How to Build Your Own Website on WordPress
WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) in the world, and can be used to build almost any kind of website.
Building a website on WordPress is incredibly easy, and allows non-techies to create professional looking websites without needing any special coding skills.
In this article, you’ll learn all about building a WordPress website from scratch, using a basic drag-and-drop builder to get you started. You’ll also find a detailed tutorial on how to install a WordPress website from scratch, including the necessary plugins to make things work seamlessly.
Why Go With WordPress?
The short answer is that WordPress is extremely popular and easy to use. In the past year alone, more than 20 million websites have been built using WordPress. This figure makes it the clear winner of the “most popular CMS” title, with over 10 million websites currently using it to manage their content. (Note: Google Analytics info is based on a survey of over 10,000 website owners across all industries. (source))
Additionally, WordPress is completely free, and is constantly updated and improved by a community of volunteer developers who are committed to ensuring that WordPress remains the most user-friendly, secure, and stable content management system in existence.
The main reason why so many people choose WordPress is because it offers such great flexibility, allowing anyone to build almost any kind of website they could possibly want, with a huge amount of documentation available online, ready to help at any time.
What Is A WordPress Website?
A WordPress website is one that is built using WordPress CMS, the content management system that is the central repository for all web content.
The name “website” itself stems from the fact that WordPress was initially developed as a blogging platform, but it has grown to be so much more than that. (hence the name “Blogs” built with WordPress)
Today, a WordPress website can consist of anything from a simple blog to a full-blown eCommerce store, with everything in between. ((Note: To protect your privacy, we recommend avoiding using real names in blog posts. (Check out our recommended plugins here.))
The great thing about WordPress is that it is extremely flexible, so even if you don’t know how to code or design websites, you will have no trouble building one that will look as good as any pro could design.
What Kind Of Website?
As mentioned above, WordPress is extremely flexible, allowing you to build almost any kind of website you could possibly want, using a simple drag-and-drop interface. (For detailed information on how to use WordPress, we recommend taking a look at the helpful online documentation available for the platform)
This means that if you’re considering whether or not to build a website, you have an incredibly wide range of choices to choose from. Thinking about what kind of website you want to build can be difficult, but with WordPress, this problem doesn’t exist. (hence the name “most popular CMS”)
The best part is that you don’t need to limit yourself to just one genre. You can use WordPress to build a magazine website, real estate blog, corporate site, or anything else, depending on what you’re passionate about. Of course, you’ll want to pick a niche and go for it!
Building A WordPress Website: Beginner’s Guide
Since WordPress is flexible and incredibly easy to use, we’ve put together an in-depth, step-by-step guide to help you build a WordPress website from the ground up, using our favorite drag-and-drop website builder, Elementor.
The great thing about this introductory guide is that it will walk you through the entire process of building a professional-looking, functional website, step-by-step. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a fully functioning WordPress website that you can customize to suit your needs.
Step 1: Select A Niche
The first step in building a WordPress website is to select a niche. This is the area of expertise that you’ll be focusing on, the subject matter that your website will be centered around. (more on this shortly)
It is highly recommended that you pick a niche that you’re passionate about. Otherwise, the process of building a website can seem daunting and even a little bit scary. (not to mention that you might end up creating something that no one wants to read or use.)
For example, if you’re passionate about fashion, you might decide to build a website that focuses on style tips or fashion trends. If you’re really passionate about home design, you might decide to build a site that focuses on room decorating ideas. (this is a really common theme among those who choose to build websites because they feel that it is something that they are good at and enjoy doing)
Whatever your passion, there is an audience out there who wants to hear from you. Once you pick a niche, you’ll want to create content for this site, whether it be a blog post, an article, or a podcast. Be sure to focus on producing content that is useful and helpful to your audience.
Step 2: Choose A Domain
The second step in building a WordPress website is to choose a domain. A domain is the website’s address, e.g, myfashionablestyle.com. ((Note: A domain must be accessible via web traffic for the site to be found by search engines. (For more info, visit our SEO article here.)) Once you have a domain, you can set up a free account with a hosting company, like Bluehost, and install WordPress to launch the site. (Tip: Use our affiliate links to get started with Bluehost, and you’ll also receive $2.95 free hosting for one year. (more info here))
Keep in mind that just because you have a domain name, it doesn’t mean that you’re set. In order to make money from your site, you will need to explore various monetization options, like affiliate marketing, or display ads. (Tip: The Affiliate Marketing training course from Clique, one of our recommended affiliate marketing platforms, takes you by the hand and teaches you everything you need to know, including how to make money online. (Click here to learn more))
Step 3: Create The Website’s Style
The third step in building a WordPress website is to create its style. As the name suggests, this refers to the overall aesthetic of the site, including its color scheme, fonts, and layouts. (note: your website’s look and feel will be based on the theme that you choose, not the other way around).
Depending on your experience level, you might want to start by using free tools, like Google’s [Material Design Lite](https://material.design/index.html) or [Twitter’s Bootstrap](https://bootstrap.com/), to quickly mock up a basic template, or you can use a tool like [Squidify](https://squidify.com/), which integrates with Google Docs, to create a fully functional site, with all the necessary content and features, in just a few clicks.
Once you have a basic layout in place, you can start adding content to it, either by dragging and dropping items from an external content management system, like WordPress.com or GitHub, or by using a simple WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, like Google’s [Material Design Lite](https://material.design/index.html) or [Twitter’s Bootstrap](https://bootstrap.com/).
You don’t necessarily need to use all three options. You can also use a tool like [Htmlplus](https://htmlplus.com/) to create and edit HTML files directly from within WordPress itself.
Step 4: Add More Functionality
The fourth step in building a WordPress website is to add more functionality. At this stage, you can continue adding content to the site, such as blog posts, or you can start integrating other services, like an online store or a contact form, into your website. (more on this shortly)