Making A Website With WordPress

Hi there, the purpose of this guide is to get you through the process of making a website with WordPress, a professional site for your business or service completely by yourself, step by step, no programming or scripting knowledge is required, only common sense and point-and-click.
Note! I'm not taking about the free WordPress.com blog service, but a full-fledged and self-hosted website that is powered by the WordPress framework.

Making a professional website with WordPress? You'll learn how to build a website that acts as a virtual business card for your small or medium business or service. It often sports a dynamic Homepage, a Contact Form, a Gallery and a Blog, and all that wrapped in eye-catching graphics. Examples:

Professional Business WordPress Website Professional Business WordPress Website
We need: Web Hosting, Domain, WordPress, Premium WP Theme
Time required: About 2 hours
Money required: 60$/year (+30$ one-time fee)
Result: Highly professional website that, may suit your needs by 90%, but cost 10% of what you'd pay to a Web Development firm.

Have feedback or a question? I can be reached at prowpsite@gmail.com

Contents

Terminology: Key Words Explained Back to Top

Step 1 -- Signing Up For Web Hosting + Domain Back to Top

One thing that you shouldn't look for free is Web Hosting, as free ones are very limited in functionality and often forcefully display unwanted advertisements, not professional... Not what we're looking for! The type of hosting you need is the most basic, it is powerful enough for these kinds of websites. (Whose purpose is to showcase something / not a heavy processing application.) 

Bluehost is a hosting company I've used for the past few years, their support is great and they deliver all the functionality you need of a web server. Bluehost's hosting costs 6$ a month and you get a free domain (address of your site), there are companies who charge as little as 2$ but the "bang for the buck" is proportionally lower.
Get Bluehost Web Hosting

Step 1.1 -- Signing Up For Bluehost Web Hosting

  1. Go to bluehost and click the green "Sign Up Now" button, you may want to read their "Features" page to see what you're getting.
  2. Bluehost gives you a domain for free! Choose one and click "Next". From now on I'll refer to this domain as "Your Domain".
  3. Fill in all the information in the Sign Up Form, don't worry for your sensitive information as the connection to that page is encrypted (https), check the Terms of Service checkbox and click "Next".
    "Domain Whois Privacy" is recommended, since it masks you from the world, no one will know who you are. You may want to get "Site Backup Pro" as well, if you fill like you may screw things up... Signing up for 24 months is marginally cheaper than 12, it's up to you, you can get your money back if you're not satisfied.
  4. Choose a strong password, containing numbers, symbols and capitals, I'll refer to this pw as "Bluehost Password"

OK! So now we have Web Hosting + Domain, next step would be installing WordPress on it.

Bluehost Signup Process

Step 2 -- Installing WordPress Back to Top

  1. After signing up for the web hosting account, log in to your account here: https://my.bluehost.com/cgi-bin/cplogin
    Using Your Domain & Bluehost Password.
  2. We'll be using Bluehost's built in service to install WordPress, go here: https://www.simplescripts.com/script_details/install:Wordpress
    On the installation page, click the green "Install" button at the bottom of the page.
  3. A new page appears with 3 steps, make sure you choose Your Domain in Step 1. Check the checkbox in Step 3 and click Complete.
  4. Important! The next page will present you with all the information you need to access your WordPress installation, wait a minute or two until installation is complete and you will see the following:
    • Site URL
      The same as Your Domain. This is what people will write in their browser's navigation bar to access your website.
      Example: http://www.myprowpsite.com/
    • Login URL
      This is the address you need to navigate to in order to log in to your WordPress installation and manage it.
      I'll refer to this address as "WP Admin Panel". Example: http://www.myprowpsite.com/wp-admin/
    • Username & Password
      The credentials used to log in to your WordPress installation, don't forget!
      I'll refer to them as "WP Username" and "WP Password".
  5. Go to WP Admin Panel and log in using WP Username and WP Password, close the previous window.
    To see your site in action, go to Your Domain! Right now it uses the default theme, so it looks pretty generic, we'll fix that...

OK! So now we have Web Hosting + Domain + WordPress, next step is installing the WP Theme of choice!

How to Install WordPress

Step 3 -- Installing a Premium WordPress Theme Back to Top

Next step would be purchasing a Premium WordPress Theme, which cost from 25$ to 40$. There are free themes but they aren't professional looking and behaving, and they lack updates.

My premium WP themes site of choice is ThemeForest, it's one of the largest, if not the largest, marketplace sites for WP themes, amongst other things. Their acception threshold is very high, finding an eye-pleasing and feature-packed theme is a matter of seconds.

Get ThemeForest WordPress Themes

Step 3.1 -- Purchasing a Premium WordPress Theme From ThemeForest

  1. Go to ThemeForest and click the "Create Account" button on top-right corner.
  2. Fill in the Sign Up Form, choose a different password, an confirmation email will be sent to you as you submit the form. Click the link in the email, you'll see that registration is complete.
  3. Let's go to WordPress Themes section of the site and browse away! All themes are awesome, find one that you like the most. To see a theme in action, click it and as a new page opens click the "Live Preview" button, you'll see a live demo of the theme.
    Take your time, find a theme that suits your needs and continue to the next step. (Note not to steer away from the WP Themes section of the site, there are themes that are not for WP! If you're uncertain, look for "WordPress" in the title of the theme.)
    If you definitely need a contact form and a gallery/portfolio, look for these keywords in the theme description! Otherwise you'll have to install them manually, which is out of the scope of this guide.
  4. Found a theme? Great! To purchase, click the "Purchase" button (Regular License) on the top-right corner of the theme page. A box will appear with different payment options.
  5. Click the "Buy Now" button. You can pay via PayPal (electronic payment giant which hides your credentials from 3rd parties),
    Visa, Amex or MasterCard.
  6. If you don't have a PayPal account, click the "Don't have a PayPal account?" button to pay with your credit or debit card (still via PayPal). Once again, connection is encrypted so your sensitive information is safe. Envato (owner of ThemeForest) and PayPal, as well as Bluehost, are well-known and trusted companies.
  7. Fill in the PayPal Payment Form to complete the purchase, the theme is added to your account and is ready for download.
Purchase a Theme From ThemeForest

Step 3.2 -- Installing the Purchased WordPress Theme

  1. In ThemeForest, point your cursor to your username beside "Sign Out" at the top-right corner of the page, and then click "Downloads".
  2. You will see your recently purchased theme, click "Download" and save it on your computer.
  3. Unzip the ZIP file to a separate folder (Right-Click -> "Extract to ZIP-Filename", command may vary across operating systems), if you don't see a command like that -- you don't have the software for zipping / unzipping, in this case download WinRar.
  4. Depending on your theme (I use Dandelion for demo), you will see several folders and possibly theme-files ZIP file with theme's name (in my case it's "dandelion_v2.6.2.zip").

    Possible folders are: "documentation" / "help" (guide specific to the theme as of how to use it) and "photoshop source files" / "psd" (so you could customize the design, for advanced users). Remember to study and always reference the documentation as I cannot explain how to do everything, because it depends on the theme. Also, you may want to contact the theme author via theme's page in ThemeForest if you run into difficulties.

    The theme-files ZIP file with theme's name is the theme files themselves, this is what we need to install the theme, it may be located in the main folder, or in another folder (like "theme"), find it and remember where it is.

    If there's no ZIP file, means theme files come extracted, you have to ZIP them for install, select them all (many folders & files, example files: index.php, page.php, functions.php, if you see those files, they're the theme files for sure), Right-Click the selection -> "Add to Containing-Folder-Name". You will see a ZIP file appear containing the theme files.

  5. Go to WP Admin Panel->"Appearance"->"Themes"->"Install Themes"->"Upload", click "Browse" button, choose the theme-files ZIP file that we unzipped along with other folders (or zipped, if it was unzipped) in Step 4 and click "Install Now".
  6. When the theme is installed, click the "Activate" link.
  7. Your site now uses this theme, go to Your Domain to see it! (You can click the title of your site beside the WP logo on the top-left corner of WP Admin Panel instead.)

Well, congratulations! You have a professional website up and running, what's left is creating some pages and filling them with content, which is a breeze thanks to WordPress's great Admin Panel and tons of free plugins.

Next we'll add the most common pages so you would have a solid website page structure, the pages are: Homepage, About, Contact (contains a contact form for the user to contact you), Gallery/Portfolio (showcases your work, products, ...) and Blog (containing posts pertaining to your business or random ramblings).

Install WordPress Theme

Step 4 -- Creating Common Website PagesBack to Top

  1. Go to WP Admin Panel->"Pages", click "Trash" link under "Sample Page", we don't need this.
  2. Click "Add New" under "Pages". This is where page creation happens, you have an advanced content editor which lets you style your text as you wish along with other features, amongst which some may vary from theme to theme.
  3. Creating the Home Page
    Type "Homepage" for the Title (the wide textbox with "Enter title here" in it), for Template (right column) choose "Homepage" (if it exists), this will give this page a unique look the designer meant for the Homepage to have. Click "Publish".

    Type nothing in the big text editor, which holds the main content of the page, as it most likely won't appear for the homepage template, because it contains special elements (such as the Image Slider, content columns, boxes, etc) which are controlled by dedicated areas in the Page Creation interface itself or in a dedicated Settings Page (Under "Appearance" tab, or as a standalone tab, named something like "Theme-Name Options / Settings"). I cannot tell you exactly how to set up the Homepage, as it depends on the theme, but it should be pretty intuitive (no programming/scripting required), if you find it hard, see the documentation / help provided by the theme, it's thorough and covers all major aspects of the theme.

  4. Creating the About Page
    Repeat Step 2. Type "About" for the Title, type some text in the big text editor. Click "Publish".
  5. Creating the Contact Page
    Repeat Step 2. Type "Contact" for the Title, for Template choose "Contact". Click "Publish". Note that maybe there's no Contact Template for your theme (or other common templates) and the page designated to hold the contact form is chosen from theme's dedicated Settings Page, again -- see your theme's documentation which came with the downloaded file!
  6. Creating the Gallery/Portfolio Page
    Repeat Step 2. Type "Gallery" / "Portfolio" / "Work" / whatever for the Title, for Template choose "Gallery" / "Portfolio". Click "Publish". Adding of gallery items (images with titles and descriptions) is unique to every theme, see documentation.
  7. Creating the Blog Page
    Repeat Step 2. Type "Blog" for the Title, for Template choose "Blog" (if it exists). Click "Publish". Currently this page won't show your blog posts, we'll fix that in (Step 5).

Step 5 -- Some Final WordPress ConfigurationsBack to Top

Optional Installation of Common WordPress PluginsBack to Top

There are some plugins which are practically a must for your website to have, they add certain functionality that without you'd be the underdog in the fierce competition for higher ranking in search engines and interactive website experience.

In WP Admin Panel->"Plugins"->"Add New"->Type the following plugin names, to install, one by one in the "Search" field. Upon finding the plugin, click "Install Now"->"OK"->"Activate Plugin". After the plugin is installed and activated, head to its admin page, which is located under "Settings" and is named after the plugin, to configure it to your liking. Feeling lost? See plugin's support/documentation (links to it, if relevant, are in plugin's admin page), don't be afraid! It's written for humans.

Useful WordPress Resources Back to Top

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Well, that's it! The end of our Professional WordPress Business Website journey, I hope you learnt something and now have a great website that you set up by yourself and did it for a funny amount of money.

Take care!