenberg block editor (it’s free).

    • Ten minutes in, I was ready to throw my laptop out the window.

    • Nothing made sense.

    • Bought a Udemy course on Gutenberg.

    • Completed Udemy course on Gutenberg.

    • Immediately signed up for Elementor’s annual license.

    • Installed Elementor.

    • Did another 20-hour Udemy course on Elementor.

    • Built a simple holding page.

    • Published it successfully.

• Distractions: Affiliate Marketing

  • At this stage, I got sidetracked and started looking into affiliate marketing networks.

  • Registered accounts with CJ (Commission Junction) and Impact.

  • Applied to six affiliate programs.

  • Got rejected by all six. Total disaster! (I will share more about this in a future post.)

• Fancy template mistake

  • I decided to refocus and bought a fancy £50 template. It looked great, but it was far too much for what I needed.

• Back to basics with Elementor

  • Started building a new page from scratch in Elementor.

  • Had a great design in my head.

  • Managed to build it.

  • Published it.

  • It looked awful! Like a peacock had thrown up all over my screen.

  • Deleted it immediately.

  • Found a simple, clean template instead.

  • Customized it and published it.

And that’s where I am today, Sunday 3rd August. I have a live site. It looks basic, but it works. I decided to write this post so that at least my blog has something in it. Surprisingly, I’ve realised I quite enjoy this newsletter writing part.

Some facts and figures from week one:

  • Time spent studying WordPress: 20 hours

  • Time spent building my site: 32 hours

  • Time swearing at my screen: 3 hours

  • Time swearing in general: 2 hours

  • Udemy courses: £28

  • WordPress template: £58

  • Annual domain registration with Microsoft 360: £45.44

  • Elementor license: £71.88

  • Grand total: £203.32 and a bucket of sweat

This is just a high-level summary. I will dive deeper into each of these steps in future posts. If you’re starting something similar and need advice, feel free to reach out. I’m happy to share what I’ve learned so far.