Hey, what's up, guys? I'm super excited to bring you this in-depth, no-nonsense, step-by-step guide on how to make a WordPress website that's perfect for action-takers like you! Whether you're an entrepreneur, a blogger, or just someone looking to create an online presence, this is the ultimate guide that'll help you navigate the world of WordPress with ease. Furthermore, W3Techs report reveals that as of 2023, about 43.2% of all websites were using WordPress.
I know that building a website can seem like a daunting task, particularly if you're new to the game, but don't worry – I've got you covered. Consequently, we'll be going through everything from choosing the right domain and hosting to selecting the perfect theme and plugins to make your website truly stand out from the rest. Additionally, of course, I'll be sharing some of my best tips and tricks to make the process as smooth and painless as possible.
So, if you've been putting off creating your dream website because you don't know where to start or you're just overwhelmed by all the options out there, this guide is for you! By the end of it, you'll have a stunning, fully-functional WordPress website that you can be proud of. So, let's dive in and start building your online empire, one step at a time!
Part 1: Laying The Foundation Kick off your web design adventure with a strong start! In Part 1, we'll delve into the essentials of laying a solid foundation, setting the stage for your website's stellar performance and dazzling appearance.
Choosing A Winning Domain Name: The domain name is simply your website's address (for example, darrelwilson.com). Keep the domain name short, crisp, and unique, which adds value to your brand. Creating a custom domain name by using your brand name or a targeted keyword that closely describes your brand or the services you offer is the best bet.
It is best to refrain from using double letters or hyphens and ensure that it is easy to spell and pronounce. There are many reliable domain generator tools where you just have to type the seed keyword related to your brand, and they will automatically show some domain name suggestions.
Picking A Reliable Hosting Provider Selecting a reliable hosting provider is essential, which is often overlooked by many people, and they end up picking the wrong website platform. There are many top-notch website platforms, but WordPress is the best hosting provider for building a feature-rich, engaging website with ease. WordPress is an ideal solution for both tech-savvy and newbies without any coding skills for building websites.
WordPress is an open-source content management system and is free to download. Because of its versatility, it can handle any kind of website, and there are thousands of templates and add-ons you can use to create your website as per your requirements. WordPress is highly secure, quick, and optimized.
It is the most preferred choice for SEO purposes. WordPress features easy-to-use tools that will allow you to edit your website's content rather easily. Building a website using WordPress makes it easy to carry on social media promotions and advertising.
Setting Up Your Domain And Hosting: Step By Step Check out this brief step-by-step guide that will make it easy for you to set up your domain and hosting:
Step 1 : Firstly, you need to choose a web hosting provider to pick a monthly web hosting plan. You will come across several payment plans, and you can choose any plan as per your requirements. For e.g we will use hostinger here:
Step 2: Now, you will see various plans that are related to how many months you want to host your site with the chosen hosting provider. Choose a plan as per your needs.
Step 3: You need to create your account by using your email, Google account, or Facebook account.
Step 4: Then select your payment method and finish the payment.
Step 5: After the payment, you will be directed to the setup wizard, so click on the “start” option.
Step 6 : Now, you can see some basic questions. Click on the “skip” option at the end of the screen.
Step 7 : Click on the “Claim a free domain” option
Step 8: Go to the domain registrar and search for the domain name you want.
Step 9: If the domain name you entered is available, you can click on the “continue” option.
Step 10: Then click on the “finish setup” option.
Step 11 : You need to add primary details like country and other contact details.
Step 12: After adding the correct information, finish the registration.
Step 14: Lastly, verify your web hosting via email by clicking on the confirmation email sent to your account.
Part 2: Designing Your Website's Look And Feel Master the art of crafting an enchanting website appearance! Delve into the process of designing a captivating look and feel that leaves a lasting impression on your visitors.
Selecting A Powerful WordPress Theme: WordPress themes are website templates that regulate how your website looks and how it operates. Using these themes, you can easily customize the setup, configuration, and overall appearance of your site. WordPress themes are interchangeable designs, and you can alter your site with a single click.
There are more than 30,000 WordPress themes you can select from; some are free, while others are paid themes. Based on the sellers and overall features offered, the average cost of paid themes ranges from $20 to $60. You can browse through the official WordPress theme directory to see a variety of themes.
The paid themes come with added functionality and allow full customization so that you can develop a website as per your requirements. But, there are plenty of third-party sites from where you can use free and premium themes for better functionality and improve the appearance of the website.
Customizing Your Theme: Step-by-Step Instructions To Make Your Website Uniquely Yours Customizing your theme allows you to make your website look special and stand out from other websites built on the same theme. There are many ways to customize your theme, such as using a full site editor, using a theme customizer, using a page builder, using a theme file editor, and using a child theme.
Below are the step-by-step instructions to customize your theme by using theme customizer easily:
Step 1: Open your WordPress admin account and click on “customize” to activate the Theme Customizer.
Step 2 : It refreshes the customize page, and you can edit the WordPress theme and notice the changes right away. You can see the different settings on the left sidebar, like general options, post types, etc., and the live preview of your site on the right side.
Step 3: Click on the “header” option, and you can see various drop-down options. Select the logo option to edit your website logo.
Step 4: After customizing your site, tap on the “publish” option, and the modifications will be executed immediately. You can find the “publish” option at the top of the left sidebar menu.
Step 5: You can follow the same steps for customizing any part of your site.
Design Hacks For Non-designers: Quick Tips To Make Your Site Visually Stunning, Even If You're Not A Design Whiz Are you not a pro website designer but want to make your site visually stunning? Even if you are not a tech-savvy designer, I listed a few tips below that can help you enhance your site's visual functionality.
Select an attractive color palette and use contrasting colors to customize your website. Use color shades accordingly to customize backgrounds, titles, and other elements. Make use of large, stylish, and clear fonts for taglines, headers, sub-heads, and other text. Do not use an excessive number of fonts, as it can disturb the attention of users. Use different fonts and colors for menu bars, buttons, and links to make your site visually stunning. Ensure that you maintain a good balance of contrast and legibility when customizing the website. Make sure to leave white space on your website pages, as it makes your site stunning and emphasizes vital information. Avoid overcrowding the website with too much data or designs. Make use of high-quality images and animations to draw more attention, create a good atmosphere, and impact the first impression of users. It is better to be consistent when it comes to the proportion of the website and the elements. Part 3: Constructing Your Site's Core Get ready to piece together your website's backbone like a pro! In Part 3, we'll explore the ins and outs of constructing a solid core, ensuring your site's a well-oiled machine that keeps your visitors hooked.
WordPress plugins make it simple to include customization options and add rich features to your site. There are about 60,264 free WordPress plugins . To install these plugins, go to the WordPress dashboard and simply tap on the “plugins” page. In addition, you can also use paid plugins from third-party sites and developers.
I listed some of the must-have plugins below that add functionality and ensure the high performance of your site:
W3 Total Cache UpdraftPlus WP Rocket Elementor Sucuri SeedProd Creating Your Site's Structure: A Step-by-step Guide To Crafting Your Main Pages And A User-friendly Navigation Menu Site structure is all about how you arrange your website's content. It is essential for user experience, SEO optimization, and overall site quality.
Check out these step-by-step guides to craft your main website pages:
Step 1: Go to the WordPress dashboard and click on the “pages” option, which you can see on the left vertical menu bar.
Step 2: Click on the “add new” option for drafting a new page. If you want to edit an existing website page, click on “all pages” and tap on the “edit” option of that specific website page.
Step 3: Add the title of the page you want to create, like the home page, about page, service page, our team page, etc.
Step 4: After adding the title, click on the “publish” option at the top right corner.
Step 5: Now, click on the “edit with Elementor ” option, which you can see at the top of the screen.
Step 6: Then tap on the + option you can see in the center of the screen.
Step 7: You can choose the structure for the page from the given options. Follow the same steps to create other pages for your website.
To create a user-friendly navigation menu for your site, follow the step-by-step instructions I have listed here:
Step 1: Go to the WordPress dashboard and click on the “appearance” option and open “menus.”
Step 2: Click on “Create a new menu” to customize your menu, and tap on “Save changes” after editing.
Step 3: Now, under the menu structure, you can see “menu settings.” Tap on the “display location” option, and you can set the menu as the “primary menu.” Repeat the same steps to create other menus, such as the secondary menu, footer menu, etc.
Setting Up Your Blog: How To Create And Organize Content That Keeps Your Audience Hooked A blog is one of the best approaches for promoting your website along with the products and services you offer. Having a user-friendly blog with optimized content will attract more audiences to your site. Web Tribunal reveals that there were over 600 million blogs as of 2022. It is possible to create a blog post and automatically preset it to publish.
Make sure to follow these step-by-step instructions to create a blog post on your WordPress site:
Step 1: Tap on the “posts” option, which you can see on the left panel of the WordPress dashboard, and click on the “add new” option.
Step 2: Add the name or title of the blog post.
Step 3: Write engaging blog post content after adding the title. You can simply paste the content in the small box you can see on the screen.
Step 4: Tap on the “publish” option. Follow the same steps to create new blog posts.
Part 4: Optimizing Your Site For Success Take your website to new heights with optimization magic! In Part 4, we'll dive into the world of fine-tuning, ensuring your site runs smoothly and efficiently while attracting a growing audience of eager visitors.
SEO Basics For WordPress: Simple Techniques To Help Your Site Rank Higher On Google I personally understand how important SEO is to obtain more traffic and rank better in search engines. So, I have curated these simple tips you can use to optimize your site and get higher rankings:
Make sure to check the search engine visibility settings and turn off the ‘discourage search engines from indexing this site' option. Try to use SEO-friendly permalinks that directly describe the inner content and can be easily picked up by search engines and users. Use the best SEO plugins like All in One SEO , Yoast SEO , or Rank Math depending on your website requirements. Create XML sitemaps and submit them to the Google search console, as they assist search engines in finding all your website pages. Use SEO-friendly tags, meta descriptions, and targeted keywords on every page and blog post. Add high-quality internal and external links wherever required. Your site speed and loading times greatly impact your site rankings, traffic, conversions, etc. Check out the following tips and follow them to enhance the loading speed and performance of your site:
Use advanced, faster caching plugins that can enhance your site loading time and improve overall performance. It is revealed that large web pages take 381% more loading time compared to small web pages. So, split your large pages or posts into numerous short pages for better rankings and high loading speed. Make sure to add plugins to optimize the images. It is better to use WebP images rather than PNG or JPEG images for faster loading. Update your WordPress site to the latest version of PHP, as the new versions are comparatively faster than outdated versions. Decrease the size of CSS and JavaScript files using plugins such as Autoptimize . Use a content delivery network (CDN) that loads the pages quickly using the nearest optimized servers as per the user's location. Making Your Site Mobile-friendly: Ensuring Your Website Looks And Works Great On All Devices Nearly 60% of Internet users use their mobile devices for accessing the Internet and performing searches, which is why having a mobile-friendly website is essential to enhance user experience. Follow the tips listed below for making your site mobile-friendly:
Firstly, use a free mobile-friendly testing tool to check whether your site is mobile-friendly or not and how it performs. There is also a mobile-friendly test API that lets you test your site using automated tools. To make your website mobile-friendly, it is really important to ensure that your website adapts to different screen widths. This is why you should implement a responsive mobile version of your site. It is best to integrate AMP for your WordPress, which is an open-source initiative that enhances the mobile web. You can use the AMP plugin , which will make your site appear in the top search engine rankings. There are plenty of WordPress plugins that can make your site mobile-friendly, such as WPTouch , Hummingbird , JetPack , WP Mobile Menu , Smush , Asset CleanUp , and more. So, install any of these plugins to give a better user experience for mobile users. Utilize the latest WordPress and WordPress theme versions to simplify on-site graphics so they would not occupy too much space, making it hard for mobile users to view. Step up your website promotion game like a champ! In Part 5, we'll dive into the realm of ingenious marketing tactics, unlocking the secrets to giving your site the attention it deserves and drawing in a loyal audience.
Social media integration boosts your brand awareness, ensures brand reach, enhances user engagement with your site, and helps you gain more audience on social media platforms. So, follow the instructions curated below to connect your website to your social media channels effectively:
Add eye-catching social media buttons to your website so users can easily discover and connect with you on all those social media channels. You can use WordPress plugins like Social Snap , Shareaholic , and AddThis to simply add social media buttons.
Add your social media post feed on your web pages like Twitter feeds, LinkedIn posts, Instagram posts, or any other social media channels you have. For this, you can use some reliable plugins such as Curator.io , Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed , Walls.io , etc.
Add a social media login button so users can easily log in to their accounts and follow your social media pages, like posts, etc.
Add a social media review widget on your WordPress website to display real testimonials. Also, add YouTube or video-based testimonials on your site.
How To Consistently Create Valuable Content That Attracts And Retains Your Audience Producing valuable, engaging content is vital to generate leads and retain existing audiences. Content marketing strategies enhance your brand identity, enhance sales, drive more web traffic, and nurture potential prospects. Here are some crucial steps you can follow to create compelling content:
Specify what your primary objectives are. Understand why you are creating content. Do you want to educate your audience? Enhance sales? Get more qualified leads? Clearly figure out who your target audience is by researching social media platforms and checking the audience base of your market competitors. Content marketing is not just about blogs. So, understand what types of content you want to create to draw and retain the audience. Content can be curated in the form of blog posts, case studies, whitepapers, infographics, podcasts, videos, etc. Write evergreen content that highlights your brand and use high-quality images, titles, meta descriptions, keywords, links, etc. Analyze and update existing content as per your customers' preferences. Improving existing content leads to more web traffic, enhances user engagement, and better search engine rankings. Develop a content schedule and publish various types of engaging content consistently. Networking With Influencers And Other Websites There are plenty of brands worldwide that offer similar products and services as your brand. So, having a decent online presence is essential to get recognized and stand out from your competitors. Below I have detailed some vital steps that can help you build more connections and ultimately grow your website's online presence.
Network with local businesses and get featured on other high-traffic websites for enhanced visibility. Collaborate with top social media influencers in order to promote your brand, products, or services you offer. Invest in paid advertising, such as pay-per-click, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, etc., to get more traffic and enhance your online presence. Create an engaging email list to connect with your existing audience and obtain target customers by sending email updates daily, weekly, or monthly. Build social media accounts on as many platforms as you can handle, and make sure to be active on all your channels by posting feeds, interacting with customers, etc. Create engaging, informative, and evergreen content using the best SEO practices like good-quality meta tags, target keywords, links, and more. Use guest posting strategies for high visibility and create diverse types of content to reach a diverse group of customers. Wrapping up And there you have it, folks! You've successfully created your brand-new WordPress website, and you're now ready to embark on the thrilling journey ahead. Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back for taking this significant step toward building your online empire. But remember, this is just the beginning.
As you continue to grow and expand your website, never lose sight of the passion and motivation that brought you here in the first place. Stay hungry for knowledge, keep pushing forward, and never be afraid to take risks or try new things. Building an online empire isn't a sprint but a marathon, and your dedication and perseverance will be your keys to success.
In conclusion, always be prepared to adapt, learn, and grow. Your website is a living, breathing entity that will evolve alongside you on this incredible journey. So, keep pushing forward, stay motivated, and, most importantly, enjoy the ride! The future is bright, and the online world awaits your unique contribution. Cheers to your success!
