8 Steps to build a WordPress Website
How to Build a WordPress website in 8 steps
- Choose a domain and buy it.
- Buy the Web Hosting.
- Install WordPress on your computer.
- Select a WordPress theme.
- Install the theme.
- Install Plugins.
- Add widgets.
- Publish pages, posts and add images and videos to make it colorful.
A good website improves the credibility of a business. While online visibility is important for any business to thrive in the current scenario, website development is an excellent career choice. Building a website is easy and with a little knowledge and creativity you can design a robust site. Let’s learn to build a WordPress website in 8 steps!
Website design essentials
Important terms associated with every website are Domain name, Web Hosting and Website builder.
- Domain Name: Domain name is the name or address of your website that people type in the browser’s URL bar to visit your site. This is like the address of your house.
- Web hosting: Is the actual place where your files stay. It refers to the company that rent out their computer/servers to store your website data. This is like your house, the physical space where you live in.
- Web builder: These are tools or platforms which help in creating websites.
The most widely used is WordPress – it is an open source, website building platform, where you can create beautiful websites, without coding knowledge.
8 Steps to build a WordPress Website
1. Purchase a domain
You need to buy a domain name from a domain registrar company. Choose the most suitable, less complicated and a unique name for your website.
Buying a domain name alone, gives you the right to use it for a specific period (usually 1 year).
2. Purchase a Web Hosting account
Now you need web hosting to store your website’s files. Some companies provide both domain name as well as web hosting.
Some of the most popular domain and web hosting providers are:
After you buy the hosting, you need to update your domain name settings and point it to your web hosting service provider.
3. Install WordPress
Next you need a website builder which is WordPress. It is the most popular tool and has a wide variety of templates to suit every need.
Install WordPress on your machine. It provides a perfect testing ground for experimentation, theme development, plugin testing, and website development.
4. Select a WordPress theme
There are several free and paid themes available in WordPress. Each one comes with a different design, layout, and features. You need to choose the one that suits your taste and requirements for your website. These are designed to serve specific kind of websites, e.g. e-commerce themes are designed exclusively for such business websites.
5. Install the theme
To install a theme, login to WordPress admin page using your website url.
<www.WebSite_Url>/wp-admin
6. Install Plugins
A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They extend the functionality or add new features to websites.
To install Plugins, login to wp-admin (follow step #5), select Plugins and select Add New.
There’s a plugin in WordPress for almost every need.
For example, you will need a plugin to display a video on a website. If the plugin is not installed, your browser will not understand how to play the video.
Plugins make it easier for users to add more functionality to the websites without knowing a single line of code.
7. Add Widgets
In WordPress, widgets are smaller sections that can be added to the sidebars, footers, or other areas of your website. For example, there is a widget that displays a calendar and this could be placed in the sidebar.
To add a calendar widget, navigate to wp-admin, click on Appearance and then click on Widgets. Select Calendar and simply drag and drop it to your sidebar.
The calendar will be displayed on the sidebar of the website.
Each widget can add a feature or function to your site, without having to write any code. Common widgets to add to your site are
- Calendars
- Archives
- Events
- Posts
- Gallery and more.
8. Publish Pages and Posts
A website can contain Pages and Posts. Pages are usually of static content while Posts are part of a blog and appear in the reverse order, i.e. latest items are displayed first.
To add a page, login to wp-admin, click on Pages. You can click on Add new to add a page. You can also add images and videos of your choice.
Common pages on a website are:
- Home Page
- About
- Services Offered
- Contact
Other Important terminologies in website building
There are a few more terms you need to be familiar with, while building a website.
- Administrator / Admin – The person who is responsible for maintaining the website.
- Dashboard – This is the WordPress control panel, where you log in to add / edit your website.
- SEO – Stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to the methods you use to make your site rank higher in the search engines.
- PHP is an open source programming and scripting language to create dynamic interactive websites. WordPress is written using PHP as the scripting language. A WordPress user does not need to learn PHP in order to use, run, or manage a WordPress powered website.
However, if you want to develop themes, plugins, or modify the default behavior of WordPress by using actions and filters, then you will need to learn the basic syntax of PHP along with HTML and CSS.
About PHP
PHP is a server-side programming language.
When a user requests a web page that contains PHP code, the code is processed by the PHP module installed on that web server. The PHP pre-processor then generates HTML output to be displayed on the user’s browser screen.
PHP is written as standard text files with the .php extension. PHP can be used inside HTML documents. The PHP pre-processor only processes code inside the php opening tag <?php and the closing tag?>.
Here’s a sample php code.
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php echo “Hello World!”;?>
</body>
<html>
