Can You Design a Website on WordPress, Then Host It Yourself?

WordPress is one of the most popular, open-source content management systems (CMS). Over 2.4 billion websites worldwide use WordPress, and it’s quite easy to see why: the platform is extremely user-friendly and offers a wealth of features.

When it comes to web design, WordPress offers some great options for beginners and pros alike. The main difference is in the themes and plugins that you can use to build your website. While you can always go the basic route and use the platform’s default theme featuring a blue background with white text, you can also choose from a range of premium, WordPress-optimized themes and premium plugins that can make a significant difference to the functionality and appeal of your website.

A Brief History Of WordPress

The original WordPress was launched in 2003 and quickly rose to fame after being adopted by major news organizations like the New York Times and the Washington Post. The open-source platform quickly became a go-to choice for content creators looking to build websites when hosting costs began to outpace growth.

The main attraction of WordPress for many is its extremely user-friendly dashboard. The platform makes building and maintaining a website easy and accessible for beginners. You don’t need to be a tech whiz to use WordPress; anyone can do it, with minimal training.

Over the years, WordPress has gained more and more support from major technology companies. In fact, many of the world’s largest platforms (like Google, Apple, and Microsoft) offer seamless integrations with WordPress that can make publishing content to your website significantly easier.

Why Should You Use WordPress For Your Website?

There are many excellent reasons why you should consider using WordPress for your website. Here are just a few:

• Wide adoption: WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in existence, with an estimated 2.4 billion websites using the platform worldwide.
• User-friendly dashboard: The dashboard of WordPress contains all the tools you need to get started building and maintaining a website. Even beginners can have a quick and easy time building their first website using WordPress.
• Extensive security measures: One of the biggest draws of WordPress is its security measures. The platform is significantly more secure than other popular CMSs, like Joomla and Drupal. This is mainly due to how WordPress implements a number of security layers that protect your content from being accessed by malicious third parties.
• Free and open-source: WordPress is completely free and open-source, which means you have access to the entire source code of the software. This also makes it easier for you to modify and enhance the functionality of the platform should you desire to do so.
• Reliable: One of the reasons why WordPress has remained such a popular choice over the years is because the software is incredibly reliable and bug-free. The community behind WordPress works hard to ensure that the platform remains secure, efficient, and up-to-date, which in turn gives users confidence that their content will not become unusable due to technical glitches.
• SEO-friendly: Being search engine optimized is essential when it comes to securing online visibility on search engines like Google. However, creating a website that is rich in content and full of useful resources can be extremely time-consuming. WordPress makes it easy for you to create an SEO-friendly website, as all you need to do is enter a few keywords in the right place and you’re good to go. The platform will then analyze your content and adapt it to fit the search engine’s guidelines. This will help you get found on Google when users search for specific topics.
• Viral marketing: One of the things that has made WordPress so popular is how easy it is to get people to visit your website. Thanks to WordPress’s innovative plugin architecture, allowing them to be integrated into virtually any website or blog. This means you can use WordPress to get the word out about your product or service, and potentially turn your website visitors into interested customers.
• Content management: WordPress was originally designed for use as a content management system, allowing website owners to publish content without needing to have any coding knowledge.
• Growth potential: The best thing about WordPress is how much it can grow. The software is built on a foundation of open-source codes, which allow developers to utilize the platform’s capabilities and enhance them with custom functions and tools. With WordPress, you’re essentially building a customizable foundation that can grow with your needs and demands.
• Easy to use: WordPress is one of the most user-friendly content management systems available, making it simple for anyone to get up and running with a website.

How Do You Deploy WordPress To Host It Yourself?

There are several ways in which you can deploy WordPress to host it yourself. Here are just a few:

Manual Installation

If you’d like to manually install WordPress on a server, you can follow these steps:

1. Visit the WordPress homepage.
2. Click on the green button that reads “Download WordPress” or “Visit WordPress.com/get” depending on where you are accessing the platform from.
3. Once the download finishes, unzip the package to a convenient location on your computer.
4. Open up a web browser and navigate to the newly created WordPress directory. Inside this directory, you’ll see an install icon called “wordpress”.
5. Double-click on this icon to begin the WordPress installation process.
6. You’ll see the Install WordPress screen where you can enter a username and a password. You should take the time to create a strong password, as this is the first step in securing your WordPress installation. In accordance with WordPress’s good security practices, you should not use any of the commonly used passwords like “password” or “123456”.
7. You’ll then be presented with the Dashboard screen, which is where you can enter the website’s administrative information. This information will be used to login to the website later on.
8. Once you’ve entered this data, click on the “Save Changes” button.
9. You’ll then be presented with the Confirm Password screen, where you can enter the same password you used during the installation process. Click on the “Confirm Password” button when you’ve entered it correctly. The rest of the process is straightforward — you can now click on the “Log In” button to access your brand-new WordPress website.

Install Via WordPress.com

If you prefer to install WordPress using the platform’s automatic dashboard, you can follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the WordPress homepage.
2. From the homepage’s top navigation bar, click on the “Sign Up” button.
3. Enter your email address and create a password.
4. After creating a password, you’ll see the confirmation screen. If you’re happy with the details you’ve entered, hit the “Create my account” button.
5. You’ll then be redirected to a verification screen, where you can enter a phone number to receive text messages from WordPress. Once verified, you’ll see the WordPress header containing your username, a link to your dashboard, and a picture of a snake. (This is the WordPress welcome image, and it’s called a “snake avatar”.)
6. To access your dashboard, click on the “My Sites” button and then on the “Dashboard” link that appears.
7. From here, you can click on the “Add New Site” button to create a new blog or site, and then customize the details to fit your needs.
8. Once you’ve logged in, you can click on the “Tools” button to access the WordPress’s plugin architecture.

Use a Free WordPress Hosting Provider

Doing your own hosting is easy enough when you have a VPS or dedicated server, but for those of us on a budget, there are numerous free WordPress hosting providers that can be used. These hosts offer a reliable service that most people can afford, and with the ability to customize your site with unlimited features, there’s plenty to choose from. (You’ll just need to register with them to get started.)

The Bottom Line

WordPress is an incredibly popular choice for websites, and with good reason: the software is easy to use and offers a lot of customization potential. Even beginners can have a quick and easy time building their first website using WordPress. Thanks to the platform’s security measures, you can rest assured your content will be protected from prying eyes.