Website Hosting I use
I use Cloudways hosting. Cloudways Hosting is fast. It also isn’t over priced for what I get. I love to do a before and after test with Google page speed insights to see the before and after speed after I’ve moved a site from something else over to faster cloudways hosting.
Free Kadence Theme
For my website I use self hosted WordPress (not to be confused with the limited thing called wordpress.com that you don’t want) and I use the Kadence theme. Why? Because it is a lightweight theme, no extra unnecessary stuff. Yeah and the base model is free. There’s a paid version for more bells and whistles that might be good depending on what you need your website to do. The free version has a functional contact form and you can also embed your CRM inquiry for on your contact page with the free Kadence theme. I recommend starting with the free version and moving up if you need it.
How to Setup WordPress Staging while you build your website
Say you decide to move an existing wordpress website over to a wordpress site hosted on Cloudways, here is the step by step tutorial from Cloudways
Staging site tutorial For Cloudways
If your website is built on something else it depends on the platform. Some are easier than others, but all can be moved even if it’s manually.
What if all Kadence Themes are ugly?
They don’t have to be. My website is built on kadence. There are plenty of options by hiring designers to get it started or DIY if you’re open to learning yourself. Youtube if full of tutorials. Kadence has some included starter templates too.
What Does this Cost?
If you’re ballin’ on a budget and don’t mind learning from tutorials and doing it yourself it can cost very little. My hosting is about 20/mo. I do pay for some additional plugins and subscriptions. However, If you want it all done for you, designed with unique remarkable branding like no one else, curated imagery, blog posts to start ranking, and copy writing that sell you to your ideal clients, that could be closer to 11,000.
Theres room to go somewhere in the middle and work in stages depending were you most need improvement and how much you want/can to do yourself.