Creating a WordPress site is easy but maintaining it is no fun. If you keep your WordPress version and plug-ins up-to-date, you can be vulnerable to attacks which could lead to your hosting company suspending your account. The cheapest managed WordPress service providers that I’ve found are
- WordPress.com ($99 per year) – by the makers of WordPress
- GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting ($1.00 a month – on sale, regularly $6.99)
This blog is currently on WordPress.com but I have another on GoDaddy.
If you need an online store, while there are many free, open-source ecommerce applications you can install on a server, you still have to manage the upgrades. To avoid that, you can use WordPress and install free plugins that provide ecommerce functionality. I’ve tried this with what seems to be the most popular one (WooCommerce) and it works really well. The plugins I am using are
- WooCommerce
- Simple Custom CSS
