How to Host a Website on WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS). This system was originally designed for blogging, but it can host nearly any type of website. This article will teach you how to host a website on WordPress to create a professional-looking website without needing any coding skills.

Step one: Selecting a Domain name

Before you can launch a website on WordPress, you need to pick a domain name. This is the address that your website will appear on, usually followed by a ‘.com’ or ‘.org’ (such as mywebsite.com or mywebsite.org).

You should pick a.com domain if you are in the United States, and a.org domain if you are in Europe or another part of the world. If you already have a.com or.org domain name that you want to use, you can skip to step two.

Step two: Selecting the Name of your WordPress Blog

After you have picked a domain name, you need to select a WordPress blog name. This is the name that will appear at the top of your blog (or website).

This is different than your domain name, as the blog name will be the part of your URL (Uniform Resource Locator), not the domain name. For example, if you have blogged about fashion on fashiontwice.com, your blog name will be fashiontwice, not fashion2.

To create a professional-looking blog or website, you should use a name short and sweet. The tool Domainr allows you to search for available domains and also tell you the length of your potential blog name (i.e. you can see how many words are available). If you type in “fashion blog” as the search term, you will see dozens of options (i.e. “fashion blog” is a popular term and there are lots of blogs out there using that name). You can narrow your choices by looking at the number of available letters in the domain (i.e. “fashiontw” is unavailable because there are already several websites using that name). Once you find a name that you like, you can use that to create your blog.

Step three: Customizing your WordPress Theme

After you have picked a blog name and registered your domain name, you can launch your WordPress blog (or website) by clicking on the button provided by WordPress itself. This will take you to the dashboard of your blog (or website).

Once there, you should see a screen that looks like this:

You can click on the button highlighted in blue to go to the Theme Options area, which is where you can make some significant changes to the look of your blog (or website). The options in this area are nearly limitless, as WordPress itself is one of the most flexible CMS platforms around.

To make your website more professional-looking, you can change the header image on your site (i.e. the graphic that will appear at the top of the page). You can choose from hundreds of free and premium-looking headers across multiple categories. This is a popular area for people who want to change the look of their site, as there are dozens of free and premium WordPress headers available.

Step four: Adding content to your blog

Once you have customized your blog (or website) with a new header image and some useful widgets to organize content, you can start adding content to it.

This content can be anything that you want to share with your readers, including blog posts, images, and videos (i.e. anything that can be viewed digitally).

To add content to your blog (or website), you should head over to WordPress.com (the free version of WordPress), click on the “Posts” tab in the dashboard, and then click on the “Add New” button highlighted in blue.

This will take you to the “Add New” page of your WordPress blog. Here you can add content to your blog (or website) using a wide variety of tools and platforms.

You can use WordPress.com to create and manage your blog (or website), and you can use their built-in publishing tools to add, edit, and move around content on your site. Their publishing tools are extremely easy to use and allow you to get your content online quickly and easily (and for free).

Step five: Promoting your blog

Once you have finished adding content to your blog (or website), you can start promoting it. To do this, you should create a small graphic (i.e. using Canva, a free tool you can download from the WordPress website) that will help potential readers find your blog (or website) easily.

This graphic should be visually appealing and should contain the following elements:

  • Your blog’s (or website’s) name
  • Your blog’s (or website’s) URL
  • The name of the person (if you are citing a source)
  • A visually appealing header image (if you are using one)
  • Social media icons (for sharing on social media sites)
  • An example of good content (i.e. from your blog or website)

This is a great little graphic to have in the header of your blog (or website), and it will help potential readers find your content quickly.

Step six: Monitoring and optimizing your blog

Now that you have launched your blog (or website), you can start monitoring and optimizing it to make it more effective. To do this, you should use Google Analytics to track the traffic to your blog (or website) and then use an SEO tool to make your blog’s (or website’s) content more searchable.

Choose a free SEO tool from Google, such as Keyword Planner, to find the search terms that people are using to find your blog (or website). You can also use Google Trends to monitor the popularity of your chosen keywords and compare this to the general public’s interest level.

Once you know what terms people are using to find your blog (or website), you can use these keywords in your content to draw more traffic to your site (or blog). Some people use a keyword tool like Google Keyword Planner to find the keywords and the popularity of these keywords to find new blog posts to write (this is a popular tactic for online marketers).

WordPress is a free CMS and it’s easy to use

WordPress is a free CMS and it is very easy to use. This platform’s main selling point is that it is extremely easy to use and anyone can launch a WordPress site with little to no technical knowledge.

You can access the WordPress dashboard to create a new blog (or website) by simply going to http://wordpress.com and signing up for a free account. You can then use their built-in publishing tools to add, edit, and move around content on your site. Their publishing tools are extremely easy to use and allow you to get your content online quickly and easily (and for free).

If you already have a blog (or website) that you want to use WordPress for, simply go to http://wordpress.com and click on the “Import” button to start the process of importing your old content into your new WordPress blog (or website).

WordPress is a free CMS and it is one of the most popular content management systems around because it is so easy to use and anyone can launch a site using it. If you are looking for a free, simple, and easy-to-use CMS, download WordPress now and get started.