Introduction to Word Press Upgrade Options Word Press

Introduction to Word. Press Upgrade Options

Word. Press. com Upgrades Word. Press. org is a non-profit venture, but Word. Press. com is a for-profit organization. By earning revenue from those users who upgrade their sites, they can subsidize (pay for) all the users who just use the free features. Up until now, we've covered only the free features offered on the Word. Press. com platform. These free features provide all the basics for starting and maintaining a blog or static website. However, several upgrades are available for those who wish to enhance their sites. Let's see how premium features and paid upgrades work on Word. Press. com.

Word. Press. com Store Premium options are available via the Store screen on the Dashboard. Each box describes an upgrade option and its associated fee. Let's look at each of these paid features.

Custom Domain Name One of the most popular upgrades is to register and use one’s own domain name for a blog or static website. So instead of being: http: //myawesomesite. wordpress. com the URL address of the site would be: http: //www. myawesomesite. com If we already had a domain registered elsewhere, we could map it to our Word. Press. com site for $13. 00 per year. If we register a domain with Word. Press. com directly, it's an additional $5. 00 per year, which is a bargain, as most domain registrars charge $10. 00 or more per year for each domain.

Video Upgrade Free blogs on Word. Press. com do not include the capability to upload video files directly. To enable this feature, Word. Press. com requires users to purchase the Video. Press upgrade. At a pricey $60. 00 per year for the Video. Press upgrade, most users just opt to post their videos on You. Tube and embed them directly into their posts, as we did earlier in this course.

Custom Design Free Word. Press. com themes are intentionally limited in their ability to have their appearance customized. With the Custom Design upgrade, site owners get access to use different fonts and sizes for their site title, headings, and body text, as well as expanded color scheme options. This upgrade also includes the ability to edit the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that controls the site appearance. This editing must be done manually, so site owners will need to know how to edit CSS code directly. At a reasonable $30. 00 per year, this is a popular upgrade option for those who want more control over their site's colors and fonts.

Storage Space Upgrade Free Word. Press. com sites come with 3 GB (3, 000 megabytes) of space to upload files and images. This is plenty of space for most casual sites. But even if there's plenty of room to store them, audio files, such as MP 3, are not allowed to be uploaded under the basic, free platform. Only by paying for one of the storage upgrade plans can music files be uploaded to a site. The 3 GB allowance under the free plan is a lot of space. If we really needed to upload audio files, though, the most affordable upgrade would be $20. 00 per year.

Removal of Ads It isn’t well announced, but free sites on Word. Press. com do occasionally show small ads to visitors who aren't logged in. Any revenue earned from these ads goes to offset expenses. To some site owners – especially those who have business websites this is completely unacceptable. To completely eliminate all ads on a site, Word. Press. com offers the No Ads Upgrade for $30. 00 per year.

Site Redirect If we were to build a site on Word. Press. com and later move it to a third-party hosting service, the existing links to our site's pages and posts would lead to error / not found messages. To prevent this, the Site Redirect feature allows the site owner to forward all visitors to the new location, so that no traffic is lost. The cost for this service is just $13. 00 per year and is most often used by business owners who have moved their starter sites to larger, more powerful platforms.

Premium Themes Another way Word. Press. com earns revenue is by selling high-quality, customizable themes. We've already seen some of these displayed when we were browsing for themes to use earlier in the course. Currently there are 130 premium themes available, ranging from $18. 00 to $125. 00, with most costing about $75. 00. Unlike the other upgrades we've covered, which are annual recurring expenses, there is only a one-time charge to purchase a premium theme. The site owner can then use that theme for the life of the site. Word. Press. com also offers an unlimited premium theme plan, but that runs $120. 00 per year.

Premium Bundle Word. Press. com also offers an upgrade bundle at a discounted price. It includes the custom domain name, no ads, video upload, space upgrade, and custom design upgrades. At $99. 00 per year, it represents a discount from the $158. 00 the individual upgrades would cost.

Business Plan There is also a Business Plan available. It costs $299. 00 per year and includes all the same features from the $99. 00 bundle, along with a premium theme and live chat support with Word. Press. com staff. Most Word. Press. com users stick with the basic, free features. Those site owners willing to spend money on their sites usually go with the self-hosted (Word. Press. org) platform, which is what we cover next.