Let's take a look at the basics of websites, and see what's involved in setting up your own site.

If you didn't watch this introductory video before enrolling in the course, then take a quick look at the compelling reasons for setting up you own personal house sitter website. If you have already watched this intro video, you can skip straight to Chapter 2: Lesson 3

In this video we take a closer look at domain names, and some mistakes you could make.

Let's see if your perfect domain name is still available.

OK. You've found your perfect website name, and it's still available. Let's register it before someone else does!

Not all hosting providers are made equal. We recently moved our website hosting to a new company and are very satisfied with prices, services and support. Follow the link below the video for the best current offers on hosting.

By now you'll have accounts at two new websites. There will be more to follow. Make sure you keep your passwords stored safely, so you don't lose them.

This probably sounds much more complicated than it really is. All we are doing is changing the signposts that tell the world where they can find our website.

This extra level of security is one of the reasons we chose this particular hosting company. Let's enable this secure encryption so our website is working with the most modern standards of security.

Let's start with a quick introduction to WordPress, and then we'll install the WordPress framework, where we're going to build our website.

Let's take a look at the WordPress Dashboard, which we'll be using to make all changes and modifications to our website.

We'll make our first simple change to our site by editing the website title and tagline.

Your website theme is probably one of the main aspects impacting how your website will look. Choosing the right theme is very important. Let's take a look at different theme options.

Pages form the main, basic structure of your website. We'll create and set up our main pages in this lesson.

Once we have created our pages, we can organise the website menu, so people can navigate around our site easily and quickly.

Next, we'll strip our website right back to basics, so we're ready to build our site from the ground up, so it looks just the way we want.

"A picture paints a thousand words." It's time to add our own images to the website.

Pictures from modern digital cameras and phones are usually far too big for website use, so we need to be able to resize them for internet use.

Let's get all our image organized, and make sure everything is working as it should.

Next we'll add some text to really begin to personalize our site.

Your profile is one of your key pages, so we'll edit and improve the look of the text here, to make it more reader-friendly.

A video is a great addition to your site, and really sets you apart from other house sitters. It is a great way to introduce yourself "in-person" to potential home owners.

We can be a little more creative with our images too, using small image galleries to break up our text, and highlight the skills and experience we have.

Plugins are the secret to expanding the functionality of our website. We'll add a plugin which will help us display our references in a very appealing way.

Next we'll add more reference to make our "References" page really convince the home owner that we are true house sitting professionals.

Regularly adding new content to your website keeps it fresh and interesting. It also gives home owners an insight into who you really are, and the lifestyle you live. Blog posts are how we add new content about our on-going travels and adventures.

Let's look at improving blog posts to make theme more compelling for our readers.

Widgets and sidebars add further functionality for our website visitors.

Categories and tags help us organize our content, and make it more searchable, so our readers can quickly find content that is relevant to them.

Adding a contact form to your site is as easy as installing another plugin. Now home owners can get in touch with you directly from your website.

Let's pull everything together, add some final touches, and prepare your website for visitors.