Step-by-Step Tutorial for Creating a Website With WordPress

If you’re reading this, I assume you’re either an experienced programmer or a budding one who’s at least interested in learning more about coding and web design.

The good news is you can become an expert yourself by following a step-by-step tutorial for creating a website with WordPress.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the basics of creating a WordPress website from scratch, step by step. You don’t need any experience with WordPress to follow it, but you will need some knowledge of HTML and CSS. It’s a great choice for beginners who want to try their hand at web design, or for veterans who want to revamp an old site.

Why WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) used on the internet today. It was first released in 2007 and since then, it’s managed to gather a lot of support and users. If you’re looking for a free and open-source option, you can’t go wrong with WordPress.

WordPress started as a simple blogging platform but it quickly evolved into so much more. It originally launched with only support for blogs and some basic pages. These days, you’ll find almost any type of website you could want to build using WordPress.

What Is a CMS?

A content management system (CMS) is a type of software used for the creation and maintenance of websites. In a nutshell, a CMS acts as a content publisher, allowing users/authors to easily upload and manage content while providing a simple and intuitive interface for non-coders to easily create and update content.

Some examples of CMSes are WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal. WordPress is the most popular and the de facto standard among bloggers and small businesses, while Joomla! is more commonly used for corporate websites and blogs.

How Does WordPress Work?

WordPress is built on a framework called the Symfony framework. This framework provides the infrastructure for WordPress to function properly. This includes things like storing and retrieving posts from a database, creating and editing post objects, and more.

From the get-go, you’ll need to have a database and a web server to host your WordPress website. You can use a tool like Mailchimp or HubSpot to get started with email marketing and blogging respectively. As for the web server, you can choose from a number of hosting providers like Bluehost, which we recommend, or you can set up your own web server if you’re feeling adventurous.

Once you have your web server and database all set up, you can install WordPress to begin building your website. You’ll then want to create a user with admin privileges on your web server and database. This is usually done by using the “wp-config.php” file that comes with WordPress.

From there, you can start building your website using a tool like WordPress or a drag-and-drop builder like Elementor or Divi. You can use the Theme Customization tool to change the look and feel of your site. If you’re a bit of a design pro, you can use a tool like Photoshop or Sketch to make your site look as good as new.

While WordPress is a popular option for web designers and coders, it’s also a great choice for non-technical users who want to build a simple website. Thanks to its versatile nature, you can build pretty much any type of website you could want using only WordPress. 

What Are The Benefits Of Using WordPress?

One of the main advantages of using WordPress is that it’s free and open-source. This means you’ll have access to a ton of functionality for free. You won’t need to pay for plugins or any other type of add-on to get the most from your WordPress site.

Another major benefit of using WordPress is that it provides you with a community of designers and developers who are more than happy to help you learn or do anything related to web design. You can take advantage of the many online resources available for WordPress users to learn and develop new skills.

WordPress also has a built-in SEO tool that helps to make your site searchable by Google and other search engines. This allows you to use key words and phrases throughout your content to increase your ranking.

What Is The Difference Between WordPress.com And WordPress.org?

WordPress.com is actually a hosting provider that also provides a WordPress installation. As the name implies, WordPress.com offers a hosted version of WordPress for users who want to keep things simple and don’t want to go through the configuration process themselves. This can be a real time-saver for users who want to get their feet wet with WordPress.

WordPress.org, on the other hand, is the WordPress Foundation and its sister organization the WordPress Community. WordPress.org offers a completely free, open-source version of WordPress that can be downloaded and installed on your own web server.

The great thing about WordPress.org is that it provides you with a fully functioning WordPress installation that can be configured and customized to your exact needs. This means you don’t have to rely on a third party for hosting and support. You’re free to manage, update, and secure your WordPress installation yourself.

Setting Up The Basic Structure Of Your Site

One of the first things you’ll need to do is set up the basic structure of your site on your web server. You can use a tool like FTP or Filezilla to easily upload folders and files to your web server. You’ll want to set up a folder named “wp-content” on your web server and upload all the files and folders inside it.

Inside this folder, you’ll want to create a subfolder named “blog” to upload all your blog posts and pages. You can also create a subfolder named “assets” to keep all your site’s images, fonts, and other assets.

You don’t need to put a lot of thought into this step, but you can use this opportunity to add some metadata to your content. For example, you can label your blog posts with the date and time you originally posted them to help your readers easily find the content they’re looking for.

Setting Up The Header, Navigation, And Footer For Your Site

The header, navigation, and footer are the parts of a web page that don’t change no matter what page you’re on. You’ll want to create these templates in a dedicated section of your site named “Site Header,” “Site Navigation,” and “Site Footer.”

These are the parts of your site that appear at the top, bottom, and across the middle of every page.

To set up the header, you’ll want to take the header.php file from the “wp-content” subfolder you created earlier and rename it to “site_header.php”. You can then upload this file to the “/wp-content/theme/your-theme” folder on your web server. Open this file in a text editor and make a few small changes to fit your needs. You can use a template designer tool like WordPress to make easy changes to fit your needs. There are tons of free and premium templates you can choose from, depending on what kind of a look you want for your site.

For the navigation, you’ll want to take the navigation.php file from the “wp-content” subfolder you created earlier and rename it to “site_navigation.php”. You can then upload this file to the “/wp-content/theme/your-theme” folder on your web server. Open this file in a text editor and make a few small changes to fit your needs. You can use a template designer tool like WordPress to make easy changes to fit your needs. There are tons of free and premium templates you can choose from, depending on what kind of a look you want for your site.

The footer is usually placed at the bottom of a web page and contains information about the page, such as the date and time of posting, the name of the blog post or article that the page is connected to, copyright details, and more.