How to Develop a WordPress Website
WordPress is a content management system (CMS), which is a free and open-source tool that allows you to build websites. Many people use WordPress because it’s easy to use and offers a lot of flexibility. There are tons of premium content management systems (such as Wistia and Joomla) that offer more features and are usually more expensive. However, if you’ve never developed a website using WordPress, this article will guide you through the basics.
Get The Right Hosting
One of the first steps to building a website is to secure some hosting. When someone types yourdomain.com into their browser, the hosting company’s servers should be the one hosting the webpage. Keep in mind that free hosting usually comes with limited features, such as bandwidth and storage space. These are important things to consider if you want your website to perform well.
Get A Domain
Next, you will want to obtain a domain. A domain is how your customers will always know how to find your website. Some domain registrars, like 1&1, offer very affordable web hosting plans and allow you to get a domain for free. Many domains are not registered, so you will have to pay for this part as well. You should choose a.com domain because it’s very popular and most people know what this means. If you run out of ideas for your domain name, you can use this handy domain generator to get inspired.
Create A Signup Form
Now that you have a domain, you can create a signup form and collect email addresses. If you want to attract potential customers to your website, you should consider setting up a signup form before you even launch the site. WordPress makes it very easy to create a signup form, and you should look into utilizing this feature. Your signup form should collect information from the visitor such as name, email address, gender, and age. You can use the WordPress built-in signup form or you can use a third-party plugin for signup forms, like FormPlus.
Launch The Site
Once you have your signup form, you can launch the site by visiting WordPress’s dashboard and clicking on the ‘Publish’ button. This will take you to your WordPress website’s front page, where you can configure the look and feel of your site. There are several options for themes and you should select something simple yet professional. You can always change the theme later on if you want to explore design options.
Configure The Blog
A blog is very useful for providing additional content for your website’s visitors. Depending on how much content you want to include, you can either choose to do this manually or you can use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress to create and manage your blog. When you first launch your WordPress blog, you will see a dashboard with several options for you to explore. One of these options is Blog Settings, which you can use to configure the look and feel of your blog.
Change The Blog’s Name
At any point after you’ve launched your WordPress blog, you can change its name by going to yourblog’s dashboard and clicking on the Settings button at the top. From here, you can edit the site’s metadata, like its title and description. You can also find and edit your blog’s tags, which are keywords associated with the blog content. Keep in mind that if you want to change your blog’s name, you will need to update all the links to your blog, as well as any social media accounts that are connected to your blog. Make sure you have a short, catchy blog name before you make any such changes.
Change The Blog’s Category
You can also change your blog’s category by going to its dashboard and clicking on the Categories button. From here, you can add other categories that you want to include in your blog, as well as select a category for your blog. Make sure you add a category for your blog before you make any major changes. Remember that your blog’s category will impact the look of your blog’s front page and what content you see when someone searches for your blog’s name.
Once you’ve added some content to your WordPress blog, you can click on the Blogger icon in the top right and explore the rest of the dashboard. From here, you can add more content, configure email notifications for your blog, and set up a schedule for post publishing. You can use the WordPress dashboard to edit the details of your blog, or you can use a different web browser to log in to your WordPress account and make any necessary changes from there. It’s a common misconception that WordPress is only for blogs, but this is not true; you can use the platform to create pretty much any type of website you can think of.