How to Create a Website in 3 Steps-

Guide for Beginners

This guide is very detailed yet very easy to follow — even if you’re not very technical.
Learn How to Create a Website from Scratch. We’ll use WordPress (free) for Your
website & you will be able to set up the right way on the right platform for what you
need.

Step #1: Choose Your Website Platform

Deciding what platform to construct your website on is an important first step.

When I say “platform,” what do I mean?

Over a decade ago, when I started doing web development, most sites were built using
code such as HTML, CSS, and PHP. Unfortunately, these are all difficult to master.

Many people believe that creating a website from scratch needs significant design and
technical abilities, but that’s not true.

WordPress makes establishing a website accessible to everyone in 2021.

An easier way to describe a CMS (also known as a website construction platform) is a
user-friendly platform that enables you to create websites easily and manage your own
online content instead of utilizing HTML, PHP, and other computer languages to
develop a website from scratch.

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Rather than using website builders, why use

WordPress to Create a Website?

1. You can use it for free (no recurring subscriptions, open-source)

WordPress doesn’t cost anything to download, install, or use. The web development
community produced several free stunning themes and templates, making it simple to
launch quickly.

2. It is quite easy to use and allows for numerous modifications.

The secret to Google Docs is learning how to use it. Once you’ve learned how to use it,
you can easily add your own content. You can quickly increase the functionality of
WordPress by downloading free plugins that handle just about any website — from a
small business website to an e-commerce website. You’ll be able to add contact forms,
subscription forms, image galleries, storefronts, and several other forms to your website
with the plugins in WordPress. It’s actually all rather straightforward.

3. When it is developed, your site will be “responsive.” Even

smartphones and tablets will be able to use it.
Your website will be responsive, working with any mobile device, from smartphones and
tablets to smartwatches—no need to outsource the work to a web developer.

4. In addition, other resources are available from the community.

It is rather easy to acquire assistance when you need it with so many people utilizing
the site (webmasters, small-business owners, bloggers). You can seek assistance there
for free or outsource development to the WordPress community for thousands of
dollars.

What are alternatives available for WordPress?

They exist.

While I believe other options exist, I plan to utilize WordPress nonetheless.

Wix is a simple website builder with a simple drag-and-drop interface, but it is more
expensive, cannot handle larger websites, and cannot be moved if you need to do so.
When it comes to aesthetics, Squarespace is quite aesthetically pleasing, making it
easier to design websites with high aesthetic standards. Still, it comes at a premium
price and doesn’t offer a function to transfer your website.
Drupal is a sophisticated platform, but it has a steep learning curve that makes it not
ideal for new programmers.
Joomla is similar to WordPress in that it is a tool to make a website, but you will need to
be knowledgeable about coding to customize your site as you need.

Step #2: Find a Domain Name and Host

To get a new website online, you’ll need two things:

1. An internet domain name (a web address like yoursitename.com)

2. Internet website hosting (a service that connects your site to the internet)
But hosting and domain names are not included with the WordPress platform itself, as
an external provider provides them. But for around $3 — $5 a month, it’s still less
expensive than a cup of coffee.
You can only obtain a professional look by using your own web address; not someone
else’s free domain (for example, yourbusiness.my-free-website.com.)

You can avoid website downtime and slow load times by ensuring your hosting service
are reliable (very important for everyone who visits your pages.)

“Read about: Top 10 Domain Registrars in 2021”

Where can I get a domain name and hosting?

For personal use, I've generally utilized Bluehost.com as a site hosting and domain
registrar.

Website hosting costs less than a movie ticket (subscription fees are only $2.75 per
month, and they provide a free domain name as well) (a nice perk to have).

While you're welcome to attempt to use alternative web hosting services

like Hostgator or even attempt to host your site on your own, this approach would be
exceptionally challenging and probably wouldn't be capable of meeting your site's
visitors' needs. So rather than saving money by getting a cheap web host, use the
savings to obtain a quality host.

You can also get a professional email account (i.e., one that uses your name
like YourName@YourWebsite.com) by purchasing your own domain name too.

Are you already in possession of a domain name and hosting? Then, you can skip to
the third stage, where I will guide you through your website setup.

What kind of domain name should I pick?

Here are a few guidelines to bear in mind when selecting your domain name:

1. Domain should reflect your business’s website name in the domain name. As an
example: YourCompanyName.com
2. YourName.com can be a good alternative if you’re going to create a personal
website for yourself.
The majority of web addresses, like .com, .org, or .net, will end with .com, .org, or .net,
but more recently, a variety of additional domain extensions have emerged, ranging
from .blog to .party.

There isn’t much to say. For the most part, stick with generic top-level domains like
.com, .net, or .org. Unless they specifically describe your website, .com, .net, and .org
are usually better.
Is there anything else you can tell me about finding a domain name?
Choosing your domain name can be made easier by utilizing these two elements.

#1 Is it possible to brand it? For example, if you build a website on poetry, you should
choose poetryacademy.com or poetryfall.com rather than best-poetry-website.net, as
these are far better options.

#2 Do you remember it? Memorable domain names are considerably easier to

remember if they are short, punchy, and concise. Conversely, visitors could forget the
domain name if it is excessively long, unreadable, or spelled in an unusual way.

#3 Does it have a catchy ring to it? If you seek a domain name that glides off the
tongue, describes what you (or your organization) do, and sticks in mind, you should
choose one with an identifiable pattern. Unfortunately, searching for a suitable domain
name can be challenging because more than 200 million active domain names are
currently listed globally. Don’t give up, though.

There is one universal rule when it comes to domain names: If you like it, take it.
THE WISE ONE

Step #3: Create a Website and Start Designing

1. Install WordPress for your website.
You may install WordPress in two ways: one that is much easier and quite difficult.

You can use WordPress's one-click installation to install a WordPress website.

A significant portion of popular and trusted web hosting services have included one-click
WordPress installation for quite some time now.

You will either locate the “one-click installation” in the account creation process or your
account control panel if you decided to use Bluehost or another similar hosting
company.

“Want free hosting? Check out Hostinger.”

For example, the process for installing WordPress on Bluehost includes these steps:

1. Sign up with Bluehost.

2. Select your hosting service (cheapest plan is fine)
3. If you already have a domain, include it in the domain list.
4. Determine your hosting length (you can remove “Extras”) and fill in your details.
5. Begin by going through the payment process and signing up for an account.
 6. To install WordPress, click the “One-Click WordPress Install” link and log in
to Bluehost.

2. MANUAL INSTALL (if your web hosting provider doesn’t have an

easy way to do it)
1. Visit the website below to get WordPress: http://wordpress.org/download
2. To set up WordPress, you should first create a new folder on your desktop and
then unzip the software.
This is step 3, and the file you’ll need to look for is named wp-config-sample.php.
Rename this file to: wp-config.php.

4. Fill in the following lines in wp-config.php:

 Here you define your database name as “database name here.”

 Define your hosting username as “DB USER” and your hosting password as “DB
PASSWORD”.
If there are any gaps, save the file and finish later.

5. Now log into your hosting FTP using your FTP username and password
(download FileZilla for that). FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is normally accessed through
your domain name (i.e., “ftp.yourdomain.com”), and your login and password should
also be the same ones you used to register your host.

6. There should be no file entitled “index” in the directory; if one exists, delete it. Once
you’ve completed uploading the files from your WordPress folder to your FTP server,
you’re finished uploading to WordPress. Using the “drag-and-drop” feature
in FileZilla seems appropriate to me.

7. Finally, visit yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php

You should see this page.

You only need to complete the necessary fields, and you are good to go!

If it takes you longer than one click to set up your hosting, you’re probably working with
a poor host.

2. Choose a Theme for Your Site (Free or Premium)

Now that we have completed the preceding stage, we will learn how to work
with WordPress themes.

WordPress themes are design templates that enable you to make quick and easy
alterations to your site’s appearance.

Fortunately, WordPress offers a multitude of themes for users to pick from.

The WordPress theme directory, which is absolutely free to use, holds more than
8,000 files.

Instead of visiting a different site, you may access WordPress themes from within the
platform.

There is only one step after which you’ll be able to add a new theme: Go
to Appearance > Themes, and click the large Plus sign that says “Add New Theme.”
Once you’ve located a design theme that fits your site, use the search bar to find it.

You can view a theme demo, learn more about it, and see its features by clicking on the
theme in the listing and going to the Details & Preview screen.
In the Details & Preview screen, choose a theme you like and click the Install button to
install it.

Once the installation procedure is complete, click the Activate button where the Install
button was.

Premium theme markets, if you want to use them:

 MOJO Marketplace.
 Envato Elements.
 Elegant Themes.
 Themify.
 StudioPress.

3. Add Content (Pages and Posts)

First, you must have some material on your site before you can start working on on-site
personalization.

After all, it’s difficult to personalize a site that has no visible content. In terms of material,
you’ll need a lot to get started, and the content you will require will depend on the topic
of your site and your ambitions.

However, practically every site features crucial pages such as these:

 Homepage
 About page
 Contact page
Consider what information would be most helpful to your visitors while you decide which
pages to add. Your graphics work will also require you to consider visual material, such
as images.

Some WordPress themes come with page templates for certain page kinds for easy
customization. Additional layouts for each page are available to those who opt for that
feature.

Use these features to personalize your appearance by going to Appearance >

Customize.

The latest WordPress default theme, Twenty Twenty-One, is used to establish a

website in this example. Unless otherwise specified, it sets the Homepage to a static
page that you can customize under Homepage Settings. The dropdown menu at the top
of the page is for you to pick the page that will be your website’s homepage.

Alternatively, you can select Choose the option to feature your latest blog posts if you
want your homepage to showcase recent entries.

You should click Publish in the upper left corner to confirm your selections.

After you finish the task described above, you may continue to develop new pages for
your site. To do this, head to Pages > Add New in the main dashboard.
Using the Gutenberg editor in conjunction with the Twenty Twenty-One theme allows
me to title and compose my pages.

You can add new features, including photos and formatting, to this page.

Perform this procedure for every extra page you’ve added to your site.

4. Make Sure Your Website is Well-Organized

A website is like a library.

With each new blog post, your website structure will become increasingly vital.
Getting skilled at structuring your site so that your visitors can find their way through it is
crucial for successful website creation.

It is essential to have a navigation menu with this design. The next step is to make your
content visible to the site’s users. You can do that through the Appearance >
Menus options.

The first step to implementing a new menu is to give it a name and then click “Create
Menu.”

The feature on the left is now available for you to use after that. To give you an
example, in the example shown above, you can check and uncheck boxes to choose
which pages to appear in the menu, then click “Add to Menu”.

You can move menu items around like this, and they’ll convert into sub-items too. Once
you’re happy, you will have the option to select where on the screen you’d want to have
this menu appear (in this case Primary menu).

To view the new menu in action, go to your site’s front end and click Save Menu.
When you’re thinking about your site's overall structure, you should aim to design it in a
way that makes sense and helps your users locate the places they need to go.

5. Additional Customization Options

You can further personalize your look by going to Appearance > Customize. Looking
around will reveal that it provides extra possibilities for customizing your website. You
have the ability to customize various sections of your site, for example:

 Header and slogan

 Colors
 Typography
 Image for backgrounds
 Menus
 Widgets

You can also modify your homepage, blog page, and custom code. Depending on the
theme you’ve installed, the options that show will change.
Besides theme customization, there is a wide range of WordPress plugins accessible
for free and paid use. More than 60,000 plugins are in the official WordPress plugin
directory alone, providing everything from new features and functionality to enhancing
your site. Even more so, third-party marketplaces are flooded with more selections.

To install new plugins, head to the Plugins section and click the “Add New” button.

When you first go live, you will see a list of the most popular plugins in use. If you need
something different, use the search field to find it.

When you are ready to install a plugin, click the “Install Now” button. Download it first,
then click the “Activate” button. As long as you have installed and activated all the
plugins on your site, you may access all plugins and the ability to activate, deactivate,
and delete them via the Plugins section in the WordPress main menu.

Some great plugins to consider include:

  Yoast SEO is a powerful plugin for adding on-page SEO optimization tips and
Open Graph social media tagging to every page and post and the capability to
configure these settings.
 Jetpack is everything you need to make your website faster, more responsive,
and SEO-friendly, including social media integration, contact forms, a website
search, and other functionality.
 Smush — With this plugin, photos are compressed, so they use less disk space
and load pages faster.
 WooCommerce — W3TC’s best-selling e-commerce WordPress plugin makes it
simple to set up an online business. More on this concept further down.
 MonsterInsights — This plugin adds Google Analytics to your WordPress
dashboard.
Page-builder plugins give you even more control over how your website looks. With
these plugins, you may drag and drop to build complete web designs, not just individual
pages and articles. The following are among the most popular choices:

 Elementor is an all-in-one website builder with fast page loads, numerous

templates, and visual web page editing features.
 Elegant Themes’ Divi (short for “Divi: A new straightforward method to customize
websites”) is a straightforward way.
 Beaver Builder — A straightforward page builder that substantially reduces site
creation time.
6. Add a Blog (Optional)
Some websites don’t need blogs. However, publishing one now and then might be a
good strategy for showcasing your skills, providing additional value for your readers,
and distributing fresh content.

You first have to choose a blog page to add a blog to WordPress. Additionally, you may
set up your homepage to display your latest content automatically. However, to get a
separate blog page, you’ll need to build it first.

All you have to do is make an empty page called Blog (or whatever you like, but Blog is
appropriate since it will create your blog page’s address of yoursite.com/blog). Then,
you only need to publish it. Next, use the setting under Appearance > Customize >
Homepage Settings to assign it as your Posts Page. Alternatively, you can set the
setting under Settings > Reading and choose the Pages Tab.
All blog articles are stored immediately and appear on your chosen page when saved.
Add it to your navigation menu, please.

If you want to add blog posts to your WordPress website, go to the Add New
Posts menu.

To get you to the same place as you were previously, this will take you to the content editor you
previously used for your pages. Your blog post now has a title and some content. The site will
also need graphics, formatting, headers, and any other features it may need. Additional features
in the sidebar on the right include applying categories and tags, setting an excerpt, and configuring
a featured image.

When you have finished making all of your changes, click Publish. Congratulations on
posting your first entry!

7. Adding an Online Store (Optional)

A website does not need an eCommerce store every time. Even if you are interested in
learning how to make a WordPress website with an online store, you should continue
reading since I have more information to provide.

WooCommerce is the most popular add-on for this reason.

It takes little time to set up, has a wide variety of payment alternatives, and comes with
optimized themes to help you build an online store. Additionally, the e-commerce
platform comes with a choice of extensions that you can purchase to modify your site
for various uses.
8. Configure SSL
Your website’s visitors’ data is kept secure if an SSL (secure sockets layer) is used.
Therefore, it’s critical to provide a great user experience by prioritizing user privacy and
security, and using SSL is a significant search ranking element.

You can see if SSL is active on your new website by looking at the Bluehost settings
page.

1. You should log into Bluehost.

2. Navigate to My Sites.
3. Go to Manage Your Site.
4. In the following screen, locate the tab labeled Security.
5. You will want to ensure that your free SSL certificate or SSL certificate, found
under the Security Certificate section, is correct. Let’s Encrypt’s current status. It
should be in the On position.
6. Check to see if SSL is properly configured by revisiting your site. Next to the
domain name in your browser’s address bar, you should see a lock.
9. Launch Your WordPress Website
It’s time to launch your site after your site is ready. Additionally, verify and recheck your
formatting and proofread each post and page again. Finally, check the “Coming Soon
Active” link on the dashboard when everything appears in order.
Once you’ve done that, click the “Launch your site” option.

With this feature, you can now look at your live WordPress website.

Please make sure that all links are functional, your content appears decent, and your
images are structured correctly.

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Congratulations! You’re now the proud owner of a

new WordPress website.
Even with a step-by-step tutorial, learning how to create a website is no minor task.
If you acquire a new skill and begin to see your hard work pay off, it may be really
gratifying.

However, do not rest here. By implementing increasingly sophisticated functionalities

and features, utilize your new understanding. Learn how to design a website, but create
the one you really want.

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