How to Build a WordPress Website

1. Select a WordPress plan (WordPress.com only).
2. Set up your domain name and hosting provider.
3. Install WordPress.
4. Choose your theme.
5. Add posts and pages to your website.
6. Customize your website.
7. Install plugins.
8. Optimize your website to increase page speed.
9. Get inspired from WordPress website examples.

WordPress is by far the most popular CMS today. Its ease of use and versatility enable the majority of users and business owners to create a website that works for their needs. Here’s how you can do the same.

1. Select a WordPress plan (WordPress.com only).

To begin creating your website, select a WordPress plan. As stated earlier, with WordPress.org you only have one (free) plan option — but it requires you to buy your domain, hosting provider, plugins, themes, and everything else related to your WordPress site.

With WordPress.com, you’ll have to choose between the five plans they offer.

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The main differences between these plans are the monthly fee, types of site customization, and the access you get to marketing tools.

2. Set up your domain name and hosting provider.

Setting up your domain name and choosing your hosting provider for WordPress typically happen around the same time in the website creation process.

Before we talk about how to complete those tasks, let’s discuss the difference between your domain name and hosting provider.

Think about your domain name as your home address — it’s how your visitors are able to locate your website on the Internet. You domain name will look something like this: www.example.com.

Your hosting provider is like your house — it’s where your website files are actually stored. Without a hosting provider, your site wouldn’t have space on a server to “live.” Some of the best WordPressing hosting providers include NAME SERVER, Bluehost, and Kinsta.

How to pick domain and hosting providers

Again, WordPress.org requires you to create your own domain and find a third-party hosting provider for your website. WordPress.com allows you to decide whether or not you want a custom domain depending on the plan you choose, but it takes care of the hosting for you.

Your hosting provider is important because it impacts your website’s speed, security, and reliability. There are hundreds of providers to choose from, which is why we put together a list of 22 of the best WordPress hosting providers to help you decide what will work best for you. All of these providers meet WordPress’ three hosting requirements:

• PHP version 7.4 or greater
• MySQL version 5.6 or greater OR MariaDB version 10.1 or greater.
• HTTPS support

When considering hosting providers for your WordPress site, make sure they meet all of the above criteria.

For domain names, getting one is as easy as searching and purchasing one through your domain registrar of choice. If you are new to WordPress.com but have already purchased and created a domain name elsewhere, no problem — you’ll have the option to transfer or map it to your WordPress website.
For the sake of this guide, let’s assume you do not yet have a domain or hosting provider. Here’s how to start creating your website with the popular hosting service Bluehost.

First, head to Bluehost’s website and click Get Started.

 
From here, you’ll be taken to Bluehost’s pricing page to choose from four plans.

Once you choose your plan and click Select, you’ll be taken to another page to sign up with a domain name.

Once you select your domain name, you’ll be brought to a page to complete your account and billing information for your purchase.

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After confirming your account and purchasing your domain, you will gain access to your hosting dashboard where you’ll be able to install the WordPress CMS.

3. Install WordPress.

If you are using a hosting provider outside of WordPress, you’ll need to install the CMS to connect your new domain to your website.

This time, let’s use GoDaddy as an example. (Don’t worry, no matter the hosting provider you choose, this process looks similar.)

Note: If you choose to use a managed WordPress hosting service like WP Engine or Kinsta, you won’t need to go through this process, as those services were built specifically for WordPress and will have WordPress installed for you.

To start, log into your GoDaddy account, click Web Hosting, and then Manage. You will be brought to a screen with your account details.

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Scroll down and under Options & Settings, you will see an area titled Popular Apps. Click on the WordPress app to begin the installation.

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After installing WordPress, you’ll need to answer a few questions about the domain you want to use, the directory where you want to install WordPress, and your admin information.

After about 24 hours, your website will be installed to your hosting account, and GoDaddy will send you an email confirmation.

Now that you have your domain set up and WordPress installed, you’ll next need to set up your “Primary Domain” within WordPress, so your visitors see your website when they search your domain.

In WordPress, go to My Site and click Domains. Select the custom domain you want to make your primary domain.

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Then, click Make Primary.

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Confirm you meant to make this change by clicking Update Primary Domain.

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Verify the update was successful by looking for a green box with a checkmark that says Primary Domain.

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Now, on to step four: making your website look nice.

4. Choose your theme.

You can customize your WordPress website using WordPress’ many themes and templates, each of which contains a multitude of layouts, formatting styles, colors, fonts, and other visual options.

Similar to the wide range of hosting providers available, there are also hundreds of themes and templates to choose from. To help you out, we’ve put together a guide to 20 of our favorite themes and templates and categorized them by purpose. Whether you’re looking for a theme versatile enough for multiple different business types, or one suitable for your ecommerce site, portfolio, blog, or business, there’s a theme that will work for your specific needs. On top of your theme, you can further customize your pages with a builder tool like Elementor.

To find a theme that works best for you in WordPress.org, head to your admin dashboard. Click Appearance, then Themes. You’ll be brought to another screen where you can browse available themes or search for a specific one you have in mind.

Once you find the perfect theme, simply install it to begin customizing. Each theme has different steps required during the customization process, so be sure to follow them closely. If a theme has a website (often accessible through the WordPress theme and template library), check for documentation as you work through the customization process.

5. Add posts and pages to your website.

When you add content to your WordPress website, it’s usually displayed in the form of posts and pages.

Posts (or “dynamic pages”) are typically used for blogs and portfolios because they automatically place your newest website content at the top of your featured content. Pages are static, which is why they appeal more to business owners — the added content stays in the same place.

Posts and pages are the main post types in WordPress. Additionally, there are other native post types, as well as custom post types. For now, we can just stick to pages and posts.

Start by deciding whether you want a post or page to serve as the homepage (or any page) of your website. To add a post to your website, go to the admin dashboard, click Posts and then Add New.

You can add a title for your post, place photos, change the format, and insert page elements via blocks and shortcodes. Click Save Draft to save your changes as a draft, or click Publish to immediately take the post live.

Adding a page to your website is a similar process. In your admin area, click Pages, then Add New.

First, add a title to your page. Next, you can insert photos, embed videos, and add content. Follow the same steps to create multiple pages for your website. When finished, click Save Draft or Publish.

6. Customize your website.

Beyond the theme you choose, there are a number of ways to further customize your website. Let’s review a few options.

First, let’s customize your site title. From your admin dashboard, select Settings > General. Here, add your website title and tagline. You can also toggle other basic site information like you URL, email, time zone, and more.

Next, let’s customize your reading sections. Under Settings > Reading, you can change your home page to a static page.

Consider this if you’re a business owner who prefers having content remain in one place on your website. Consider using a dynamic page if you’re a blogger who prefers having your newest content appear at the top of your pages. This way, your visitors can easily find your latest posts.

The navigation bar is customizable, too. This enables your visitors to easily find information on your website.

Add a navigation bar by going to your admin dashboard, clicking Appearance and then Menus.

From here, you can determine how you want your bar to look, how many pages you want to include, what you want to title those pages, and what order you want them to be listed in.

Of course, this is just a fraction of what you can do in the dashboard — click here for more information on your WordPress site settings and customization options.

7. Install plugins.

Plugins are pieces of software that add functionality to your WordPress website and enhance the user experience. With over 55,000 available plugins, there are options for most every type of website and user. Some of the most popular plugins available include:

• HubSpot WordPress Plugin: Easily add pop-ups, forms, and live chat to your WordPress website. And as an added bonus, pair this plugin, or other CRM plugins, with your HubSpot CRM.
• All in One SEO: A top-rated SEO plugin that’s used by businesses to improve their rankings and uncover new SEO growth opportunities.
• The Events Calendar: An effortless events calendar that makes scheduling events from your site easy.
• Yoast SEO: The go-to plugin to help you with on-page SEO. This app makes sure you’re following best practices before you push your site live.
• TablePress: Need a table on your site? Look no further.
• The SEO Framework: Another plugin that can help you master SEO on your site.
• Weglot: A top translation plugin for translating WordPress and WooCommerce websites.

To begin installation, head to the Plugins section in your admin dashboard. This shows you all the plugins currently installed on your site. Depending on your host, you might have several plugins installed already. Note that for a plugin to work you must activate it after installing.

To add a new plugin, click Add New. Search for your desired plugin and
then click Install Now, wait a few seconds, then click Activate.

Get the WordPress CRM plugin that helps you organize, track, and nurture your leads.

8. Optimize your website to increase page speed.

Website performance is a critical part of the user experience. If a page takes too long to load, your visitors will move quickly to another site. You don’t want to frustrate visitors with slow speeds.

You can improve your website’s performance by enabling browser caching. Browser caching is the process of temporarily storing your website’s data on your visitors’ browsers. That way, your content doesn’t need to be sent from the web server for it to appear in the browser, which increases the website speed.

To enable caching for your website, install and activate a caching plugin with the process described above.

For instance, WP Rocket is a WordPress caching plugin that will make your site faster in a few clicks. Thanks to powerful options such as Remove Unused CSS and Delay JS Execution, you’ll save time and effort while improving your Core Web Vitals grades, the PageSpeed Insights score, and the overall loading time.

9. Get inspired from WordPress website examples.

As you begin to customize your website, you may feel overwhelmed by all the options you have. Instead of starting completely from scratch, it helps to grab some inspiration from other exemplary WordPress websites. Here are some of our favorites:

99% Invisible is a popular podcast that focuses on design and architecture. Their website is sleek, modern, and offers easy navigation for visitors to quickly access each podcast episode.

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The Houston Zoo’s website displays its main attraction on the homepage. The magnifying glass icon on the top menu bar makes searching the site effortless.

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Awesome Motive, the creators behind several WordPress projects, engages their visitors with a polished, yet simple website. It features subtle animation to grab people’s attention.