If someone asks me how to make a website, I will definitely recommend WordPress, since it’s considered as the most flexible and convenient system to use. Also, WordPress stands out thanks to its nice and useful feature – magnificent utility plugins that will improve the performance and attractiveness of your site.
WordPress is the most common CMS to date. In accordance with the independent agency Web Technology Surveys statistics WordPress is used by more than 35% of all websites. Or, in other words, just about every third website you visit is built on WordPress. For comparison, in 2015 just 24% of all CMS resources worked on WordPress.
How to make a website: The main reasons of the WordPress success:
Contents
- 1 How to make a website: The main reasons of the WordPress success:
- 2 What exactly will be considered in the article?
- 3 Which plugins to install?
- 4 Summary
Plenty of major media services, world-famous companies and organizations use WordPress. After all, this engine was highly valued even by the Rolling Stones and Snoop Dogg. Let’s check out together why it is so successful and popular.
⦁ Free CMS (content management system)
WordPress is an open source content management system (CMS), distributed under an open license agreement (GNU GPL). You can use it without any cost.
⦁ Almost unlimited possibilities.
Now WordPress is a system in which there are powerful tools for creating websites of any type and complexity (blog, forum, online store, corporate website).
⦁ Flexible appearance and functionality customization.
WordPress website owners have access to both paid and free templates that they can modify to suit a particular task. And with the help of plug-ins you can solve technical problems and provide the necessary functionality of the site.
⦁ Ease of administration.
You don’t have to be a programmer to get started. It has been designed precisely in order to facilitate the entire process of creating and publishing content on a website.
⦁ The ability to build up a website and publish the first content in five minutes.
Of course, you need to spend much more time to turn a template product into something new and interesting. But the installation really takes no more than 5 minutes. As a result, after installing the system, you get a fully functional website, ready to host content.
Plugins are a software that contains an assortment of features which can be added to a WordPress website. They expand their operations range by supplementing new functions to the WordPress sites.
For example, the useful Contact form 7 plugin is useful if you like to create contact forms, polls, briefs, and subscriptions. The whole process of creating forms is fully automated, you can configure all the items necessary for working in e-mail marketing. It can be if you wish to create a membership site and accept credit cards securely on it, so you can use a memberpress plugin.
If you don’t have any idea of how to make a website, choose WordPress – it absolutely doesn’t require any special knowledge or programming skills to build an excellent site, and still on output you will receive a professional looking website.
WordPress – is the most prevalent CMS exactly to its simplicity and at the same time high efficiency.
This CMS is so popular that it has already won more than 55% of the market, and according to new data it is approaching the mark of 60% -65% and this is not surprising, because even a newbie can quickly figure out how it works and create his first working website.
I decided to divide this article into several parts, to simplify perception of the topic about how to make a website.
What exactly will be considered in the article?
- Choosing and registering a domain name for the website.
- Choosing a web hosting service.
- WordPress system installation.
- Templates in WordPress.
- Creating web pages in WordPress.
- Customizing the CMS by using add-ons and plug-ins.
- Find out more about wordpress.
Let’s start from the very beginning – to make a website you will need to select domain name, register on the web hosting and read this complete manual to the very end.
As you grow your website and start gaining more income, you may decide to upgrade it. I will explain how you can do it a bit later.
Disclaimer: This post may contain links to other web services and I can receive a certain affiliate commission from these services at no cost to you. I recommend these sites and tools to those who wish to successfully start their blog.
1. Register a good domain name
You have to chose the domain name exactly related to your website subject and easily pronounced, memorable. This factor does not affect the functionality of the resource, but will help to attract more customers.
There is a wonderful service where you can register a domain name and it’s called name.com. Remember that only the domain name itself can become determinative to boost your success and SEO rankings.
You need to select a name with creativity and full responsibility. Domain names ending with .com are especially well memorable by users. A lot of people, especially those who aren’t technically educated, will automatically type “.com” at the end of every link address without even realising it.
2. How to choose a web hosting service
Before creating a site on WordPress, you need to solve the problem with the hosting. If you need a website for commercial use do not even consider using the free services as they do not have enough performance. For starting a blog, usually a minimum tariff on a paid hosting is enough.
Some sites provide special rates for WordPress sites. CMS is usually already installed on them and server operation parameters are optimized for the engine features. But don’t expect the wonders: there are no unique tools suitable only for WordPress. Everything is decided by optimization.
However, by choosing Bluehost, you will get the best hosting for WordPress sites. This is a recommendation from CMS developers who offer a platform where their product fully reveals its potential.
Bluehost is an American hosting, but thanks to cooperation with the international Endurance group, it has the ability to use equipment to host sites in different parts of the world. For faster delivery of content to visitors, CDN servers are also used. Independent tests show that the speed of hosting constantly keeps at the level of “fast” and “very fast”.
A pleasant impression remains after studying the uptime indicator. At Bluehost, indicators are always as close as possible to 100%. For example, in 2018, only 5 failures lasting from 5 to 35 minutes were recorded on the tested server. This is an excellent result, allowing you to safely place commercial sites on the hosting.
When you are on the main page, feel free to click GET STARTED button and you will be redirected to the CHOOSE A PLAN page where you can choose a suitable plan for you.
The next step is to provide account information, such as first and last names, email, full address etc.
I do not recommend purchasing PACKAGE EXTRAS as you can try the web hosting without those features and add them later.
I think there is no hosting cheaper in the whole world, although if you still find hosting that is cheaper, write in the comments to this article. Try to surprise me.
3. WordPress installation
The first step to build a website on WordPress, after you have already chosen a domain and hosting and then installing and configuring the WordPress platform itself.
On Bluehost and most other hosters, automatic installation of popular CMS is provided. If you purchased a special rate plan for WordPress, then the system in general may be immediately ready for work. But most often you still have to take a minimum of actions – find the section with engines in the admin panel and install the necessary CMS.
If you wish to install it manually then download the installation archive to your hard drive. Unpack the archive into any temporary folder, and then go into the personal account of the selected hosting provider and create a new database there. At this stage, the database needs to come up with a name, login and password for authorization.
Return to the archive with the unpacked CMS, remove the sample fragment from the file name wp-config-sample.php. Open your Notepad and indicate the host, database name, authorization password and username in it. Save the result.
Using any FTP client (FileZilla or similar software), copy all the CMS files from the temporary folder to the http docs folder on the server. It remains to follow the link your_site_name / wp–admin / install.php and fill in the necessary fields your email address, site name and username, as well as the ability to index your resource with search engines. WordPress installation process completes by displaying the appropriate info window.
4. Choosing templates for your online business
By default, a standard template is installed on the website, but it is unlikely to suit you. You can find another topic in different ways.
Explore various sites with topics from third-party developers. You can easily find them by typing in the search engine the phrase “download the WordPress template”. Both paid and free options are available. The main danger of this approach is the possible security vulnerabilities that you get along with topics of unknown origin. Order a template from professional developers.
First you can check it out in the official WordPress catalog. You can access it directly from the administrative dashboard of the new site. In the section “Appearance” there is an item “Themes”.
If you downloaded templates from third-party sites or received from the developer as an archive, the installation procedure will be slightly different. In the same section of the admin panel with templates, there is “Add New” button. Click on it, then click “Download Theme” and select a file. After adding the archive, click Install.
If you got the template from the official WordPress catalog through the admin panel, just select it and click on the “Install” button. Before installation, a preview will be available to help make sure that the selection is correct. Once being installed, the theme will appear in the general list of templates. To go to it, click the “Activate” button.
5. How to create static pages and posts in wordpress
A static page is distinguished by the fact that it does not contain a feed with posts, but certain information. For example, the “About Us” or “Services” section is a static page. To change the posted information, you need to edit the page.
In recent versions of WordPress, the developers added Gutenberg visual designer to HTML and a text editor. Using this editor, you can insert widgets and multimedia files, add content blocks and change their location. Accordingly, now the webmaster has more options for creating various static pages.
By default, WordPress has a homepage that hosts the latest blog posts. To add other sections to the site, open the “Pages” tab in the administrative panel and click “Add New”.
You can add Blog posts in the same way as the pages. The only difference is that you can publish posts on one page, which is a scrollable blog feed. You can also use the Gutenberg editor to create a post, but it is a lot more convenient to format them in the classic WordPress text editor, which in last versions is added as a plug-in.
Change Site Title and Tagline
When installing WordPress you have to find a good website’s title. WordPress naturally adds a slogan to your site title that says ‘Just another WordPress site’.
Upon your wish you can change both your site’s title and slogan if you go to Settings » General page.
The tagline normally depicts your website. If you need, just leave the tagline field clear.
Also scroll down the page and click ‘Save Changes’ to save your settings.
Site navigation system allows you to present the structure of your site to users – they can browse sections and quickly find the information they need.
You can add a site map menu from the WordPress Admin Panel – Appearance – Menus.
A new “Create Menu” window, consisting of two fields, will appear on the screen. On the left side you will find your pages, custom links and categories. And in the right field there are editable menu items. Select the pages you need to add – tick the pages listed in the left panel and then click on “Add to Menu”.
You can set the sequence of items by dragging them with a mouse wherever you want. Then select the location of your menu and save.
For more convenience of your users you can create WordPress Navigation Dropdown Menu. When the user hovers the mouse over the parent menu item, then all the other, complementary, sub-menus smoothly appear one after the other under the main one.
You can add them on the same principle as the pages. Expand the “Categories” tab, select the necessary and add to the menu.
Using the drop-down menu, you can create a properly structured navigation system. You can try different layouts to check out how it will look ready.
Set up Comments Settings
WordPress supports an embedded comment structure enabling site visitors to leave comments under your posts. If there is such a need, add keywords, upon detection of which the system will send comments for moderation or mark them as spam. This will help you to avoid spammers. The parameters specified in the Discussions page section will only work if the site uses standard WordPress comments. If you connect a third-party commenting application, you will have to configure them separately.
6. Customizing WordPress with add-ons and plugins
Plugins are, in a way, applications with which you can improve a WordPress site functional, for example, add contact forms, social buttons, subscription forms, etc.
WordPress currently offers 56,000+ free plugins. There are also paid plugins that are sold by third-party sites and developers.
And here is a list of the necessary plugins that you can install on your website. All of them are free, but there are some of them that have a premium version.
To find and install plugins, open the self-titled section in the admin panel. Using the search field, find the necessary add-ons. After clicking the “Install” button, the plugin will appear in the list of installed and ready to use extensions. To enable it, you must tick the “Activate” button. In addition, you can install plugins in the same way as themes, by downloading an archive with files.
Which plugins to install?
One of the biggest temptations when using WordPress is the uncontrolled addition of plugins to extend functionality.
Do not worry if at some point you find yourself sitting in the add-ons catalog and reading the description of another cool thing, all newbies WordPress webmasters go through it.
Everything would be fine, but the more plugins you install, the higher is the load on the server and the lower the speed of loading the website. Plus, some add-ons do not bring any benefit, but exist only for beauty. But still you can’t do at all without plugins – there are several extensions without which the site will not work properly. In the list of required additions are:
Optimization Plugins
Yoast Seo – If you want to optimize your website and get more traffic from Google, then this plugin is just what you need.
WP Super Cache – Significantly improves the speed of loading pages on your website.
All In One SEO Pro – At first, you can use Yoast, but many people recommend installing this plugin, which not only optimizes the site, but also allows you to promote your site on social networks.
Review Plugins
WP Review Plugin – it is the perfect review plugin for review websites. This plugin support a total 14 types of snippets and you can select your preferred snippet in a few clicks
WP Rocket – The perfect plugin that speeds up your website, improves the loading of pages and in general has many more interesting features that would be useful for your website. I recommend to install this plugin in order for your website to work properly.
Each of the listed plugins has alternative options – I have listed only the most famous solutions. You can install another extension, the main thing is that you add the necessary functionality.
7. Where to get more information about WordPress
WordPress is an easy to use and extremely powerful tool. Yes, we do not argue that it will take a bit of your time and your patience to make a WordPress site truly beautiful, functional and effective. For the project to start work, the user will have to deal with the hosting and databases, as well as understand the connection between the server, the engine and the site interface. This can take a bit of time. Mastering all the features of a CMS will take a couple of days and require the acquisition of some skills at least at the level of simple CSS editing.
A lot of information on working with WordPress is available in the web space. You can search for the information on specialized blogs and do not hesitate to ask your questions on various forums.
Summary
My congratulations. You’ve just learned how to make a website.
An important goal in the process presented in this article is that you would get some basic knowledge to do it all yourself and without hiring a webmaster. Switching to WordPress as the platform of your website is the most affordable budget solution. Thanks to this system you have the possibility to monetize any, even the most crazy online business start-up.
WordPress is one of the best tools for creating websites, which, with the release of the new version, has become a little easier thanks to the appearance of a visual editor. However, with regard to the creation and pre-configuration, there are no major changes. Users still have to choose a hosting, take care of security on their own and keep track of updates.
Don’t stop in practicing and trying new tools – there is no limit to perfection. And the more perfect your site becomes the more profit you can gain from it.
