Free Website and Hosting

Free Website and Hosting

Siterubix - free website builder

 

Free Website with Hosting

If you’d like to create a website with free hosting, you may want to try platforms such as Wix.com, or a website builder called SiteRubix which I can recommend based on my own experience.

Creating a website using SiteRubix is very straightforward, and you’ll get hundreds of professionally designed WordPress themes to choose from.

Here is just a sample preview of the sea of themes – the adjustable templates for your website:

Siterubix Themes - Website Templates
Siterubix Themes - Website Templates

 

Have a Quick Try Now!

You can try it immediately by clicking on the image below:

Siterubix - free website builder

After choosing your favourite template and adjusting it to your needs, you could have a functioning website by the end of today! Even just one page is more than enough for the start. Have fun!

Smiley Face

The following information is for the ones of you who would like to know more about successfully marketing your business. However, if you prefer to just focus on your website and its content, then you can just stop here.

Otherwise, read on to learn about more exciting freebies that will jumpstart your marketing journey!

My Favourite Marketing Platform and Supportive Community

The website builder SiteRubix is run by a friendly marketing platform called Wealthy Affiliate.  I am one of their happy members, and can highly recommend checking them out.

They offer a free starter membership which includes a number of bonuses, including the aforementioned easy-to-build website with hosting.

You can create a free account, which will enable you to make your own website in a few simple steps, and host it with them – free of charge – for as long as you like.

There is one thing to consider: Similarly to wix.com, if you are hosting on a completely free account, your website name will have its name in it – for example aromatherapy.wix.com, or aromatherapy.siterubix.com. If you would like to remove the company name, you would have to upgrade to a paid option, which can be done anytime later.

Free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate
blogger girl

Earn by Blogging

This is a very interesting feature that is included in your free membership: Once you have built your free website, you can actually monetise it by earning some extra income from blogging.

In your blog posts (or just some of them) you can include links to products you like and would recommend to others. Whenever somebody makes a purchase using your links, you will receive a commission. This is known as affiliate marketing.

If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you will see a real example of affiliate marketing. I have partnered with a number of businesses that I genuinely like and frequently buy from (such as Seasaalt Cornwall or Bamboo Clothing – see the bottom of this page) and I get a commission whenever someone buys something after clicking on my links – with no extra costs to them. You can do the same once you have a functioning website.

If you would like to learn more about this concept, you can take 10 free lessons that are included in your Starter Membership, as described in the next section.

10 Free lessons in Affiliate Marketing

I have taken this course and it has given me invaluable foundations for setting my website, starting and maintaining my online business, and becoming a part of a lovely community of fellow internet marketers, who have always been very helpful and ready to offer advice and guidance.

Here is an outline of the free course:

10 free lessons with wealthy affiliate
10 free lessons with wealthy affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate course outcomes and learning benefits

The First 10 Lessons Can Kickstart Your Business

I do recommend trying these 10 free lessons. The training will provide you with all the knowledge needed to start your own online business and learn about affiliate marketing foundations.

What I really like about Wealthy Affiliate is that signing up with them is completely non-obligatory and you can keep your free account for as long as you wish, without giving them any credit card details.

You can always upgrade to a Premium membership later if you wish (I’ve got it because I wanted to host multiple websites with 24/7 technical support, and I wanted to complete the whole affiliate course), but the free Starter Membership is an excellent testing ground of the world of affiliate marketing and you can start earning commissions even with that.

Good luck and feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, or let me know your thoughts on blogging and online marketing in general.

Free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate

BY LUCIE DUN

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 in alliance with

Seasalt Cornwall logo

Soulful and sustainable clothing from natural fabrics 

Seasalt Cornwall clothing

&

Seasalt Cornwall logo

Highly comfortable clothing made of natural bamboo fibres.

Bamboo Clothing store
Recommended Web Hosting Platforms for 2023

Recommended Web Hosting Platforms for 2023

If you are looking for affordable yet reliable, high-quality website hosting, you may find this post helpful. After considerable research and going through a lot of customer reviews, I have selected seven web hosting platforms, that have scored the best rating in the year 2022. So if you are searching for a good place to host your website this year (in 2023) I recommend having a look at the following hosting platforms.

You will be able to compare their price plans, take advantage of special offers, choose your domain name, and get your website up and running fast, with 24/7 customer service support from all of the platforms listed here. They are all optimised for WordPress.

This page contains affiliate links – i.e. if you make a purchase through those links, you will help me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The full disclosure can be viewed here. Thank you for your support!

BEST WEB HOSTING COMPANIES 2023

Bluehost Web Hosting

BLUEHOST 

Fast & reliable WordPress hosting, including a free domain for a year. Starting at $2.95 per month, with excellent 24/7 support and 1-click WordPress installation.
With Bluehost web hosting, you will also gain access to hundreds of beautiful website templates, free of charge.
Bluehost Web Hosting
Bluehost plans
Bluehost plans
Ionos Web Hosting

IONOS 

One of the top-rated hosting platforms, IONOS offers high-quality, secure web hosting from as little as £1. Includes a free domain for the first year, free access to over 5000 themes, and excellent customer service.

Ionos Plans
Hostinger Web Hosting Plans

HOSTINGER

A site with exceptional rating by their customers, Hostinger guarantees high-speed performance for your websites, offering competitive pricing from as little as £0.99/mo. You can choose from three different plans – Single, Premium, or Business. If you are unsure what’s the best plan for you, you can always reach Hostinger’s friendly customer support. You can access them 24/7 via chat.

Hostinger Plans
Hostinger Web Hosting
Host Papa web hosting logo

HOSTPAPA

A web hosting platform with excellent customer reviews, starting at only £1.95 /month, including an easy-to-use Website Builder and a one-click WordPress install.

Host Papa plans
GoDaddy

GODADDY

One of the most popular web hosting and domain name providers, offering low-cost plans, one-click WordPress installs, and high-speed performance.

GoDaddy
GoDaddy
GoDaddy logo
Web hosting with Hostgator

HOSTGATOR

Affordable web hosting, starting at only $2.75/month, including free SSL certificate, easy WordPress installs, and a free domain for a year.

Hostgator Plans
Hostgator Web Hosting
Wedos Web Hosting

WEDOS

The best-selling, most popular web hosting in the Czech Republic, also serving international customers with great success. Starting at only 1,25 €/mo. Wedos are definitely worth a try. You’ll get excellent technical support. 

Wedos No Limit Plan

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE

I’d like to hear about your experience with web hosting. If you have any recommendations, tips to share, or even cautionary tales, let me know in the comments below! Happy hosting.

BY LUCIE DUN

This site has been built with DIVI, by Elegant Themes.

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you decide to make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. (The full Affiliate Disclosure can be read here.) If you’d like to learn more about affiliate marketing, e.g. how to earn extra income from blogging and promoting products you like and would recommend to others, check out Wealthy Affiliate, my favourite platform for online marketers. You can create a free account, which will enable you to make your own website in a few simple steps, and host it with them – free of charge – for as long as you like. You can test it right now by trying their free website builder SiteRubix. Thank you for visiting!

Free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate
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 in alliance with

the shift network logo

Transformational education to awaken your full potential

The Shift Network

∼ and ∼

Seasalt Cornwall logo

Soulful and sustainable clothing from natural fabrics 

Seasalt Cornwall clothing

&

Seasalt Cornwall logo

Highly comfortable clothing made of natural bamboo fibres.

Bamboo Clothing store
Earn Online by Blogging

Earn Online by Blogging

blogger girl

Would you like to set up a blog about something that interests you, such as your hobby, and gradually start monetising your blog while creating your own content? This is what I do, and in this post I’d like to share a few tips on how to earn online by blogging.

Affiliate Marketing in a Nutshell

There are several ways to earn money from your blog, for example by using affiliate marketing within your blog. Once you have your blog set up and filled with interesting content (which can be anything that can help other people, either by providing them with useful information, solving a problem for them, or entertaining them) you can start earning money by affiliate marketing.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate marketing is done by first joining an affiliate program such as Amazon, and adding your special affiliate links to a product or service into the text of your blog or in an image. When a visitor of your site clicks on the link and makes a purchase using that link, you will earn a small commission at no extra cost to the visitor.

The money you receive will be paid by your affiliate program (e.g. Amazon) as a little ‘thank you’  for sending the visitor of your site to their site.

How to Recognise an Affiliate Blog

You may have noticed that some blog articles use an affiliate disclosure, similar to this one:

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The full disclosure can be accessed here

If you see such a disclosure, it means that the author of the article (or the owner of the website) is a member of an affiliate program and uses trackable links which may earn him a commission for products recommended by him and purchased by his site visitor.

No Buying Products Upfront or Shipping

What I like about this system is that you as an affiliate marketer/blogger don’t have to buy and store any physical products. You are just a middle man recommending/advertising the products.

What Products or Services to Promote?

Ideally, you should promote products that you trust, have tried and tested, or would recommend to people you care about. Your business will be much more successful if your heart is in it, and if you are honest and transparent about your affiliate business.

A Learning Platform for Affiliate Marketing

If you would like to learn about blogging and affiliate marketing I highly recommend joining a marketing platform called Wealthy Affiliate.

They offer a free starter membership which includes the first ten lessons of their course in affiliate marketing called Online Entrepreneur Certification.

I have taken this course and it has helped me build my website, start and maintain my online business, and become a part of a great community of fellow internet marketers, who are always very helpful and ready to offer advice and guidance. Here is an outline of the free course:

10 free lessons with wealthy affiliate
10 free lessons with wealthy affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate course outcomes and learning benefits

The First 10 Lessons Can Kickstart Your Business

I highly recommend trying these 10 free lessons. The training will provide you with all the knowledge needed to start your own online business and learn about affiliate marketing foundations. What I love about Wealthy Affiliate is that signing up with them is completely non-obligatory and you can keep your free account for as long as you wish, without giving them any credit card details. You can always upgrade to a Premium membership later if you wish, but the free Starter Membership is an excellent testing ground of the world of affiliate marketing and I would recommend to take your time and see how it all resonates with you.

Good luck and feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, or let me know your thoughts on blogging and online marketing in general. Bye for now!

Free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate

BY LUCIE DUN

   Let’s keep in touch:

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Working from Home Opportunities

Working from Home Opportunities

working from home

Having a home-based business has always been an appealing idea for a lot of us, but especially since the beginning of the lockdown, the search for working from home opportunities has skyrocketed. But plenty of people face a great challenge: What direction to take when considering an online job? How can one find decent work without falling prey to scams and get-rich-quick schemes, which in so many cases turn into ‘get-broke-fast’ schemes?

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The full disclosure can be accessed here. Thank you for your support!

Sea of Opportunities to Earn Money Online

There are plenty of opportunities to earn extra income online, such as freelance writing or proofreading, creating a tutorial or a course, offering services as a web designer, logo designer, online session musician, singer, poet, counselor, coach – the list is constantly growing.

General Freelance/Online Jobs

You can search for online/freelance jobs through websites such as:

Writing Jobs

Freelance jobs specifically for writers can be found here:

Voiceover Jobs

If you are a singer or can do voiceovers, you could offer your skills at the following websites: 

 If you are stuck for work, do check these sites out and you’ll see the horizon of your online work opportunities widen instantly.

Affiliate Marketing

You can also try affiliate marketing, which I would recommend because of my own positive experience.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

If you have a hobby or a strong interest in your life, you can build a website around that topic. Then you’ll keep writing articles about the things you like, and with enough dedication and time, you can start reaping rewards by online income.

You can gradually start monetizing your site by, for example, becoming an Amazon affiliate. Then you write about products that you have tried or would recommend, insert your unique affiliate link, and if a visitor of your site clicks on it and buys something, you will get a percentage from the sale.

You may have noticed the disclosures on this page – this informs the visitors of my site that I am an affiliate marketer, so they can make an informed choice whether to purchase something from my links and thus help me earn a small commission at absolutely no cost to them. I love this principle, it’s like a fair exchange of energy; if people find what you’ve written useful, they may chose to reward you for your work. Whenever I earn a commission, I thank the person in my mind and with all my heart, even if I don’t know who he or she is.

You can join many other companies, not just Amazon. For example, if you like motorbikes, type the following in Google search bar: ‘motorbikes + affiliate program’, and you will find companies that might accept you as their affiliate partner, and you can then use your affiliate links in your blog about motorbikes and get paid if people like what you’ve written and make a purchase through your link.

Success is Gradual and Cumulative

Affiliate marketing is definitely not a get-rich scheme – it requires a lot of dedicated work. But if you have a passion for something, it will give you the driving force to keep working at it; you’ll develop a certain discipline, and because success is cumulative, in time you will get rewarded. (I can’t describe my joy when I saw my first affiliate commission in my Paypal account!) Earning money by doing what you really like is extremely motivating. Work of this kind, however hard it may seem in the beginning, becomes very meaningful and fulfilling.

Get Rewarded for Genuinely Helping Others

One thing is very important to know: The people who are most successful in affiliate marketing are the ones who genuinely want to help people through their blog content. It has to be useful or interesting for others. You should offer something that others may benefit from – something that will either entertain them or solve their problem (such as ‘how can I ease arthritic pain’ or ‘which camera is the best for high-quality videos’ etc.)

The latter one, solving a problem, tends to be more successful, at least according to marketing experts. So think of anything you are good at, or what really interests you, and then imagine you are writing an informative article about it. Someone will come across it and if your intention is genuine (and you’re not just ‘fishing’ for sales),  you will start earning income by helping others.

The Difference Between Affiliate Marketing and Multi-Level Marketing or Pyramid Schemes

It is a matter of personal choice, but to me, affiliate marketing is a definitive winner over Multi-Level marketing. Let’s look at the main differences:

Multi-Level Marketing:

  • You have to first buy the products that you’ll be selling
  • There’s usually a joining fee, e.g. buying a starter kit
  • You have to actually sell the products in order to make money (i.e. bother your friends and family)
  • You’re limited to selling specific products by the company
  • You may have to recruit other members to sell your products to

I once joined such a company without realising that they operated on a multi-level marketing principle. I naively thought that it was a training course for nutritionists (because they had been presenting themselves as such). They convinced me to purchase a mountain of protein powder (I could barely find my room under the heap of all those huge jars). Needless to say, it required a huge financial investment. I soon realised that I had to sell all of it in order to get my money back. That meant bothering all my friends and family to buy it off me. I wasn’t really cut out for this, so in the end, I ended up giving most of it away and eating the rest.

Affiliate marketing:

  • You don’t have to sell any products, only promote them through your website
  • There are no fees to join an affiliate program (like Amazon, for example)
  • It’s entirely up to you what products, programs, etc. you want to promote, and the amount is limitless
  • You don’t have to bother anyone personally in order to make a sale. A helpful and interesting article written by you will get noticed and people will purchase the products you promote of their own free will

Where Can You Learn About Affiliate Marketing Step by Step?

Learn from Successful Bloggers/Internet Marketers

There are plenty of experts around who offer quality guidance about setting your online business and teach you how to start your journey as an affiliate. One of such experts and wonderful people is an award-winning blogger Harsh Agrawal. I have subscribed to his newsletters because he’s one of the top bloggers who knows just about everything about online business and covers all the aspects of digital marketing – from blogging, WordPress, Search Engine Optimisation to web hosting and making money online. He has a cool blog ‘Shout Me Loud’ which I check regularly, and he has published a very clearly written beginners’ guide to affiliate marketing which I have, and which has helped me avoid many beginners’ mistakes.

the handbook to affiliate marketing by harsh agrawal

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

Join a Platform That Teaches Online Marketing

Another great way to get started with your online business is by joining an educational platform that specializes in teaching internet marketing. There is a wide choice of such platforms, but it is a good idea to ‘test-drive’ each of them before you decide for the one that suits you the best. A good marketing platform should always offer you a free starter membership so you can explore the territory first. Never join a platform that pushes you into a paid membership without giving you the chance to explore it first! Many people have fallen for scam platforms or platforms that charge unreasonable membership fees.

If I could sincerely recommend a platform that is full of great courses on how to set up a home-based business, it would be Wealthy Affiliate. To my mind, it’s the best platform for anyone who is considering working from home.

wealthy affiliate work from home

What is Wealthy Affiliate

Wealthy Affiliate is a platform for internet marketers. I am a happy member of the platform and would recommend it to anyone who would like to learn about earning extra income online. Their course ‘Online Entrepreneur Certification’ has helped me build my website, start and maintain my online business, and become a part of a trustworthy community of fellow internet marketers, who are always happy to offer advice about anything.

Free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate

A Learning Platform and a Supportive Community

As a learning platform, Wealthy Affiliate is ideal for beginners and pros alike. It will teach you anything you need to know about a successful online business – even if you are a complete beginner and see yourself as ‘anti technical’. And for people with more experience in online business, it offers continuous training in all aspects of internet marketing, including weekly live trainings and non-stop support.

I love the community at W.A. Whenever I have a question, I post it within the platform and get a reply from multiple people within a short time. Everyone there is really friendly and supportive. I felt genuinely welcome from the very beginning. And I never received any impersonal, pressurizing phonecalls forcing me to upgrade, which is what had happened to me with a few other platforms.

Free Website and Hosting

With a free starter membership, you can build (and host!) your own website using Wealthy Affiliate’s own platform called ‘Siterubix‘, where you can keep your website for as long as you wish, and for free.

Easy to Grasp Fundamentals of Setting Your Online Business

The 10-lesson free training will give you the necessary knowledge needed to start your own an online business, and learn about affiliate marketing. The best thing about Wealthy Affiliate is that you can start your online business without any prior knowledge about internet marketing – just like me. As a musician, the ‘online business’ topic used to be very alien, almost repulsive to me.

No False Promises

When I came across this platform, what caught my interest was the fact that it seemed more ‘down to earth’ than any of the shiny laptop-lifestyle platforms I had come across before. Like some that claim that you’ll only need ‘a laptop and internet connection’ to make thousands a month. That is complete, misguiding nonsense. Affiliate marketing requires a lot of work and dedication like any other job.

However, you will come across quite a lot of success stories within the affiliate world, such as one by a fellow member of Wealthy Affiliate, a sweet girl called Grace, also known as ‘Littlemama’. You can read her blog post here.

I love the fact that despite her financial success she still remains with her feet on the ground and tells everyone the truth – that it’s you who will need to do the work.

Try the ‘Getting Started’ Module for Free

I highly recommend trying the first 10 lessons for free – you don’t even have to give Wealthy Affiliate your credit card details in order to gain the free membership. And if you’d like the training and would like to continue after the 10 lessons, you can upgrade to a Premium membership, which gives you unlimited access to complete training and constant professional support.

But even if you don’t upgrade to a paid membership, you will still have unlimited access to your website which you can keep developing, and write articles. I think that having a free website and hosting with full guidance about starting your business is utterly unique among all the other marketing platforms I’ve come across.

ONLINE ENTREPRENEUR CERTIFICATION – GETTING STARTED 
by WEALTHY AFFILIATE – Platform for Online Marketers
10 Free Lessons on How to Start an Online Business
10 free lessons with wealthy affiliate
10 free lessons with wealthy affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate course outcomes and learning benefits

I suggest having a think about the whole concept and doing your own research online. If blogging and affiliate marketing is something that appeals to you, go and try the 10 free lessons. There’s nothing to lose – you may be standing in front of a new opportunity that may shift your life in a new and exciting direction – like in my case.

I would recommend checking out the first two lessons, because it may give you a better idea of whether you’d like to continue the whole free course.

Lesson 1 – Getting Rolling!

Lesson 2 – Understanding How to Make Money Online

If you find out that internet marketing just doesn’t resonate with you, you will still have gained new knowledge that you can share with others.

Good luck and do let me know how it’s going in the comments below! I’ll be more than happy to answer any of your questions. 

BY LUCIE DUN

This site has been (very happily) built with DIVI, by Elegant Themes.

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you decide to make a purchase through my links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The complete Affiliate Disclosure can be accessed here. If you’d like to learn more about affiliate marketing, check out my favourite platform for online marketers. Thank you for visiting!

Free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate

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The Best WordPress Theme of 2023

The Best WordPress Theme of 2023

A few years ago, when I started this website, I was determined to find the best WordPress theme to suit my ways. It had to be simple to use, but highly flexible, with a lot of options for customising the page.

I asked my online business coach Alex Sol, who had a cool-looking website, what theme he had built his site with. He told me he was using DIVI by Elegant Themes and sent me a link to his review of Divi as well as Elegant Themes’ website. I am grateful to Alex to this very day!

front-end design with Divi

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, as described at the disclaimer at the end of the page.

 

I started using Divi in 2018, but when someone asks a question “What is the best WordPress theme in 2023?” I’m pretty confident I know the answer.

I had tried a few free WordPress themes before, but I never liked the fact I was not able to customise them as much as I would like. The inflexibility of most of them was impacting my enthusiasm for building websites, as well as slowing down my online business learning process.

I trusted Alex’s personal choice, and after watching a few videos and experimenting with designing a page in the Divi ‘live builder’, I could see how user-friendly and flexible the whole interface was and decided to invest in the Divi theme.

Divi by Elegant Themes

I’m happy to say that I haven’t looked back once since purchasing Divi. This incredible theme has turned my often frustrating work in standard WordPress editor into creative play with no limits to my imagination.

Also, it was soon after rebuilding my website with Divi that I earned my first commission from my affiliate marketing.

Examples of pages built in Divi

Below are a few samples of pages I’ve built in Divi’s Visual Builder – by simply dragging and dropping elements on the page. Each of these images leads to the live version of the page, so if you want to view any of these websites and get the feel of Divi in real life, just click on any given image and it will open in a new tab.

Note that I’ve built all these websites from scratch, without using a template. Although Divi comes with a whole sea of beautiful templates, it’ so simple (and fun!) to build a page in Divi’s Visual Builder, that you’re more than likely to end up designing everything by yourself.

Old School Players
amabel clarke storyteller
Swell Maps website
https://aidanandrewdun.com/
https://aidanandrewdun.com/
https://lesstweb.com/
https://lesstweb.com/works/
Naturegrooves

What Makes Divi So Special?

The Divi theme is actually much more than just a WordPress theme. It’s a complete web design platform that replaces the standard WordPress editor with a far more advanced visual editor. 

The process of building a page is really flexible: You can still build the standard way, (on the back end), but you can also build on the front end, in Divi’s Visual Builder, where you can see what your published page will look like while building it. No need for the constant switching from standard WordPress editor to preview your pages. This is what’s made all the difference for me.

The Visual Builder - building a page on the front-end

To have an idea of what I’m talking about, have a look at the following video by the Divi team, where they’re introducing one of the previous software updates. (By now Divi’s upgraded to version 4, with yet more great updates such as the WooCommerce modules, but this video will give you a good general overview of Divi’s features and potential.)

As the Divi developer in the video (who for some reason seems to remind everyone of Nicholas Cage) says: ‘The new visual builder allows you to make changes on your website on your actual website. There is no need to preview your pages because everything is happening right in front of your eyes.’

Everything is totally customisable on the actual page. Shapes and sizes of your building blocks, fonts, images, etc. It feels as if you are painting directly on the canvas, rather then trying to control everything from behind the painting. If you want to add a block of text, an image, a video, a gallery, etc, just add it on the front end and that’s it.

Premade Templates

Divi comes with a huge number of beautiful premade layouts, so if you want something ready-made (but still fully customisable), you can choose from 1183 (!) really cool templates. 

When you want to build a page, you have three options:

1) Build from scratch

2) Choose an existing layout

3) Clone an existing page.

Three ways to create a page

Sections, Rows, and Modules

If you want to build from scratch like I do, Divi has a range of building blocks called sections, rows, and modules. With these you can build anything from a minimalist room to a baroque cathedral.

You have complete freedom to chose the number, size, and placement of these elements.

Here is an example of the three basic building blocks:

Section, Row and Module

Here are the three building blocks in ‘real life’:

Section, Row and Module
Section, Row and Module

The Three-step Procedure of Building a Basic Structure

1) First, you’ll create a section (think of a section like a big, outer container or a box, inside which everything else fits.

2) Then you’ll create a row (an ‘inner container’ – the box with a green border) inside the section.

In the two images above I’ve only used a single row, but, as you can see from the following screenshot, you can select a row with as many segments/columns as you like, and these can be of different widths. (There are even more combinations possible than in this screenshot).

Rows and their variations

3) Finally, you insert a module. A module can be: A text, an image, a gallery, a map, a shopping cart, etc. Basically, all the various content inside your page.

This is what inserting a module looks like:

Inserting a module

In the following example I’m using a row with four segments/columns, and into each column I have inserted a module called ‘blurb’.

A blurb module is a combination of an image and text, as you’ll see in the second example below:

A row with four segments (or columns)
Section, Row and Module ('Blurb')

Try and Build a Page Right Now!

Would you like a little ‘live builder’ experience? Try the ‘Drag and Drop’ Page Builder for free here. (Click on Divi / Live Builder Demo.) You can take a short tour first or start building straight away. Enjoy!

Divi Builder Live Demo - From the menu, go to: Divi / Live Builder Demo

An Overview of Divi Modules

Here is Divi’s generous list of the modules:

Divi Modules
Divi Modules

Examples of Modules

Here are several examples of different modules. 

The Gallery Module

You can add captions and descriptions to your thumbnails, or hide them as I’ve done here. Click on an image to enlarge it.

You can experiment with customising your gallery’s background, adding a border to the thumbnails, make the border’ corners rounder, etc.

The Slider Module

Another great, fully customisable module to showcase your / your client’s products or art. This is a ‘real life’ slider I’ve created for an online store ‘Buddha Groove’.

The Blog Module

This is one of my favourite features of the Divi theme. You can use Divi’s blog module to customise the appearance of your blog page and organise your posts and categories. You can insert a blog module on any page you like (even on multiple pages) and control how your blog excerpts will display. 

Here’s an example of how I’ve used the blog module:

Instead of the traditional blog-page layout, (which Divi offers as well) I’ve chosen a grid layout, which gives my blog-page more of a magazine look.

The Blog Module: Grid layout

You can also go really minimal, hiding the featured images:

Hiding featured images in the blog module

Here’s the more classic look of a Divi blog module from my coach Alex Sol’s ‘Extra Paycheck’ blog. (Check out his podcast devoted to online entrepreneurship. I’m grateful to this guy for so many things, his great articles and podcast being just the tip of the iceberg.)

Extra PayCheck blog - Alex Sol

The Blurb Module

This is one of my favourite modules. Below is an example of a fully functioning Blurb module (i.e. two Rows with four Blurb modules in each), borrowed from my article about the online store ‘Buddha Groove’. First I created a Row with four sections, and then I inserted the modules. After that, I duplicated the first Row. You can have a lot of fun designing the Blurbs; you can create the ‘on-mouse hover’ effect by selecting a desired degree of transparency; you can also create rounded corners, or choose from various animation effects.

The Email Optin Module

The Email Optin – an essential module for anyone in online business. Fully customisable as well.

Email Optin module
Email Optin module

The Social Media Follow Module

The icons inserted through the Social media Follow module will lead your website visitors to your social media platforms. The icons are also customisable – you can keep them as they are or make them transparent to fit your page’s design.

Here’s the standard look of the icons:

And here are a few examples of my playing with the design:

Social Media Follow module
Social Media Follow module

The Contact Form Module

Contact forms are also highly customisable. In the second example, I have used partial transparency in the form’s fields.

Contact Form module

The WooCommerce modules

Another bonus of the 2019 update is Divi’s WooCommerce Builder, which includes 16 Divi’s WooCommerce modules. These allow you to create custom product templates, and amazing product pages. You’ll be able to build your own product listings anywhere on your website. 

Divi WooCommerceBuilder
Divi WooCommerce module example
Divi WooCommerce module example

You can activate all the Divi WooCommerce modules by first installing the common Woocommerce plugin, and then activating Divi’s Woocommerce Builder. I am not using this feature yet, but you can view live demos and tutorials on Divi’s WooCommerce modules on Elegant Themes website under Divi WooCommerce Modules.

Great Plugins – Free with The Divi Theme

The fun certainly doesn’t stop at all the modules or the WooCommerce Builder. When you purchase Divi, you’ll also get a whole package of bonuses including some really cool plug-ins mentioned in this list:

The Plugins that come with Divi
Monarch - Social Sharing plugin

Monarch – Your Social Sharing Plugin

The first one well-worth mentioning is Monarch, a social-sharing plug-in, rated as one of the top social media plug-ins on Google.

For instance, Bloggingwizard.com rates Monarch as the second best in his 2020 review of 11 Best Social Sharing Plugins For WordPress, right after the extremely popular plugin Social Snap.

Shoutmeloud.com places Monarch in the fourth place, while, interestingly, he also rates Social Snap as first. By any means give Social Snap a try, as it does look and sound great, but remember that if you decide to invest in the Divi theme, you will get Monarch for free.

Manage the location of your social sharing icons

You can manage the placement of your social sharing icons in several ways, as seen from Monarch’s interface.

You can place them vertically on the side of your page, or  ‘inline’ your page or post. (That means above, anywhere within, or below your post). They can also ‘pop up’ or ‘fly in’.

 

Monarch plugin - settings

As you can see in the ‘Manage locations’ screenshot, I’ve ticked ‘Sidebar’ and ‘Fly in’. The sidebar icons are fixed, and the ‘Fly in’ will appear once you scroll all the way down the page.

You can see how it works on this very page.

Examples of Social Share Icons’ Placements

Here’s a common placement of the social share icons in the sidebar:

Monarch's social share icons in the sidebar

In the next example, the icons are ‘inline’, straight after the end of a blog post, in the middle of the page. You can arrange the icons both vertically or horizontally.

Monarch's social share icons inline
Monarch's social share icons inline - clcik to view the actual page

And here is the ‘Fly in’. If you want to see it flying in real time, just scroll all the way down this page…and click on it. 🙂

Monarch's Fly-in social share icon

You can also choose on which pages or posts you don’t want the icons to appear.

Monarch provides you with the social follow icons as well, so you can experiment with these, as well as the icons from the ‘Social Follow’ module.

Bloom - Email Opt-in and Lead Generation plugin

Bloom – an Email Opt-in Plugin

Another plug-in that comes free with Divi is Bloom, an Email Opt-in plug-in, which integrates with subscription services such as MailChimp, Aweber and others.

Bloom helps you grow your email list. When you insert a Bloom email opt-in form to your page, it will connect to your email marketing or email newsletter software. When someone signs up using the Bloom opt-in form, they get added to your email list.

You can choose from many customizable templates and even upload your own image. You can also decide where on the page you want the form to appear, and whether you prefer it static, or as a fly-in or a pop-up form.

Below are two examples of a simple subscription form. You can click on the second one to view it on a real page, where I’ve placed it under the post.

Bloom email optin - subscription form
Bloom email optin - subscription form

You can find out more on Bloom’s general overview page, or check out plenty of Bloom demos and tutorials which you can access here.

Extra - Magazine Theme and Visual Page Builder

Extra – the Magazine WordPress Theme

I haven’t tried it yet because I’ve been having so much fun with creating my own designs with Divi, but you can learn more about Extra from the general overview on Elegant Themes website, as well as from their tutorials and articles.

Extra by Elegant Themes
Extra by Elegant Themes - Features

Divi Demos and Tutorials

Back to the Divi Theme: Do check out the great library full of articles, tutorials and demos.

Here are all the links:

Live Divi Builder demo – try building a page with Divi! 

Divi Overview

Divi tutorials and articles

Excellent Customer Support

The customer support team from Divi / Elegant Themes are always super helpful. They’ll be there for you 24/7, answering any of your questions.

Plus, apart from the direct support team, there are some great Divi-devoted forums, groups, and individuals. I’ve learned a lot from a cool guy called Josh Hall, a real pro in Divi. He’s got many of his own tutorials on Youtube, his website, and his own Facebook group called ‘Divi Web Designers‘. I highly recommend joining the group.

'Divi Web Designers' Facebook Group - Josh Hall

You can also join Divi’s official Facebook group called ‘Divi Theme Users‘ where you can get any of your questions answered by many experienced Divi enthusiasts.

Join Divi / Elegant Themes

Pricing

If you decide to invest into Divi, you can choose from two options:

A yearly subscription ($89 a year) or Lifetime access for $249 one-off payment. I got Lifetime access from the very start as it was clear to me that I would be using Divi long-term. Remember, when you buy Divi, you are not getting just one separate theme, but a complete package of themes, plugins, and 24/7 support. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that you’re getting the ultimate web design toolkit.

I am currently offering a 10% discount on the complete Divi package. You can get to this limited-time offer via this link, or by clicking on the countdown timer below.

Remember that signing up with Divi / Elegant Themes is risk-free. You’ll get a 30-day money-back guarantee, and if for any reason you feel Divi (and all that comes with it) is not for you, you’ll get a full refund.

10% Off The Complete DIVI Theme - Get It While It Lasts!

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Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this Divi walkthrough and that it has helped you see the incredible potential of this theme. As you’ve probably guessed, I swear by this theme and would recommend it to everyone. But you should always make your own decision. I’d highly recommend comparing this theme against other WordPress themes. There are plenty of free WordPress themes, some of them with free hosting.

One such platform is Siterubix, where you can create your website for free and experiment with many WordPress-based themes. This is how I started – I was running several websites on Siterubix’s free domain for months.

So, perhaps once you’ve tried out several themes and platforms, (like I did) and still don’t feel completely satisfied, you can opt for the Divi Theme – don’t forget you can give it a try for one whole month. (A word of warning: You may not want to come back to any other theme after experiencing what Divi can do for you!)

Don’t forget to test the Divi Builder for free (via Divi / Live Builder Demo), and have a look at some of the articles and tutorials.

Let’s Talk About Divi

If you would like to ask any questions or share your opinion about Divi or any of the related plugins, do leave a comment below, and I’ll do my best to reply as soon as possible.

For those of you who have tried Divi or are actively using it, I’d be very interested to hear about your experience as well.

BY LUCIE DUN

This site has been built with DIVI, by Elegant Themes.

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