I was asked today by one of the kids in my children’s ministry, “How do you make a website?” It gave me the idea of putting together a post with the details of what makes nlcast.com tick.

I use GoDaddy.com for hosting and domain registration. In my experience they are the cheapest and best for my purposes. You can save yourself some money (and help out the show) by using our codes.

I use WordPress for the website itself. WordPress is an excellent, free and easy to learn blogging platform that allows you to install themes that change the look and feel of your site instantly without changing the content itself. GoDaddy hosting makes installing WordPress simple by doing it for you.

The WordPress theme I use currently is a modified version of a premium theme called Simplista by WP Now. They liked what I did with the site so much, they asked to feature it in their Showcase.

I use a lot of plug-ins for WordPress. Plug-ins are free and easy to install. They add additional features to your WordPress blog that do not exist in the base platform. Here’s a list of what I use:

• Akismet – Checks comments for spam.
• All in One SEO Pack – Search Engine Optimization plug-in.
• Audio Player – Mp3 Player.
• Blubrry PowerPress – Adds excellent podcasting support to WordPress.
• Clean Archives Reloaded – Javascript-enhanced post archive list generator.
• Contact Form 7 – A contact form plugin. Simple and flexible.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Generates a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of the blog.
• IntenseDebate – Comment enhancement plugin.
• Lightbox 2 – Overlays linked to images in the current page rather than loading in a new page.
• Mail From – Changes the default address that WordPress uses to send automated emails.
• Redirection – Manages 301 redirects.
• Shockingly Simple Favicon – Simple way to add a favicon to your site.
• Simple:Press Forum – An excellent WordPress forum plugin.
• Simple Feed Copyright – Adds a copyright notice at the end of full text articles in your feed.
• To Do List – Adds a to-do list to your WP dashboard.
• WordPress.com Stats – Tracks views, post/page views, etc.
• WordPress Mobile Edition – Redirects mobile visitors to a mobile phone friendly version of the site.
• WP-Optimize – Keeps the database clean.
• WP-PageNavi – Adds an advanced paging navigation structure.
• WP-Polls – Adds an AJAX polling system to WP.
• WP Greet Box – Shows a different message to visitors depending on which site they came in from.
• WP Post Thumbnail – Enables you to crop and save thumbnail images without manually adding custom fields.
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Adds a list of related posts to the end of a blog entry.

If you have questions about How I Podcast, you can visit the Podcast Resources category for a list of articles that will help you get started.

Do you have any great WordPress themes or plugins to share? Post them in the comments!