How to make the best out of WordPress even if you are not a techie
WordPress is reportedly the most popular website management or blogging system in use on the Web, supporting more than 60 million websites. It is a free and open source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. If you come from a non-technical background, WordPress can be a bit tricky for you. If you are thinking about hiring a developer for your website? You are welcome.
But instead you can follow the path below if you want to do it yourself without digging a hole in your pocket.
1. Getting ready
Before you can begin with development, you need to
a) Buy and Set up hosting and domain
i. To buy hosting and domain you can visit any domain registrar and web hosting company like GoDaddy, bigrock, hostgator, etc.
ii. Select a hosting package and domain you want. Before selecting a package make sure it supports WordPress hosting. Fill the details asked like address, company information, etc.
iii. The hosting mostly comes with a cpanel/plesk and some pre-installed applications that may vary depending upon the type of hosting linux/windows and the package you select. But there definitely will be an installer using which you can install different applications. In case of Godaddy 1-click app install is the installer that is provided, in bigrock Softaculous Apps Installer is used.
b) Install WordPress
i. Using the installer search for WordPress and click install, fill in the details, select the domain which you bought and wait for the installation to finish.
*Make sure the root directory of installation is ‘/’.
ii. Now if everything worked fine, typing www.yoursite.com in your address bar should bring you to a page which says WordPress is successfully installed and start editing, something fancy like that or else you see a default theme which comes with installation.
c) Click on start editing or else you can go to www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/ which brings you to login page (the URL for login page will be displayed when you complete WordPress installation on your hosting, keep an eye, it can also be www.yoursite.com/wp-login.php). Login with the username and password you specified while installing WordPress.
d) Once you login you are into your website’s Dashboard, this is from where everything is controlled.
2. Installing theme
After WordPress installation, first step is to install a theme (if you don’t want the default theme)
a) To install a theme go to Dashboard->Appearance -> Themes, click on Add new, search for themes on the WordPress gallery, click on install, activate your theme and you are done.
b) Instead if you are interested in buying a theme, you can go to themeforest and buy one. After which you will be prompted to download the theme, download it in zip format. Now, click on Upload button on Themes page and select your theme’s zip file. Wait for the installation to finish and you are done.
3. Start making tweaks to the theme
Start by making tiny changes to the installed theme. Go to
Dashboard->Appearance -> Customize. You can find several options on the left pane which can be easily used to change most of the components (literally all) of the theme.
4. Installing plugins
WordPress offers numerous plugins which can be used to simplify our tasks.
To install plugins
a) Go to Dashboard->Plugins->Add New.
b) Search the WordPress plugin directory and click on Install Now.
c) Activate the plugin by clicking on the Activate button which appears once the installation has finished successfully.
5. Creating new pages
Your theme might come with some pages but chances are you will need more. To create pages I recommend a plugin “Elementor Page Builder” which is a drag and drop page builder and it’s free. Install it using the above steps. And you are ready.
To create a page
a) Go to Dashboard->Pages->Add new.
b) Give a title to your page and click on the button “Edit with Elementor”, it takes you to the Elementor canvas to create pages. On the left hand side you can see a lot of options to add columns, make sections, add text, images, sliders, image gallery and in short almost everything that you can think of using for creating a website.
c) Once you are done, “SAVE” your work and click on “Publish” button on the top right corner of the Add new page.
d) If you don’t like the homepage that comes with theme, then you can create a page using Elementor and set it as your homepage. Go to
Dashboard->Appearance->Customize. Click on Static Front Page, select “A static page” and select your page using the drop-down menu under Front page. With this you can also select a different page for posts, which may contain all blog posts.
6. Want to use WordPress as a blog, follow these steps:
a) Go to Dashboard->Posts->Add new. Type in the title, add text, images and anything else you want in your blog post. If you want you can also do this using Elementor.
b) If you want to display your latest posts in homepage, then you need to go to Dashboard->Appearance->Customize. Click on “Static Front Page”, select “Your latest posts” from the options below “Front page displays”.
c) You can edit the appearance of blog page by going to
Dashboard->Pages->All Pages. Select blog page and start editing using Elementor.
*Don’t forget to save your work at every stage and after making each and every change in the “Customize” panel and while creating pages as well.
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Wow. Now each of you can quite easily set up your WordPress hosting and create a simple website using the above steps. So the next time when you need a website and you are good to go with WordPress then you can count on yourself.
If you face any difficulties, feel free to reach out to me.
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