How to Start Building a WordPress Website: A Quick Guide
In today’s technology-driven world, the ability to create a website has become an essential skill for anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a thought leader in their industry. Thanks to the ever-popular WordPress platform, anyone can create a functional and professional-looking website inside of a few hours. In this article, we will discuss how to start building a WordPress website so that you can quickly begin engaging with your audience, promoting your ideas, and gaining credibility in your industry.
What Is A WordPress Website?
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) around, which makes it the perfect platform for building websites. WordPress is free and open-source, so it can be accessed and used by anyone with a net connection. Additionally, thanks to the platform’s incredible popularity, there are thousands of pre-built, ready-to-go-live WordPress websites available online, which you can use to jumpstart your project.
WordPress offers a ton of functionality, so it can be used to create anything from a simple blog to a corporate website containing contact details, products, and social media profiles. On top of that, WordPress is extremely versatile, meaning it can be used to create different types of sites with simple configurations, or you can use it to build a sophisticated eCommerce store with multiple payment gateways and custom checkout processes.
Why Use WordPress To Build A Website?
WordPress is powerful and flexible, which makes it an excellent choice for anyone looking to build a website. To give you a better idea of why WordPress is so popular, let’s take a look at some of its biggest selling points.
- Powerful
- User-friendly
- Cross-browser compatible
- Robust
Thanks to its open-source software, anyone can download and use WordPress to build a website. This means you have access to millions of servers around the world, which you can use to launch your site.
As an added bonus, since WordPress is so widely used, you’ll have access to an incredibly large audience of potential readers who can visit your site.
What Type Of Website Should I Build?
It’s a good idea to think about what you want your site to accomplish, as this will help you determine what type of website you should build. There are four types of websites, each with its own purpose:
- Commercially-focused sites (such as eCommerce stores or blogs selling and referring to products)
- News sites (to publish breaking news stories)
- Shopping sites (to allow visitors to purchase products featured on the site)
- Personal sites (to allow visitors to write about their personal experiences)
As you can see, depending on your goals and objectives, you can choose from a variety of WordPress website examples, many of which are free to use. Choosing a pre-built theme is one option, or you can use WordPress’s powerful and flexible themeing functionality to build your own unique site.
Start Building A Website With These Simple Steps
Since WordPress is a popular choice among web developers and bloggers, it follows that there are also thousands of step-by-step tutorials that can help you build a website, using the platform. Here are the basics:
- Create a free account on WordPress.com
- Choose a username and password
- Go to the Dashboard
- Click on the Settings link
- Locate the General tab
- Change “WordPress Address (URL)” to reflect the address of your website (e.g., https://my-website.com)
- Click on Save Changes
- Go to the Appearance tab
- Under Theme Options click on select theme
- Change the “Background Image” to your liking
- Click on Activate Customizer
- Navigate to the front page of your site
- Click on the Add New button
- Type a title for your new Post (this will become your blog’s home page)
- Click on the Publish button
As you can see above, once you’ve gotten your WordPress website up and running, you can use a variety of tools to enhance its functionality. To create a standard blog post, you’ll find a ton of short-cut options in the Dashboard’s left sidebar. You can also use plugins to enhance your site’s functionality. We’ll discuss this more in the next section.
What Should I Look Forward To Once I’ve Finished Building A Website?
Once you’ve launched your site and begun populating it with content, you’ll start to see the benefits. Not only does having a website mean you have a digital footprint, but it also means you have the opportunity to engage with potential and existing customers, showcasing your expertise.
With a professionally-designed website, you can also use social media to keep in touch with your audience, sharing relevant content and holding contests and promotions.
Additionally, you can use tools like Google Analytics to track the amount of traffic that is visiting your site, as well as engage with visitors through the use of Chatbots, which can automate simple tasks, such as answering questions or providing information.
What Are Some Common Problems People Face When Building A Website?
The most common problems people face when building a website are related to the design and visual appeal of the site. If you’re picking a pre-built theme, the chances are this aspect of your site will look the same as everyone else’s, which means there’s certainly no unique selling proposition (USP) for your brand. This is often the reason why people choose to build their own site, so they can have more control over the design and look of their online presence.
Another big challenge people face when building a website is keeping up with the amount of content they plan on posting. Remember, a website is only as good as its content, so it’s important you post regularly and keep the content fresh. For a new business owner, this can be a real challenge. A good rule of thumb is to put yourself in your audience’s shoes, and ask yourself, “What would make me interested in what this brand has to offer?” Once you’ve identified this interest, it will be much easier to generate content that is both compelling and useful.
How Do I Design A Website?
If you’re looking to design your own site, you have a variety of tools at your disposal. Thanks to the popular WordPress platform, thousands of professional designers have uploaded their work, enabling you to search and find web templates that can be used to build a professional-looking site.
If you’ve picked a WordPress-based platform, the best approach is to use a tool like Elementor to build your site’s visual appeal. Elementor is a complete front-end solution, which means it will take care of the design of your site, as well as the look of your blog posts, galleries, and other content types. Using this tool, you can create a fully functioning website, containing all of the content and functionality you desire, inside of a few hours.
Is Building A Website Worth It?
It’s very difficult to put a price on an hour of work, however, if we assume a professional designer will spend around 10 hours creating a standard WordPress-based website, we can come up with a pretty good estimate of the cost:
$2500-$5000 isn’t a bad price to pay for the ability to generate quality leads and increase brand awareness. Additionally, if you decide to use a tool like HubSpot to build and grow your business, you’ll find that having a website is an essential part of this strategy. With a website, you have the opportunity to connect with potential customers, enabling you to gain a following, and gain credibility as an industry expert.
Choosing to build a website is a bold move, which can put you head to head with some of the best designers and developers in the industry. It also requires you to think outside of the box, and challenge yourself to come up with unique content that will make your audience interested in your product or service.