How to create a WordPress website
Creating a site on WordPress is very easy. WordPress is designed in such a way that even non-tech users can also design their own websites easily and attractively.
Here, we’ll discuss each and every step involved in creating a WordPress site.
- Selecting a right platform
- Choosing a domain name and host
- Choosing a theme/template
- Creating new pages
- Adding Content
- Adding Media
- Installing plugins
Selecting a right platform
First you have to decide a suitable platform to build your website with. Here platform means either you want to create your website using HTML, CSS or using a CMS (Content Management Systems).
There are various popular CMS in the market like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, DotNetNuke, etc.
Why choosing WordPress
For a beginner WordPress will be the best as it doesn’t need any technical skills and due to its flexibility it is suited for all type of users.
You’ll get a lot of options to select a theme as a wide range of community design themes for WordPress. It can handle any type of website whether large or small. Most known websites like CNN, NASA, eBay use WordPress.
Above all, it gives you a responsive site which makes it compatible with small screen devices like mobile phones and tablets.
Shared hosting is best choice for beginners. You can later upgrade your site’s hosting according to the site’s traffic.
Choosing a domain name and host
You need a domain name and a hosting space to get your website online.
Domain name enables you to give your site your own name while hosting gives a space to your site on a server which makes sure your website loads quickly and won’t go down for hours.
Domain name should be short and easy to remember, brand able and catchy which defines your business.
Choosing a domain name is not easy with fulfilling all the criteria as million of domain names are active.
Choosing a theme/template
After installing WordPress, a site appears very plain. To make it more attractive, users install best suitable themes for their site. It adds visuals and views to the front page.
First of all, login to your WordPress site. By default, first screen will be your dashboard.
Accessing Free themes
After login, you’ll get access for 150 free themes.
Look at the above snapshot, to look at the free themes, got the side bar menu of your dashboard, select Appearance >Themes.
Below screen will appear including all the installed themes.
Look at the above snapshot, if you want to install more themes click on Add New button above and install it.
To install a theme, click on Install followed by Activate button.
Creating new pages
Look at the above snapshot, go the sidebar menu, click Pages > Add New option.
Adding Content
Adding new post
At the end we all will come to this point to make our site popular. We need to post different things to increase the popularity of our site.
Clicking on Post > Add New option, the above page will appear on the screen.
There are two ways to write a post, either you may write in Visual editor or in Text editor (in HTML format). Currently this snapshot is of Text editor.
Adding Categories
You can divide your content in different categories by adding categories to them. This tool is handy when you are publishing content for more than one field.
Click on Posts > Categories, you will be directed to the above page.
Here, in Name add a title to your new category. In Slug, you can add some words which will become part of URL while searching.
Tags
Tags are very much similar to Categories with only one difference that each post has its own set of tags.
Enabling or Disabling Comment
Comment creates a debate on some posts or sites. Some users don’t want their visitors to comment. They can shut comment off in WordPress.
To disable a comment for a particular page
- Go to Pages > Add New
- Click on Screen Options on top right
- Tick on Discussions box
- Scroll down, untick Allow Comments option
- Go to Settings > Discussions
- Untick “Allow people to post comments on new articles”
To disable a comment by default
Editing sidebar
Sidebar which generally appears on the right side (sometimes appears on left) contains widgets like Archives, Categories and Meta, etc.
To edit the side bar, go to Appearance > Widgets
Use drag n drop method to either use a widget or remove a widget.
Adding Media
Every website needs some photos and videos to describe its content and value. WordPress also provide functionality to add a media. You can add image caption, title and description along with media. Also add alt text helps search engine to identify the image.
Installing plugins
Plugins are the extensions in the WordPress with certain piece of coding expanding specific function to you site. They are not built-in.
There are almost 25,000 different plugins options to choose from.
Installation a plugin is very simple. Click Plugins. You will see three options, as shown in the snapshot below.
Click on Plugins > Add New. Following screen will appear in front of you.
You can choose a plugin from the given options. Just click Install Now and you will be able to use it.