How to Make a Free One-Page WordPress Website
If you’re looking for a way to quickly and easily launch a business website, then you’ve probably realized by now that the world of commerce is shifting to the web. That means if you want to succeed you’ll need to get a website up and running as soon as possible.
Whether you’re planning to sell your own products or provide a service, the opportunities are endless. So to help you get your business online and to provide some inspiration for those who want to create a website, we’ve put together 13 steps that’ll help you make a free one-page WordPress website.
Find A Theme & Template
There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of themes and templates available for download from the WordPress repository. So before you start building, you’ll want to scope out a few options that catch your attention. You should also check out the official WordPress themes and templates to see what’s available. In general, you’ll want to look for themes and templates that are clean, simple, and easy to use.
Pick A Domain Name
As your business grows, you may want to consider purchasing a.com,.org, or.net domain name. These are the three most popular extensions for websites, so if you go with one of these three, you’ll certainly find a domain name that’s already been taken. But don’t worry, you can always use *.com domains for free through Google Domains. Now is a great time to register your new domain name, as there are thousands of available.com,.org, and.net domains.
Choose A WordPress Hosting Plan
While you don’t need a highly-technical background to build a website with WordPress, you do need to understand what kind of hosting plan you should pick. It’s highly recommended that you go with either the self-hosted version of WordPress or the versatile cloud hosting plan. If you’re new to this, the self-hosted version is the best choice, as it gives you full control over your website and data. On the other hand, the cloud hosting plan provides you with all the tools you need to build a successful website, including a free domain. In either case, make sure that you’re using a reliable and reputable service that offers great support if you need it.
Set Up Your WordPress Blog
Once you’ve picked out a theme and template, it’s time to set up your WordPress blog. You can start by registering a new domain name and then transferring the blog over. If you already have a domain name you’d like to use, you can set up your blog with the WordPress dashboard provided by your domain registrar. You’ll need to use their shared hosting plan in order to use a.com,.org, or.net domain name. This is the most basic step in creating a blog, but it’s also among the most critical.
Install WordPress
Once you’ve got your WordPress blog set up, it’s time to install WordPress on your website. You can download the latest version of WordPress from the official website and then follow the on-screen instructions. You’ll need to use your hosting account’s cPanel to install WordPress, as it has a built-in web server that’ll make the process easier. After you’ve installed WordPress, you can use its built-in functions to create a blog post, edit pages, and manage content. You can also use third-party apps like StudioPress’ What You Need Is Simply Beautiful to make the process even easier.
Customize The Layout
Since the launch of WordPress, there’ve been countless ways for users to customize the look of their websites. While the process of layout customization was made easier with the advent of grid-based and drag-and-drop page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Visual Composer, you can still go the old-school route and use a stylesheet to customize the look of your site. You can also use premade WordPress page templates to save you the time and effort of building out new pages from scratch. Just remember that WordPress gives you the freedom to modify and edit the content on your site as you see fit. This means you can use any page that you want for any kind of content you want, as long as you’ve got it formatted the right way.
Set Up Different Areas Of Your Blog
A ‘blog’ in WordPress is simply a collection of articles or content in some form. To create different areas of your blog, you can either use WordPress’s built-in features to create a custom template or plugin for each section of your website. With a custom template for each section of your site, it’s simply a matter of changing the content in each one to reflect what the section is about. This can be a pretty time-consuming process and only suitable for those who want to create a completely unique look for their blog. If this is something you’re interested in, check out our guide on how to build a multi-purpose WordPress blog to get started.
Write Quality Content
If you’re looking to build a successful business website, you’ll need to have high-quality content to help drive traffic to your site. While you don’t need to be a professional writer to do this, you do need to take the time to write content that’ll make your readers come back for more. With that in mind, it’s important to write for both yourself and your audience, taking the time to establish rapport and create trust. This will help make your content more engaging and encourage those who come back for more to share their own unique stories and insight about your subject matter.
Include Keywords In Your Content
If you’ve ever tried to search for anything on Google, you’ll know that hitting the ‘enter’ key on your keyboard doesn’t always return the best results. This is because your search terms will be intercepted by Google and analyzed to determine which results to return. In order to ensure that your content is optimized for search and will therefore be returned when someone searches for your key words, you need to include them throughout your content.
Some people say that including your keywords in the first paragraph will do the trick, but we believe that doing this will simply speed up your Google ranking and nothing more. The better practice is to put your keywords in a location where they can be naturally consumed by both humans and computers alike. This is sometimes referred to as ‘keyword stuffing,’ and can simply be taking your keywords at the end of sentences or at the beginning of a new paragraph.
Build Backlinks
If you’ve ever been on the internet, you’ll know that clicking on a blog’s back button will take you to a previous page. This is because when someone lands on your blog page, they’ll see a back button and assume that you’ll post something that’ll interest them. Instead of linking to a random article or section on your site, you can use WordPress’s built-in link generator to create custom backlinks that’ll direct users to your content.
Monitor And Improve Over Time
You can’t just wake up one day and have your website work effectively. Instead, you’ll continually need to do some research to figure out what works best for your audience and for your business. There are several tools you can use to track the performance of your website, from Google Analytics to MixPanel. With these tools, you can track the traffic to your site and identify which content is performing well. From there, you can use this information to improve your site and content in a way that’ll make it more effective.
While building a business website is relatively simple, getting the most out of it can be rather challenging, especially if you want your site to do well. From creating unique content to figuring out the best web host, these steps will help get you on your way to building a successful website.