You don’t have to be capable with carpentry at all to build a website like you’d build something as in residential construction, but like everything you’ve usually got to have some skills if you’re get it done reasonably quickly and with a quality product or version. a top-notch website is going to be beyond what’s realistic for a lot of people. Fortunately WordPress websites are the simple way that thousands of people have used to have a very solid online publishing platform for their stuff.
That may be a self-run online business or storefront, or they may have their WordPress site for promoting whatever creative pursuit they’re doing, and it’s always been the easy way to start a blog if your site is going to much more about the content rather than anything flashy. Bands and amateur sports leagues often have WordPress powered sites and the platform certainly does make it easy for anyone to take themselves online in whatever way they like. So here will go over how to start a WordPress website.
It’s been just over 20 years since WordPress first became available as a tool that was designed to make blogging – creating a weblog as is the standardized term for having a regularly updated piece of content – easier to do. The web was not in its infancy then, but it was still in its youth and since then WordPress has become the standard web builder for most folks.
That’s a testament to simplicity of it what started out as the basic advantages of WordPress as defined then – having your entire weblog run through a single file, quickly having a different template for every different category and headers, footers, and sidebars in their own files so changes made in one place are then seen everywhere immediately. Estimates are now the WordPress is powering just under half of the world’s websites, and so it can be a good fit for you if you’re ready for how to start a WordPress website. These are 8 easy steps.
Claim Domain
An appealing and memorable logo is important for a lot of businesses, and that goes for the simple ones to. The same when that’s on the side of the fleet vehicles or wherever else its seen should be on your WordPress website too, but what’s really needed is to have a good logo and a good domain name. For most people it’s something they’re going to have given a lot of thought too with before how to start a WordPress website and already decided on the domain name search they’re going to try.
Pick a Domain and WordPress Hosting plan
For most people choosing a domain name is pretty straightforward, but there will be some businesses where it makes sense to be more specific about what exactly it is you do. It’s good if you can try to be creative and memorable with a domain name while still being fairly explicit about what you’ve to offer. Let’s take the Fat Bird Chicken people in Indiana for example.
If you get www dot Fat Bird it has to be that you’re a southern friend chicken joint. To suggest it might have something to do with a more cushion for-the pushin’ sort of woman reference online pimp reference would have to be a joke. But no matter – the reason you remember it is because you know what it is – fried chicken, and we wouldn’t be surprised if they have a mean potato salad there at Fat Bird chicken too.
The last part of the equation for you here is to get managed WordPress hosting. It optimizes everything that this type of website needs and the two primary advantages are better site (speed of website) performance and better security. This goes right alongside how to start a WordPress website because it makes sense to pay a little more for web hosting in Canada if it means your site offers faster page load speeds for visitors plus other boosts to performance.
Install WordPress
From there it’s time to start paving and that means installing WordPress. We can make it 1-click easy for you and with Managed WordPress Hosting it will come pre-installed, so you’ll be set to start customizing a website with different themes right away. If you’re going to be selling something you will also want to be adding the WooCommerce plugin because it really supercharges any online store, but we’ll take more about all the many different plugins later here.
Log in to WordPress Dashboard
You’ll be able to manage your website and its contents with your WordPress dashboard, and the ease of making changes to a website has always been another huge plus for using WordPress too. This is going to be true whether your bird is fat, slim, or somewhere in between and there’s going to be 2 ways to access your dashboard:
Type yourwebsite.com/wp-admin (replace yourwebsite.com with your domain name; for whc.ca it would be whc.ca/wp-admin) into your browser’s address bar and login with your WordPress username and password. Alternately you can log in to cPanel and scroll down to the Software section to click on WordPress Manager by Softaculus. The Softaculous Apps Installer is also usable here.
You will see your installation listed, and you click Login to access your site. Managed WordPress hosting makes it a little better with the ability to connect your WordPress Admin dashboard directly from your Client Area by clicking on WP Admin under my Services. You won’t need an extra password and just like that you’re well underway with how start a WordPress website. You’ve got your domain and you’re online there, and now it’s time to start customizing your WordPress website with themes.
Choose a WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme is a set of visual styles that determine how your website looks and feels to your visitors. There are thousands of available themes, and even ones for people who have a very specific blog in mind. This is where you go next with how to start a WordPress website, and you should start by picking one that you like and it enhances your site’s content.
It’s good idea to have an idea of what type of site you’re going to have, and what you can foresee the realities being for it. A WordPress site that primarily features inappropriate content has the potential to develop a large and engaged audience. The type of people who like the same stuff you do, and there are themes for every type of audience Changing your theme will change the look of your website without changing its content, so feel free to experiment!
This is the process for changing your current theme from the WordPress Dashboard:
Click on Appearance, then Themes
Go through the list of themes you already have installed
Add a new theme by clicking Add new at the top of the page
Select from themes by scrolling through the available themes or by searching for specific words using the Search box
When you decide on one hover over its image and click Preview (or Details & Preview) to see what it looks like before installing it. Click Install and have a look at it, see if it’s what you envisioned when you saw the preview. Wait a few moments while the theme installs, click Activate and it becomes your live theme on your website right away.
Additional customizations could be required for some themes, but once all are set then Follow the on-screen instructions to finish personalizing your theme. How do you feel the new website homepage is going to look to visitors? Maybe a different WordPress theme you were considering needs to have preview too.
It’s great if users can have the powerful Elementor plugin too as it makes building your WordPress site even easier and a lot of the compatible themes are the best ones.
Create Your WordPress Content
Really great content can move a good website closer to being a great one. Another one of the advantages with WordPress is that content is placed inside Pages or Posts. Most of your site’s primary and anchor content will be in Pages. It can usually be accessed from your website’s main navigation menu and you’ll be prompted to create content for About us, Our Services, and Privacy Policy.
Posts are not so different to Pages, except they can be ordered based on their date of publication and categorized by topic. This makes them easy to sort through. The Blog or News section of a website is where posts are usually found, and if you want to come back to one to refence it you can use the search bar of a WordPress website.
Homepage is always the top focus, as it’s the first page visitors will see for your website. Depending on the theme you are using, your homepage may be configured by default to display the latest blog posts. We’re going over how to start a WordPress website here, and so you probably haven’t written any blog posts yet. Here it’s probably good to switch your homepage to a more traditional format using a Page.
- In the WordPress menu, click Pages > Add New
- Type in a Title
- Click Publish in the upper right corner
- Go to the Settings section in the dashboard and click Reading
- Next to Your homepage displays select A static page
- Use the Homepage dropdown menu to select the page you just created (in our example – ‘Home’)
- Homepage selection
Now you have a homepage ready and waiting for your creative input.
Updating content on WordPress Pages is also very doable with the block-editor interface. Go through this if you are getting started and want to update an existing WordPress page
- In the WordPress Dashboard menu, click on Pages > All Pages
- Click on the page you want to update and go to Editor Mode
- Within WordPress’ Editor, use the + icon to add new elements to your page
- Add a new block
- Fill with text, images, image galleries, headings, and more!
The Elementor editor is what we like more than Guttenberg here , as it gives more flexibility in the type of content that can be used. Creating additional pages in WordPress is a fairly common thing too and you may want to add About Us, Contact Us and Our Services page if you’ve already done the homepage and then links out to a few product pages with lots more to come on the way.
Create additional pages by clicking on Pages > Add New, Give unique, descriptive names to your newly-saved pages. Then edit them just like you did your homepage.
Add Navigation Menu
Now that you have multiple pages it is advisable to have a navigation menu available from the landing page so those visitors can navigate through your website with maximum ease. These are the simple steps for creating and modifying a menu:
- Select Menus from the Appearance section of the dashboard
- Create your menu by entering a Menu Name
- Tick the place you want your menu to appear within the Display locations
- Click Save Menu
- Click Pages under Add Menu items, and next View All tab
- Select all the pages you wish to be part of your menu and click Add to menu
- Adjust their order by dragging each menu so that top is first and bottom is last
- Preview and install a theme in WordPress
- Save Menu
Add Site Enhancements with WordPress Plugins
Everyone is going to take advantage of the many Plugins for WordPress that are available or them. Plenty of them won’t be provided through the base WordPress installation but be obtained through the use of a plugin. The more than 8000 plugins means there are plenty to choose from, and lots of ways to spruce up your site. Examples include creating contact forms, increasing security, adding language switchers, and showing detailed visitor statistics.
This is the process for adding WordPress plugins:
- In WordPress Dashboard, click on Plugins > Add New
- Search plugins using the search bar in the top right corner or choose Popular or Recommended plugins
- Click Install Now to install your choice
- Click Activate to activate a plugin on your website
- Manage your plugin’s settings through the Plugins > Installed Plugins menu. Locate the column called Plugin and click on Activate or deactivate
Some plugins can conflict with other plugins or take away from a website’s vitality. Plugins may slow down a website or cu security problems too if they’re not kept updated. See some reviews for plugins you’re considering, and maybe only go with plugins that have a large user base of active users. Managed WordPress hosting here comes preinstalled with some of the most useful plugins for Canadian websites.
Promote a WordPress Website
Having the site in place and looking good is one step, but the need to be promoting your site is also a part of how to start a WordPress website too and you should be thinking about this just as soon as you’ve registered the domain name. You should also be aiming to get your WordPress site listed on google, and website optimization for SEO is a part of our knowledgebase here too.
Manually submit your site to Google so you can get listed in their search results faster, and use your Google Account to sign into Search Console and submit your new site at the top of the page. Obviously it’s also really good to promote your WordPress Site with social media these days, and most people with be regulars with Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram.
You can receive valuable information on how to improve your online visibility with the RankingCoach Online Marketing Platform too, and that’s also advisable with getting started with WordPress. With everything we’ve gone over here you should be informed now about picking a WordPress theme, creating a menu, adding content, using plugins and promoting your new WordPress website.
