Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

Here’s how to create a website step-by-step:

This is a briefing of the procedures for creating a site in less than an hour:

• Search for the domain name for your site.
• Sign up for web hosting (we’ll explain here about Bluehost).
• Install WordPress via the Bluehost interface.
• Choose a free WordPress theme from Bluehost onboarding.
• Get some indispensable WordPress plugins that will help your site grow.
• Start creating your own pages and blog posts.

How to create a website

The important thing to note here is that you can perform all of the steps on your own, and with the lowest costs.

Step 1: Choose WordPress as the platform for your website.

There are several website platforms that you can use when creating a new website, and they are what is commonly called content management systems (CMS).

The idea of ​​a content management system is to give you some easy-to-use tools so that you can modify the content of your site even if you do not have any knowledge of the code.

As for the biggest part; these content management systems look a lot like the familiar interfaces on Facebook and Google Document, where you create new pages or documents, and then publish them to the web.

There are many content management systems, and choosing the best one is simple, there is only one king that ranks first, and that is WordPress.

The data shows that WordPress is used by more than 34% of all websites.

And approximately, each of the three websites you visit is built on WordPress.

Here are some basic WordPress themes:

• Open-source.
• Free.
• It is the ultimate solution for creating websites.
• Versatile and can run any type of website.
• Fast, optimized, and secure.
• Search engine friendly, which makes archiving your site easier and faster.

There is no executable task that you need to do at this point.

The first step is to familiarize yourself with just the tool you’ll use to create your site.

Step 2: Choose a name for your website, and buy a domain and host:

When learning to create a website, choosing a name is perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the entire process.

First: There are currently nearly 2 billion websites on the Internet.

This means that being and staying among them can be a very difficult challenge.

It is a good idea to choose a name for your website (and thus your domain name) that is associated with the name of your organization with some words added to improve your branding.

Briefly; a good domain name should be:

• A unique brand unparalleled in the market.
• Easy to preserve.
• Short (so that it is easy to memorize as well).
• Easy to write.
• Includes some keywords related to what you do.

Here’s a quick tool that you can use to find out if the domain name you want is available:

If you do not have an idea about the field that you want to obtain, go directly to the following link and it will help you to choose the domain.

https://domainwheel.com/

Get started by entering an initial keyword that defines your website well.

The Domain Wheel will return with some suggestions, so you can narrow down the options from here to find your ideal domain name.

The next step, once you know the domain name you want is to register it and purchase a one-off hosting package. Here’s a breakdown of that:

A) Buying your own domain name and hosting:

Although saying “buy a hosting package” may seem intimidating at first glance, there is really nothing to worry about.

The process we provide here is very simplified, and it does not require you to have extensive technical expertise.

There are hundreds of different companies that can help you register a new domain name for you, and there are many companies that can sell you a hosting package.

But let’s not complicate things ourselves and instead get everything from one company at once.

We’ll be using Bluehost, and here’s why:

• Bluehost is a recommended web host, optimized for WordPress, and it assures you that your website will work without any obstacles.
• One of the few companies featured on the official WordPress.org site.
• It costs cheap (from $ 2.95 a month).
• Easy to use for beginners.
• Provides you with a domain name for free.

Here’s what will happen now:

• We go to Bluehost and choose a hosting plan for our website.
• We also register the domain name with Bluehost (the domain is free).
• We’re telling Bluehost to install and configure a fresh version of WordPress on the new hosting setup.
• We get our WordPress site 100% operational. 

Let’s start now … How to create a website:

First, go to the Bluehost website, and once you’re on the page, click “Choose a plan”.

(Note: If you are launching a new website, we recommend that you use the “Basic” plan, as it is an adequate and cheap plan “$ 2.95 per month”).

In the next step, enter the domain name that you decided to choose for your website. 

After that provide your personal information. 

Before proceeding, it is a good idea to verify and confirm the hosting setup information you have chosen in the section labeled “Package information”.

Note: If you buy the hosting package for at least 12 months, you will get the lowest price.

At this point, you can click “Submit” and complete the purchase.

B) Telling Bluehost to install WordPress:

After you’ve signed up for Bluehost, and have your hosting setup ready to go, the only thing we are waiting for now is WordPress, which you can install manually by the following:

Once you have completed the registration process with Bluehost, you will receive an email from the Bluehost staff containing some details on how to log into your client profile and get started working on your site.

Once signed in, Bluehost will offer you an easy-to-use wizard that will help you in the WordPress installation process to set up your hosting.

Alternatively, you can also install WordPress by going to the “My Sites” section and clicking the “Create a site” button.

All Bluehost needs to install WordPress for you is your new site name, username, and password that you want to use when managing WordPress.

Once the processing is done, your site is installed and ready to use.

Step 3: Get familiar with the WordPress user interface

You can log into your WordPress User Panel if you go to:

www.YOURDOMAIN.com/wp-admin/

Use the access credentials you set in Bluehost in the previous step.

After successfully logging in, you will see the main WordPress interface with all its content:

1. Welcome message (some of the most important areas are listed in the admin panel as quick shortcut links, and these are usually your shortcuts for how to create a website).
2. The current state of your site and what is happening with it.
3. Posts (Here you can go to “Create Blog Posts”).
4. Media (Here you can download and manage photos and other media files).
5. Pages (Here you can create sub-pages).
6. Comments (Here you can moderate comments).
7. Appearance (Here you can change the design of your site, or customize how certain things are displayed in the current design).
8. Add-ons (You can install new add-ons here).
9. Users (Here you can manage user accounts that have access to the website admin panel).
10. Main Settings.

At this point, you should pay attention to some basic WordPress startup settings that will improve your experience further in the future, such as:

A) Set permalinks:

Permalink defines how the individual web page addresses (URLs) are organized within your site.

The optimal structure is for the page title to be in the URL.

For example, you’re “About” page should be available in something simple like:

YOURSITE.com/about

Setting permalinks correctly will help you achieve this.

To set your own permalinks, follow these steps:

• Go to Settings.
• Permalinks from the main sidebar in the WP dashboard.
• (Diagram)
• Once there, select this setting Post name:

B) Make your site public:

To make sure Google finds and indexes your website, you should:

• Go to Settings.
• Then the option to read.
• Then uncheck the box labeled “Deactivate Search Engines”.

C) Set your website title and slogan:

This is done through the following steps:

• Settings.
• “General” setting.
• Set the website title and tagline fields as you want.

Your site title and logo may appear in different places throughout the site, and some WordPress themes display what appeared on the homepage and in the SEO description, which Google uses when listing your website in results pages.

If you do not have a site description line, you can leave it blank.

D) Allow or disable comments:

It’s up to you; whether you want to accept comments on your website or not.

Where allowing readers to leave their opinions and questions within your articles or pages can be a great way to build a social reality around your website.

But on the other hand, it forces you to deal with spam.

Whether you allow or disable the comments, you can do so with the following steps:

• Settings.
• Debate.

E) Disable pingbacks and trackbacks:

You can simply deactivate it by deselecting the setting below:

– Settings.

– Debate.

F) Select your time zone:

Correctly determining your time zone makes publishing or searching new pages and posts more predictable or searchable within that zone.

Generally, you should set the time zone based on where you are or where your target audience is.

You can set the time zone in Settings → General.

Step 4: Choose a design for your website:

The great thing about WordPress is that it works with changeable layouts (Themes).

Meaning, you can switch the way your site appears with just one click.

For example; this is what your WordPress site looks like by default, right after installation:

With just a few clicks, and by using a popular free theme (template) called Hestia, for example, we can make it look like this.

This is by following these steps:

A) Choose a template you like:

As we mentioned before; WordPress themes are external design packages that define your website’s look, you can install them quickly and you can change them in the future if you need to.

The important detail here is that the templates do not change the content of your site but only the appearance of the presentation.

There is a large selection of WordPress themes available.

Just look at the official WordPress.org directory and there are hundreds of themes.

But there are tons of free themes on the web, and there is also a whole other world of premium themes distributed through independent theme stores like ThemeIsle or aThemes, or theme marketplaces like ThemeForest.

And while there are countless paid themes for most users, free themes are a great option to start with.

The amazing thing about some of the best free themes is the number of great features that they offer for nothing.

So, how do you choose a theme that works for you?

First of all, it should be reassured that what you choose today is not necessarily a final decision, as you can always go back to it and change it within minutes.

So we’re going to go for a safe option and use one of the most popular free themes on the market today to explain how WordPress themes work.

This template is Hestia mentioned above.

Note: Hestia isn’t the only free template you can use.

B) Install your template:

If the template you choose is available in the official directory on WordPress.org, the only thing you need to install is the name of the template.

Here’s how to install it:

• Go to appearance.
• Choose “Themes” from your WordPress dashboard.
• Click “Add New”.

• And from there; enter the name of the theme you want to install (there is an illustration), and you’ll see it displayed in the list, at the bottom of the search field.
• Just click the install button below the theme you want and after seconds the theme will be installed.

To fully enable it on your site, click on the “Activate” button, which will be visible in place of the “Install” button.

Hestia is one of those themes that offer an excellent setup for new users.

To see some of these settings, you can click the “Get started with Hestia” button from the welcome message.

You will see your own Hestia main page from which you can get familiar with the theme and expand its ready-made features with some additions.

Let’s do that now by following these steps:

First, click on the “Recommended actions” link to see what is available:

Among the options suggested there, we select “Orbit Fox Companion” by default, and click the “Install and activate” button.

Note: Orbit Fox Companion is a plug-in

We’ll talk about WordPress plugins in more detail later in this guide on how to create a website.

Orbit Fox is a great addition to Hestia as it offers some great features to upgrade the look of the site.

For example; you’ll get some useful new homepage modules, a template guide that will be useful when creating your subpages (such as “About” or “Contact”), and custom menu icons.

At this point, the new look is active on your site, and you can see it in action by simply going to YOURDOMAIN.com.

Despite that; what you see there is far from the topic’s abilities.

In the meantime, we’ll take care of adapting the design, menus, and other elements to make the site look exactly how you want it to be, and here’s how:

C) Appearance customization:

Although the exterior of your chosen theme may be really cool, you need to make some basic customizations to make it suit your needs.

To start, we follow the following:

– The appearance.

Customization (you’ll see the main WordPress customizer interface).

• Here you can set a lot of things (starting with the homepage because it is the most representative of your site).
• Create your home page.

Do the following:

• In the sidebar, go to “Home Page Settings”.
• Select the “Static page” option below your homepage display setting.
• Click “Add New” to create a new page to serve as your home page.
• Enter the page name (it’s best to use “Home page”).
• Click on “Add”.

This will replace the default listing of your site’s latest articles with a fully customized homepage, and you’ll naturally see some great elements on your new home page.

For starters; we can change the main address on the page, by putting either the business name or anything else that is used as the title of the entire site.

To make changes, you can click on the pin icon next to the title.

When you do this, a Personalization panel will appear on the left

From it, you can change:

• the background image (you can make it related to your business).
• the title.
• the text below the title (it can also be removed completely)
• the text of the button that leads to your products or most important pages (you can use the following text: more on that in a minute)

Then you can configure any other available homepage sections.

Normally, you will see: (Check this list by going to “First Page Sections” of the customizer sidebar).

• The “Features” section is a great place to explain what your company has to offer or the purpose of your website.
• This “purpose” is probably the first thing to keep in mind as you learn how to create a website.

– The “About” section is a great place to talk about your story.

– The “Team” section that you can use if more people are working in your business and you want to highlight it.

The tape is another place you can mention your main invitation to work through it.

The reviews section is great when you want to show what your previous clients have said about your business. 

• The “Contact” section is where you can view your contact information and let people know how best to reach you.
• There are also a few sections available that you can browse through and choose what makes sense to use in your work and in your particular case.
• When you are done editing the home page, don’t forget to click on the main “Publish” button at the top.

Set fonts and typography:

The next thing to do is take care of the typography of your site and the fonts used on it.

You can do this by following these steps:

• Go to Appearance Settings.
• Print from the sidebar of the WordPress customizer.
• Here you will be able to choose a font and see it on your site instantly.

Colors:

The new theme will use a pair of primary colors that define its default color scheme.

You can change this setting in the WordPress customizer by clicking “Colors” in the main sidebar.

The accent color is usually the color used for the buttons, links, and everything else intended to stand out from the rest of the website design.

After doing the above, you will feel that you now own your website, as you will have made all the necessary adjustments and customizations to fit your brand.

Note:

There are several settings in the WordPress customizer to try.

For example, you can try the following:

• Choose the default layout for your website (whether you want the sidebar to be on the left, right, or anywhere).
• How do you want to display the blog listing?
• Do you want a main background image for the entire website or not?
• Button shape and many other possibilities available.

Step 5: Get the plugins to extend the capabilities of your website:

• Yoast SEO: Helps you to make search engine optimization and make your site more accessible to search engines in general.
• Google Analytics for WordPress: This website integrates your website with the most popular traffic analysis solutions on the web.
• Wordfence Security: Improves the security of your WordPress site.
• UpdraftPlus: Automatically backups your website.
• Optimal: to improve your photos.
• WPForms: It allows you to add interactive contact forms to your website, which your visitors use to reach you directly (this is much better than displaying your email in plain text on your site).

Note: All of the previous components are free, and you can also look at our list of the most popular WordPress plugins ever.

Installing plugins is also simple, and if you are dealing with a free plugin, all you need is the name of the plugin, and the following:

• Go to your WordPress dashboard.
• Then Plugins.
• Then Add New.
• From there, enter the name of the plug-in you want in the search field.
• Click “Install” and “Activate”.

Sixth Step 6: Create Basic Pages:

There are certain pages that all websites should own regardless of their purpose or goal.

First: How to create a page:

• From your WordPress dashboard.
• Then Pages.
• Then Add New.
• You will see this screen:

• No. (1) A place for the page title.
• No. (2) The main content section of the page.
• No. (3) You can add photos by clicking this button.
• No. (4) For switching between text editors and visual editors.
• (Note: Use the first only if you are familiar with HTML code).
• No. (5) This is where the Home button is.
• No. (6) Discussion (Do you want to allow comments or not?).
• NO.(7) Featured Image (most WordPress themes take the premium image and display it prominently next to your page).

When you are finished editing the page content, click “Publish”.

Now here are the pages you should consider creating:

• The About page: This is where you can tell the story of your website, and why people should pay attention to it.
• This page is essential for everyone who wants to learn how to create a website.
• The “Contact” page: is where you can view some contact information along with a nice contact form through which people can reach you directly (you can get such a form via the aforementioned WPForms plugin).
• Privacy Policy Page: This page has become a very important element on the Internet today.
• You can learn more about the WordPress Privacy Policy pages here. 
• Portfolio: a place to display your past work. 
• Store: This is important if you want to sell anything from your site.
  (To create the store you need the popular WooCommerce plugin, the best e-commerce solution for WordPress).

Once that’s done you can check out this list of 12 valuable pages that are worth having on your site.

Step 7: Think about starting a blog:

Blogging (along with “content marketing”) is one of the most effective ways to promote not only your website but also any products that you may want to sell through that website.

And preliminary data is proving that blogging is an excellent tool for internet marketing, as 55% of marketers say blogging is their top priority for internal marketing.

Running a blog is a straightforward concept.

What you do is publish articles related to the topic of your website and do it regularly.

From a technical point of view, WordPress has blogging tools built into it from scratch.

And in fact; WordPress started out as a blogging platform.

To create a new blog post, all you need to do is the following:

• moving to posts.
• The new addition from the WordPress dashboard.

The process of creating a blog is like creating a new page.

The edit panel looks almost the same (screenshot below), and the options are mostly the same as well.

One of the few differences is that you can customize your posts for categories and tags.

Once you are done working on a blog post, click “Publish.”

To make your posts more accessible, you should designate one of your pages to serve as the main blog list for posts.

To do this:

• First, go to Pages, then Add New, and create a blank page called “Blog”, for example.

• After that, go to “Settings” then “Reading”, and select the newly created blog page as the “Posts Page” as follows:
  

At this point, you can go to that new page and see all of your recent blog posts there.

Of course, the hard part about starting a blog is writing blog posts regularly and making them attractive for people to read.

Step 8: adjust your site’s navigation:

With all of your home pages online (and maybe you started your blog too), now is the time to maintain the navigation in your site and ease your visitors’ consumption overall.

Here we will focus on two elements:

A) Listings: They are the primary means which visitors use to navigate to your site, and thus they are essential when figuring out how to create a website.

Depending on your appearance, you will have two options to choose from regarding the menu settings.

Here’s what you can usually do (in the Hestia example):

First, go to “Appearance” and then to “Menus” in your WordPress dashboard.

You will see this virtual panel:

To the left, the pages that you can choose to add all to the list.

To the right, you can see the menu structure itself and all its settings.

Let us start by selecting two master pages and adding them to the list.

A good idea is to choose “About,” “Contact,” as well as anyone or two pages you consider necessary and add them to the list.

The great thing about this entire panel is that you can drag and drop menu items to rearrange them.

When you finish; Locate the menu at the bottom.

Usually selecting the site named “Main Menu” will bring up the menu in the top section of the website.

Maybe this is what you want for your main menu.

Click “Save List” to save your settings.

Note: You can create additional lists as well.

Simply click on the “Create a new list” as shown in the screenshot above. This will show you the same Create List panel.

Each listing should be displayed in a different location.

Therefore, for this new, you can set it as “Footer List”.

When you go to your site now, you’ll see the list in its place.

B) Tools: This is an old-school feature of WordPress.

In simple terms, a tool is a small block of content that can be viewed in various places around a website.

These blocks are placed in the sidebar or the site footer.

To see what this might look like and to set your own widgets, go to Appearance and then to Widgets in your WordPress dashboard. You’ll get this screen:

Hestia offers several tools other than a sidebar or footer.

To add an element to the widget area, just grab it from the left side and drag and drop it into the widget area you chose on the right.

After you finish using the tools and navigation, your site is ready for the world to see!

There is no dispute after the above that creating a website using WordPress is the most suitable solution for your budget.

If you have reached the end of this content, you will have learned the detailed steps on how to start creating your own website and do all of the above on your own without the need of anyone else.

If you are looking to create a professional online store, and you want to start the e-commerce journey and make profits, we advise you to visit Xcart and learn about the services it provides in the field of creating, managing, and programming professionals online stores.