Step by step guide for beginners- How to build a WordPress website

Do you want to build your website? We know that starting your website can be overwhelming, and there is nothing better than having control over the entire process. And that is what WordPress offers. WordPress is a popular and simple platform that allows you to create blogs and websites with ease. This article has provided a step-by-step guide on how to make a WordPress website from scratch.

The fact that it is powering 40% of the websites on the internet makes it more likable. Being an open-source content management system, WordPress has gotten its license under GPLv2.

So, everybody can modify or use this software without paying any cost. If you’re inclined toward WordPress, this post teaches you how to make a WordPress website without any hassles. 

How to Make a WordPress Website: Step-by-Step Guide

1. Select and Buy a Domain

Believe it or not, there are more than 2 billion websites on the internet right now. And with each passing second, this number is increasing. Thus, this calls for staying original and distinguishable from those 2 billion and counting platforms.  

Choosing a business domain name is an essential part of your brand’s presence and its marketing on the internet. Generally, try selecting a “.com” domain that has your business name. On top of that, while buying a domain, you would have to keep a few things in mind, such as:

• Unique and brandable
• Easy to remember
• Short to memorize
• Easy to type and difficult to mix up with other brands
• Includes niche-related keywords; for instance, if you’re coming up with a digital marketing company, you can try finding a domain name that has digital marketing or digital or just marketing in it. 

There are plenty of platforms out there from where you can find and buy domains at a low price like Bluehost, GoDaddy.  Refer this article if you want to know more about hosting providers. Although certain hosting sites also let you buy a domain, however, according to experts, it is better to keep these two things separate to have control and ownership over the domain name. The following steps will be a good beginner’s guide on how to build a website with WordPress.

2. Get a Hosting Service

One of the best things about WordPress is that it offers free hosting. Thus, the ones who are just starting out or only require a blog can go with this option. However, if you’re looking for better control and quality, choosing a paid hosting service would be recommended. 

Moreover, hosting service providers are more likely to offer tiered options. For beginners, it would be well and fine to choose a basic plan and slowly move higher according to the inflow of traffic. 

3. Install WordPress Platform

Through the script library, most of the hosts provide a quick installation option of WordPress. So, to do this, follow these below-mentioned steps:

• Log in to the cPanel, which is your host account
• Look for the WordPress script

If you’re not sure how to use the cPanel, you can seek help from your host.

• Now, click Install and signify where you would like the script to be installed
• If you wish to operate the entire site on WordPress, use the domain name and leave the option of directory blank
• However, if you already have a site and wish to install a blog in a different folder, write the name of the folder after the domain, for instance: www.domain.com/blog
• During the installation, you will also have to provide the admin name, blog name and email ID that is included in the WordPress

Once done, you will get a link to a newly developed WordPress site along with a password that you can change as per the preference. 

4. Get Familiarized with WordPress

If you’re new to WordPress, getting familiarized with the user panel is extremely important. For that, visit www.domain.com/wp-admin. Here, you will have to log in with your username and password. 

Once logged in, you will get to see a few things on the dashboard, such as:

• Welcome Message
• The status of your site
• An option to create posts
• An option to upload and manage media files
• An option to create pages
• An option to moderate comments
• Options to change the design of your site and customize the same
• An option to install plugins
• And settings

Here, you can set permalinks, make the website public, set the title and tagline of the site, allow or disable comments, disable trackbacks and pingbacks, set the time zone, and more. 

5. Install a Theme 

One of the advantages of using WordPress is that it offers themes that significantly decreases the cost of designing and development. Themes can be installed within a few minutes and can be altered and customized with ease.

WordPress offers an abundance of options in terms of both paid and free themes. You can either download one from an independent developer or from WordPress.org. 

Once installed and activated, you can customize your theme as per your wishes. To do so, simply click on Appearance and then Customization. There, you will see the primary WordPress Customizer Interface. From there, a lot of things can be fine-tuned accordingly. 

6. Download Essential Plugins

Another step is to download all of the essential plugins. WordPress already comes with two plugins. Out of these two, Akismet, which is an anti-spam plugin should be activated on your site. 

Other than that, you can find out all of the plugins that are relevant to your business and activate them. For instance, if you wish to sell products with the site, you can download the WooCommerce plugin. 

If you wish to run a blog, you can download Yoast SEO, Google Analytics, and similar plugins. 

7. Update Content On Your Site

This step can be started by adding static, basic pages on the website, such as About Me, Contact, and other pages as per the information that you wish your visitors to have. If you’re running a standard WordPress site, your goal might be either to redirect visitors to the homepage or the About Me or About Us section of the site. 

In such a scenario, visit Settings > Reading. Here toggle the Static Page option and then choose whatever post or page you wish to display on the homepage. Keep in mind that if this is your blog, you can keep the default setting, which would be Your Latest Posts. 

Once the pages have been created, start by adding posts. Similar to pages, posts work in the same manner. Simply click New Page or New Post from the dashboard menu. Add the title and content. 

With WordPress, you get two options to add the content – Text and Visual. The text offers a basic HTML code of the post or the page. On the contrary, Visual lets you work on the content as the way it will be appearing to your visitors. You can also install an easy WordPress website builder like Elementor, WPBricks.

If you wish to add a code to your site, you will have to do so in the Text format. Once everything is done, on the right-hand side, you will find options to schedule or publish your post, save it as a draft, add categories, tags and a featured image. 

Conclusion

By now, it must be clear how easy and efficient it is to develop a WordPress website. At the end of the day, all you need is the few things mentioned above. After that, you can take help from the vast collection available on the internet as well. However, if you are still confused and not sure where to begin, it is recommended to hire a developer to build a WordPress website.