New Project: Learning How to Build a Wordpress Website

I'm so excited to share with you a new project!  For a while now, I've been thinking about having a complete website home for Athena's Armoury & Apothecary.  Sure, I've got shops on Etsy and Artfire, I'm on flickr, and then there's this blog, of course, but I want one single place to have it all.  I want to be able to share articles with you that would have a permanent home in addition to having a shop and blog.  I want some place to have it all together, that I can design myself to have the same branding across all platforms.  But I don't know a thing about html, designing a website, nor can I afford to have someone build it for me.

Recently, I attended an Indie Biz Chicks webinar featuring Angela Wills from Marketers Mojo about how to build a Wordpress website.  Angela's straightforward demo made Wordpress look incredibly user friendly and I started thinking about using it myself.  At the end of the webinar, Angela very generously offered those of us attending, a discount on her  Website Design Mojo e-course.  I thought it was still a little pricey for what I can really afford right now (not a comment on what's included, but rather on my finances), but then I started doing some research.  I couldn't find another e-course that includes anywhere near the amount of products/services that Angela's Website Design Mojo contains.  Additionally, with what is included in the course, not only would I have a website in the end but I would also be learning new skills.  Skills that eventually, I may be able to use as services for others.  Lastly, the amount of this course is literally a fraction of what it would cost to hire someone to build a *basic* website.  This e-course would be an investment in my future, so I decided to go for it!

This is only week two (the course is six weeks long) and I've already learned so much!  Angela's videos contain so much information, she replies to e-mails super quick, I've learned from other people's questions in our weekly group webinar, and Wordpress itself is super user friendly.  I'm LOVING this course.  There is a TON to take in, which occasionally gives me brain fuzzies but that's okay.  I'm learning a lot and having fun doing it.

One of my first orders of business for me was to create a landing page.  My domain name is on the business cards that I've been giving out for a few years now and was originally just being redirected to my Etsy shop.  I wanted to make a landing page for my domain name so that I could continue to play with the website on the back end and my customers could still find me online.  If you go to the Athena's Armoury & Apothecary website, here is a screenshot of what you will find:

It isn't too fancy, but it accomplishes exactly what I had in mind.  I may have to revise the progress and due date (as of now, I have it set for November 1, 2011), as things go but it's my goal to have the site live by the end of the year at the very latest.

I'm so excited about this new venture and can't wait to share it with you!  Stick around this blog for updates on how it's going and, doubtless, there will be some kind of grand opening sale when it goes live.