Laboratory work №6. Create the website on WordPress
Choose the right hosting page. I’d suggest the starter package. It offers plenty of speed, performance, functionality and storage for your first website. You can upgrade your hosting plan as your website grows>
You will be prompted to choose a domain name as you can see in example below. Double check your domain name to avoid typos.
And on the next screens, enter your personal information and credit card details. And complete payment.
In Bluehost cPanel (administration panel), find a button which says Install WordPress
Click on a green Install button to proceed with WordPress installation
Now select if you want to use your website with or without “www.” at front of your website name (www.YourWebsite.com or YourWebsite.com). If you can’t decide you can leave it as is. It can be easily changed afterwards.
The details for the WordPress installation like email ID, username and password can be set. And tick all the necessary conditions under a licence agreement.
And install.
Once installation is complete you will see a clear message on top saying “Your Install is Complete!” and button saying “View Credentials”
By clicking on that button you will be sent to a page where you will be able to find your newly installed WordPress login credentials.
Now you can login on your website by clicking link that says YourWebsitName.com/wp-admin.
SiteGround
SiteGroud’s shared hosting plan has a similar, equally easy to use WordPress installation and domain registration process. The site asks you whether you have a domain name or need to register one, in our case since you are creating your first site you need to register a domain.
Following the domain registration you can follow this easy to use this three step tutorial for a guided WordPress installation. It is best to select “Get WordPress Preinstalled in this account” and you will not need to get your hands dirty. You’ll need to set admin email ID, username and password, you’re set!
SiteGround vs BlueHost
Really anyone’s pick, I suggest that you have a look at both and decide based on which ever domain registration and WordPress installation process seems easier. But personally I feel it doesn’t matter much and you shouldn’t worry too much over which of the two hosting services to go with.
If you’d like a far more elaborate list of shared hosting service providers, check out our WordPress hosting guide.
Now that your domain is registered, hosting paid for and your WordPress installed. What’s next?
STEP 3
Configure your newly created WordPress website
WordPress Admin Screens
Go to yourwebsitename.com/wp-admin.
Type in the username and password you previously entered during the WordPress installation process.
Your WordPress admin menu is available on the left side of the screen. Allowing your cursor to linger over them will open sub menus.
Dashboard
Posts
Media
Links
Pages
Comments
Appearance
Plugins
Users
Tools
Settings
That is a lot of stuff which you deal with. But I’ve promised to get your site up and running. So for the purposes of this post I will not be talking about Settings, Tools, Users or Your Dashboard.
I will talk about the rest of the menu options which are part of your WordPress menu. Let’s get started.
Customizing your site’s Appearance and activating a WordPress Theme
Themes (Appearances > Themes)
Open Appearances > Themes. From here on have a look at the heading of each subsection if you have doubts with regards to accessing a particular part of the WordPress menu from the admin screen.
And click on the “Add New” button on the top. And choose from one of the themes displayed or search for a specific theme. For a list of awesome free themes, you can check out this theme collection.
Install a new theme that you fancy and activate it.
The next part involves customization of a theme. You can access this under from Appearance > Customize. You can do a number of things to your site’s appearance from here. But that’s not the crux of this post, a theme is sufficient to start a website.
Widgets (Appearances > Widgets)
Widgets are preset modules or pieces of code that add to a certain function which will prove useful for your website in some capacity or the other. Your sidebars, footers and headers can be loaded with widgets.
As you can see in the above screenshot, there 6 widgets in the sidebar. These widgets include a search bar, a recent posts widget, recent comments, archives, categories and meta. Then you can see 4 footer areas where you can add widgets just the same. The number of footer, header and sidebar areas available to you depends on the theme you are using.
Widgets are not plugins, but they are small chunks of code that add a bit of function. Sometimes it may help with navigation, sometimes with social media, you can even use to add HTML to a text widget which will function as coded to do so. So widgets are a very useful tool but you need to learn a bit about them before you can use them to the fullest.
Menus (Appearances > Menu)
Menus are an extremely important for any website. They offer a means to navigate your site and its content. After all, what’s the point in creating captivating content and if your visitor can not find it easily on your site. Bad menus and navigation can lead to a high bounce rate (the number of visitors as a percentage who leave your site after just viewing just one page).
You may have seen websites with menus on the top or the side and even at the bottom. We can do all of this.
You’d like to include pages like “About”, “Blog”, “Contact” and “Our Services” as part of your primary menu. Any page you’d like displayed on your menu can be added. The number of menus and their placement on your site depends on your WordPress theme.
You can add all the stuff that you see on the left to the menu ranging from pages to products as part of your menu. Again what you can include as part of the menu depends on your WordPress theme.
A good menu,
Is concise and minimal.
It is a representation of all your site’s offerings.
Very intuitive to use and maneuver around your site.
Keep that in mind and you should be fine.
Background (Appearances > Background)
Many website choose to have plain single color background and I am big fan of that.
The Colorlib blog has a plain white background and it keeps things simple. But the homepage of the site is pretty awesome with a purple background and our tagline.
Websites that are media heavy, examples would include photography sites or portfolio websites have great backgrounds. If you want your website to send across a powerful visual cue to your audience use a powerful background image. Else you can simply opt for a plain color which is appropriate for any blog that emphasizes readability.
A background should not be confused with a slider image which is basically a constantly changing image that moves across or your screen or changes with fancy animation.
Adding New Plugins (Plugins > Add New)
Plugins are a scripts or pieces of code written to perform a very specific function or set of functions on your website.
A simple example would be social sharing plugin, it helps share your content across different social platforms and helps get the word out that your content is awesome. Similarly, people have developed plugins for search engine optimization, security purposes, creating and maintaining a portfolio of images, to create contact forms, for caching the list is endless.