Agree with u/chuckdacuck. There are two WordPress options. Wordpress.com is the commercial arm. Wordpress.org is the open source option. i.e. free. The difference between the two is the hosting. Go with wordpress.org for the free CMS (content management system) and find yourself a free page builder. e.g MaxiBlocks for instance which provides you with an open source page builder. Also available on wordpress.org. Then add a free WordPress theme which provides you with a structure. Thousands available for free on wordpress.org. It's relatively easy from here on to build your own site. It really depends on what bells and whistles you want as to how easy it is. You can host your site with whatever service you want. No need to have to go with wordpress.com.

As for traffic, that takes even more effort than building your own site. Video is probably the best tool by far. Build a YouTube channel by providing free essential and really good advice around the product or service you will be selling and the industry you will be operating in. It doesn't necessarily have to be superior quality video. Can also get away with reasonable quality video. As long as it is honest and authentic you will do well. Patience of course as well as it doesn't grow overnight. And video can be re-used on your website, embedded in articles for LinkedIn and on the main social media platforms. Not so sure about TikTok as there is some movement against it as it is owned by a Chinese company.

Hope that helps. And good luck!

MaxiBlocks page builder works with Gutenberg and is free. They also have a free theme in beta right now and will be launched soon. Have a look at that as an option.

Thanks! First thing to do to attract customers is build your own fabulous website. Pull out all the stops. It's your calling card. Once you have that, start telling people about your service. Whoever will listen. And even if they don't want to listen. Find where people meet up in your area and talk to them. Learn some basic SEO so that your website will rank in your area. Put up a note on any news board, church, shopping mall, school, library. Anywhere where people can see it. And read books on what other people have done to kick-start their small business. You will get there if you really want to.

I have worked for a studio that provides web design services using WordPress since 2010. The best way to make a reasonable living is to offer more than just the building of a website. If you only make the website you will find your clients leave you. No matter how good the website was. Then you have to find new clients again.
Provide a service that gives them a reason to stay whether that's good SEO services and/or hosting or anything else you can think of that makes you invaluable to them on a constant basis.

RankMath perhaps?

I would suggest looking at WordPress for your content management system. It's free. Does take a little bit of effort to work with it. But then so do all other options.
Then for your page builder there's a new kid on the block that's worth having a look at. Check out MaxiBlocks that works with Gutenberg. It's free with no fees for advanced features like many of the other 'free' options. There is a free theme in beta right now and will be available in the next week or so.
It comes with free icons and patterns.
What is Pro, i.e. at a fee, are designer page templates and blocks that you can drop into your site. You can design your own as well of course. There's also an AI tool to write your content for you. Just prepare the prompt sheet and plug in you ChatGPT code and it will fill in your text blocks for you.
For all other features that you might want there are many good plugins available. Some mentioned already. Depends on what you want your website to do.

Not an easy question to answer. Web design is one of those disciplines that straddles both coding and design. And regrettably design gets the raw deal as it is predominately ignored. Learn how to use WordPress first. Lots of free videos and resources available to do that. Once you know your way around then have a look at what's available out there to help with design principles such as reviewing premade templates. Learn from those and make your own. This second step is often left out.

Awesome resource. And it's going to get better.