How to create your Website using WordPress

on February 24, 2024

Do you want to know how to make a WordPress website? Good choice! WordPress is the most adaptable and popular website platform out there.

Creating a WordPress website is easier than you might think. You don’t have to spend lots of money, hire a developer, or learn to write code.

In this complete WordPress for beginners tutorial, we will show you how you can get started building your very own WordPress site.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

How to Set Up Hosting
How to Install WordPress
How to Use a Theme for Your Website’s Design
How to Add Content to Your New Site
How to Customize the Look of Your WordPress Site
How to Install Plugins
Frequently Asked Questions

Ready? Let’s get started.

Get a Hosting Account

The first thing you’ll need to do is get yourself a hosting account and domain name.

A hosting account is a space on the internet where your WordPress site lives. You pay a hosting provider a monthly or annual fee to rent some server space from them. Once you’ve done that, the software itself is completely free, meaning that creating your own site with WordPress could be cheaper than you think.

Your domain name is the address your site can be found at. For example, this guide is on systemfreaks.com. You’ll need to find a domain name that’s available and reflects your brand name. It could be the name of your business, it might be your own name, or it could describe what you do.

You might find the .com version of your domain name is taken already, in which case you can either find something similar or use a different TLD (top-level domain) such as .net, .biz, .blog, or something more relevant to your business.

Premium WordPress Hosting From SystemFreaks

SystemFreaks offer fast and reliable web hosting packages and is one of the best hosting providers for a WordPress site, and we provide a 40% discount for new hosting accounts —so create a WordPress site without breaking the bank.

Let’s continue at how you set it up.

Start by going on our website (make sure you use this link as it will give you the discount).

You have Four plans to choose from. If you’re just creating one site, the Shared Starter plan is the best option for you, but if you want to host multiple sites, go for Premium (most popular).

Click on the Get Started button under the plan you want to order. The next move is to register a domain for your site or provide details of the one you already have.

Now follow the steps and sign up. Once you’ve done this, you’ll receive an email with details of your web hosting plan and how to log into it. Now you’re ready to install WordPress!

How to Install WordPress

You have two options:

Install WordPress manually by uploading the files through FTP or the file manager.
Install WordPress using Softaculous automatic installation.
Using Softaculous is much quicker and easier if you’ve never installed WordPress before.

To install WordPress with Softaculous follow this steps :

How to Use a Theme for Your WordPress Design

Every WordPress site needs a theme. This determines how your site looks and how it displays your content.

When you first install WordPress, the default theme will be installed and activated for you. Sticking with the default theme will make your site look just like millions of others, so it’s worth changing it. There are thousands of great themes out there, and many of them are free.

You can install a new theme from one of two places:

The Customizer
The Themes screen.

If you use the Customizer, you can preview what your theme will look like before activating it. However, you can only install new themes via the Themes screen. So I recommend using both these screens.

If you want to build a unique website that specializes in client conversion for your brand, you can take a look at our professional web design solutions.

Installing a Template from the WordPress Theme repository.

Start by going to Appearance > Themes. Click the Add New button.

This will take you to the library to find and install themes.

Here you can find thousands of free themes or paid themes. Locating the right one for you can be a little difficult, as there are so many templates to choose from.

There are a few features that can help you in finding the right template :

You can use the Feature Filter to find templates with certain features.
You can use the search option to look for themes with certain aspects.
Use the Popular screen to choose from templates that are used the most by other wp users.

Take some time to look at some templates and install – test a few of them on your site.

Activating and Customizing Your Template.

Once you’ve chosen and installed your theme, go to Appearance > Customize. This redirects you to the Customizer, which is an amazing tool for testing new things out on your WordPress website.

At the Active Theme section, click the Change button.

From there, you can preview the themes you’ve installed and find out what they look like on your WordPress website. You might also find what the theme allows you to tweak, things like the colors and fonts.

Once everything is ready, click the Publish button to make your changes permanent.

You can make a lot more customizations to your template, and it’s a good idea to do so once you’ve added some content to your site, as you’ll get a better idea of how things look. We’ll come back to customizations shortly.

How to Add Content to Your WordPress website

WordPress gives you two content types: pages and posts.

Posts are your news or updates: stories or something you want to share with the world. This is the content that you share on your social media accounts and that people will receive in their email if they subscribe to your newsletter.
Pages are different. They’re updated less frequently, are longer-lasting, and inform people about your business. Pages include things like your contact page and your ‘about me’ page.

How to Install Plugins

To install a new plugin, go to Plugins > Add New.

From here, you can search for free or paid plugins for a wide variety of tasks.

To set up a plugin, first, you need to find it in the list and then click the Install button. Once the installation is complete, that button will reform into an Activate now button: click it to activate the plugin.

Alternatively, you can upload and install a custom plugin you’ve bought from a third party. To set up a custom plugin, click on the Upload Plugin button and upload the zip file containing the plugin files.

WordPress will redirect you to another screen telling you the plugin has been installed. Click the Activate Plugin button to activate it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here you can find answers to some of the commonly asked questions about building a WordPress website.

What are the benefits of using WordPress as your CMS for your website?

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system. The software is free to use, and there’s a huge community of users and developers available to help you.

What is web hosting?

Webhosting is when you rent space on a webserver to host your website. You pay the hosting provider for this service (and also for a domain name), and then install the WordPress software yourself or using an automated setup, for free.

SystemFreaks hosting is one of the best in the market for a fast and stable WordPress website. You can check our offers by clicking here.

Why do I need hosting?

Isn’t WordPress just for blogging?

Back in the day, WordPress was originally used as a blogging platform, but that’s not the case anymore. It can now be used to create a website for just about anything you can think of.

Do I need a developer to build a WordPress site?

Hiring a WordPress developer isn’t necessary. WordPress is a very user-friendly platform, and there are thousands of guides online you can follow.

Can I sell things on my WordPress based site?

Yes. An e-shop plugin like WooCommerce is free and lets you sell products on your site.

Is WordPress expensive?

No. The software itself is free, and there are thousands of free themes and plugins. You’ll have to buy hosting, but it costs less than a cup of good coffee per month.

If you want to buy premium plugins, you can, but again they are affordable.