Creating a Website with WordPress – A Beginner’s Guide to the WordPress CMS
There’s no secret that the webosphere is dominated by a handful of content management systems (CMSes). WordPress is arguably the most popular of these, and for good reason – it’s reliable, flexible, and a ton of fun to work with.
WordPress started as a simple blogging platform, but it’s since grown to encompass a whole ecosystem of plugins and themes. As a result, it’s extremely versatile and can be customized to suit any use case.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to get started with WordPress and dive into the basics of building a website with it. Along the way, we’ll cover everything from installation to design, marketing, and content strategy, so that you can get your site live as soon as possible.
Why WordPress?
WordPress is a very popular choice among web creators for several reasons. To begin with, it’s free and open source, which means that you have the freedom to explore its API and customize it to your needs. It was also one of the first content management systems to offer a blank slate approach, which encouraged users to imagine themselves as creators rather than consumers.
Finally, WordPress is extremely flexible and can be setup to deal with just about any use case. It has all the bases covered when it comes to content publishing, and it’s incredibly simple to get up and running with. If these are important to you, then it’s a clear choice.
Getting Started with WordPress
As previously mentioned, WordPress is an extremely popular content management system for several reasons. That being said, just because it’s popular doesn’t mean that it’s easy to use – in fact, it can be quite the opposite. The good news is that the technology behind WordPress makes it extremely simple to get up and running and creating content for your website. Let’s take a look.
Step 1: Install WordPress
The first thing you’ll need to do to get started with WordPress is download and install the software onto your own server. WordPress is officially supported by the CMS team and is known to be very stable, but it still requires a bit of knowledge to properly setup and manage. In this sense, you can consider yourself lucky to have landed on this article, as it covers the basics of installing WordPress and getting you up and running very quickly. Make sure to keep in mind that your server’s IP address will be visible to the public. This is generally a good idea, as it makes it easier for potential visitors to find your site. In addition, you’ll need to set the WordPress directory permissions to be accessible by the web server. For this, you’ll need to use a command-line tool such as a Linux terminal or a command prompt on Windows.
Step 2: Log In To Your WordPress Dashboard
Once you’ve installed and configured WordPress on your server, you’ll be ready to log in to your dashboard. To do this, simply visit http://yoursite.com/wp-admin (replace yoursite.com with your domain name) and log in using the default credentials (admin for the username and wordpress for the password).
You’ll now be greeted by the WordPress dashboard, which looks similar to this:
Step 3: Manage Your WordPress Content
Once you’ve logged in to your WordPress dashboard, you’ll be greeted by a screen like this:
Step 4: Design Your Site
Now that you have a working WordPress dashboard, you’re ready to design your site. To do this, click on the Design tab at the top of the dashboard to reveal this menu:
Step 5: Customize Your Site
Once you’ve finished designing your site, you can click on the Publish button at the top of the dashboard to bring up this menu:
Where Do I Go From Here?
Congratulations! You’ve made it this far. This article covered the basics of getting started with WordPress and diving into the very first steps to begin creating your site. From here, you can click on Getting started to be taken to the WordPress documentation, where you can find more information on getting started with their CMS. Don’t forget to book mark this page as well, so you can refer back to it later on. In addition, you can head on over to WPDashboards and find a ton of helpful resources for anyone hoping to build a website with WordPress. Finally, make sure to come back and read our free WordPress guides for more information on getting started – it’d be a shame to leave such an invaluable platform as WordPress unused, especially considering how easy it is to use. If you have any questions about the process or simply wish to get in contact with us, then click on the Get in touch button at the top of the page. We hope this article fully answered your questions about WordPress and got you excited to begin creating your own website. If so, then please feel free to hit that SHARE button so that others can benefit from this information. Thanks for reading!