If you are looking to build a website for your personal use or business but you don’t have any knowledge about coding & programming then you need to use a Content Management System (CMS). But which CMS you need to use? WordPress, which is one of the easiest & leading CMS nowadays. With WordPress & your imagination, you can build a nice & eye-catching website with every feature you need.
However, while using WordPress many people think that they need to have many technical knowledges but this is not true. You just need to have a basic idea about the website & its layout. With this simple knowledge, you can create a simple site for blogs or personal portfolio sites. But if you need to have a professional/business/eCommerce website then you need a little more knowledge about it.
In this post, we’ll discuss how you will get started with WordPress & setup your first simple WordPress website.
Getting Started With WordPress
Get the Best Web Hosting for WordPress
Hosting is just like a hard drive where you need to put your website & people can access it from here. Before getting started with WordPress you need to set up a server know as a web hosting server where your website will be kept for public access. For WordPress websites, there are four types of hosting services from where you can choose any one as per your requirement.
Shared Web Hosting
If you are just getting started with a new website then this hosting will be perfect for you. This is very affordable than other hosting services. In this service, your website is just not on one server but also share servers with other websites.
2. Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
If you are very concerned about the security of your data & website then VPS should be considered. This type of server ensures high security & advanced features than shared hosting. The cost of this is a bit more than shared web hosting.
3. Dedicated WordPress Server
This type of hosting is more expensive than the previous two types as your website doesn’t share a hosting server with others. If you are just getting started with WordPress then you need not go with this type.
4. Managed WordPress Hosting
This one is the most expensive hosting server for WordPress. With this server, you will get a high-speed website and a fully managed dedicated WordPress server.
Domain Name
Domain Name is the identity of your website. With this name, people can identify & access your website. If you’ve already selected the name of your domain of business then you need to buy & register this. You can register it from a domain & hosting service provider. The domain name should be with a suffix of.com/.org/.net/.info & so on.
Remember domain name is unique & if anyone before you have registered with the same name you can’t take that without buying that form the person who registered it for him/her.
Installing WordPress
As soon as you will register & buy a hosting server your server provider company gives access to the Cpanel dashboard of your website. You can log in with the username & password provided by the hosting company by initially accessing (https://yourwebsite.com/cpanel)
After login, you need to scroll down or search for softaculous apps installer. Clicking on this you need to find install WordPress. While you click there you will be redirected to a page where you need to select the version of WordPress you want to install, your domain name on which you want to install WordPress. If you have only one domain name then it will automatically appear. After that, you need to set up a username & password for accessing the backend of your website & you can proceed to installation.
Picking up a Theme
WordPress comes with a lot of free & paid themes. Themes will help to change the style & look of your website. There are various types of themes for various purposes. Change theme according to your desired layout & design of your website. You can change the theme from Appearances > Themes
Integrate Plugins
Plugins are the tools that will help to add extra features & functionality to your WordPress website. You can’t expect a gorgeous website using WordPress without using the right plugins. Features like photo gallery, slider, contact form, payment method, etc can not be done easily without plugins. Some WordPress themes require some basic plugin to have for running the theme perfectly. If you select such a theme then WordPress will send a notification for installing those required plugins. You just need to click being installing the plugin. You can edit your plugin condition from deactivating to active or active to deactivate from the Plugin section of the toolbar. You can also add a new plugin from Plugin > Add new
Create pages
This is going to be the last stage of creating a website. Once you’ve completed all the tasks mentioned before then it’s time to create some pages & posts for your website. Create webpages according to your necessary like the home page, about page, contact us page & so on. You can add pages from Pages > Add new Page & for a post, you can do it from Posts > Add new Post
Conclusion
We all know that practice makes a man perfect. This also happens with WordPress. You can create a simple page easily but for creating a great & eye-catching webpage or landing page you need to use some plugins & practice more & more.
Furthermore, if you have any queries regarding this starting guide for WordPress please let us in the comment so that we all can enhance our knowledge.