How to Customize a WordPress Website in 3 Easy Steps
WordPress is the world’s #1 publishing platform and it’s available for free to anyone who wants to use it. That means there’s plenty of room for inexperienced users who don’t know how to efficiently utilize the platform to build a successful online presence. If you’re looking for an easy-to-follow guide to help you customize your WordPress website and get your content seen by more people, then this post is for you.
Step one: Choose a topic
The first step in building a successful WordPress website is to choose a topic. You’ll want to decide on a topic that you’re passionate about and that has the potential to be monetizable. If you can, go for a topic that is in demand and that has high SEO value.
For example, if you’re passionate about lifestyle, gender, or entertainment, you could create a blog around those topics. People are typically passionate about what they write about and the content is often good quality. When you have a clear topic in mind, it’s much easier to choose the right platform and the right niche for your blog.
Step two: Choose a niche
After you’ve decided on your topic, it’s time to choose a niche. A niche is a “small market or constituency” within the larger world of web users. For example, “lifestyle” is a topic, but “lifestyle blogging” is a niche within that topic. When choosing a niche, you want to make sure that there’s enough demand for your product or service in your chosen niche. You can use a tool like SEER to quickly find the competition in your niche and see how many websites are competing for your audience.
If you’re looking to create a blog about lifestyle, for example, you might want to choose “lifestyle blogging” as your niche. This niche has a very specific target audience and a limited number of bloggers are competing for the attention of those readers. If you decide to go with this niche, make sure that you’re equipped to take on the competition.
Step three: Choose a platform
Once you’ve picked your topic and chosen your niche, it’s time to choose a platform. A platform is simply a set of tools available to webmasters to make creating and maintaining a website easier. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms with over 24.3 million active monthly users. That’s over 440,000 websites running on the WordPress platform.
If you go with WordPress, the first thing you’ll need to do is register for a free account. Once you’ve done that, you can start building your website. You can either build a traditional website using a free website builder like WordPress.com or you can use a tool like WordPress to build a completely custom website. When choosing a platform, it’s important to note that not all WordPress users are created equal. Some websites may be very well optimized for SEO, while others may be a bit lacking in this department. Knowing how to best use WordPress for your specific needs takes some effort but the gains are truly worth it.
Step four: Choose a domain
Finally, you’ll need to choose a domain for your site. A domain is the address of your website (i.e., “example.com”). When choosing a domain name, you want to ensure that it’s.com,.net,.org, or.ca. If it has another country code, such as “.uk” or “.fr”, you’ll need to contact the country’s domain registry to get the proper authorization to use those domains in your site’s URL. Some tips for choosing a perfect domain name:
- Keep it short
- Avoid using hyphens or underscores
- Avoid using “.com” as your last domain extension
- Check to see if the name is available
To create a completely custom WordPress website, you’ll need to use a tool like StudioPress to get a professional-looking site up and running quickly. With StudioPress, you have the option of using their simplified version of WordPress or the full version. Simplified version is what you’d typically find if you’re searching for a free blog platform, while the full version has all the bells and whistles of a standard WordPress install. You can use either one but the simplified version has a much smaller learning curve. Once you’ve installed the simplified WordPress version on your domain, you can use their easy-to-follow website builder to build an attractive, functional website within minutes. You can then connect your site to your social media accounts to start distributing content to your audience.