How to create a WordPress website from scratch

OVERVIEW – HOSTING – WORDPRESS – PLUGINS – PAGES – THEME

In this tutorial, you will learn how to build your own website without any previous experience. If you can navigate around on Facebook, then you have the technical skills need to create a website. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have your own .com, and a beautifully designed website that you can then customize to your liking. (very easily)

There are a few things that make up a website.

Domain – This is the actual web address people type into their browser, (www.onlinebusinesstech.com). Think of it as your address for your home. In the same way your home address tells people where they can find your house, the web address tells your reader’s browser where it can download the contents of your website and display it on the screen.
Hosting – When someone types in your domain into their browser, your website has to download from somewhere, right? That’s where hosting comes into play. A web host will store all the files that make up your website, and deliver them to your audience when they go to it. (images, text, code, etc). They make sure your files are safe, secure, backed up, and available 24/7 for access.
Website – There are a ton of different ways to build a website, but in this tutorial, we’re going to use a free platform called WordPress. WordPress is an easy to use, powerful platform capable of creating any type of website you can imagine. It’s free, and most hosting companies offer a really easy integrated installation process for creating a WordPress site.

When you create your own website, on your own domain, you have full control over what happens to it. You’re not locked into any specific platform, you can change it at any time, or move to a different host if you want to. You’re in full control.

F.A.Q.

Free hosting vs Paid? (Click to expand)

You’ve probably heard about a ton of free ways you can host your own website, such as blogger.com, wix.com, weebly.com, wordpress.com, and many others. There are some good reasons for going this route, as most of these have very easy website building tools. But the main disadvantage is lack of control, and free hosting hurts the professional image of your brand.

Most of these solutions are Ad supported, meaning they place ads on YOUR site, and you have no control over them, and you don’t get paid for them.
You won’t get your own custom domain with a free hosting service. It will instead be something like yourdomain.blogger.com or yourdomain.wordpress.com. Virtually all established brands have their own domain name. This is something you should have for your site too.
Most of these free site builders have the option to upgrade, but end up being more expensive in order to get the same level of control you would have over your site if you had traditional hosting through something like Bluehost.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org (Click to expand)

WordPress is a free, open-source website creation tool. Although you can download it manually from WordPress.org and install on your website yourself, most web hosts, including Bluehost, automate the process for you. Once you install WordPress, you can log into your WordPress Dashboard to design and manage your website.

In order to use the WordPress platform, you must have a web host to install it on. For people who don’t have their own hosting, the creators of WordPress built WordPress.com. WordPress.com is a hosted version of WordPress, where you can create a free website, or pay for additional features such as a domain name, remove ads from your site, increased space, and other features. The version of WordPress installed on WordPress.com is slightly different than the one you download from WordPress.org or Bluehost, as there are some restrictions on the types of plugins you can install.

WordPress.org is the open source WordPress platform, includes documentation, downloads, plugins, help, tutorials, etc. This is what you’ll be installing to run your website.

WordPress.com is a custom hosted version of the WordPress platform, which has some limitations, and you’ll have to pay in order to get advanced features.

Watch the video, or continue below

(If you’re watching the video, make sure you watch it on YouTube so you can expand the description below the video. I created a full “table of contents” so you can fast forward or rewind as you’re watching the video.)

Before we start, let’s review the process

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have your own, fully functioning website! So what does it take to build a WordPress website with your own, custom domain?

Choose a domain name – There is a lot that goes into choosing a domain name for your business. But you’ll need to decide what you want it to be, and make sure it’s available before you get started. You can use the tool below to check domain availability.
Purchase Hosting – Choose a hosting package, sign up for hosting.
Install WordPress – Bluehost has an integrated WordPress installer, which really simplifies the process of installing WordPress on your site.
Login and configure – When you login for the first time, we’ll need to delete a few default plugins that will get in your way (They are just trying to sell you a premium theme)
Add pages/posts – We’ll create a few pages for your new site, including About, Contact. This will get you oriented with the WordPress editor interface.
Select/Customize Theme – Depending upon which theme you install, you’ll get a certain level of customization to change the layout and style of your site. I’ll show you how to install the same free theme I use on this site, how to customize it, and how to insert widgets into the sidebar of your site.

Bluehost

Bluehost is an excellent web host. I’ve been running all of my websites with them for about three years now. I had used Lunarpages in the past for about 8 years, and I kept hearing about Bluehost. All of my favorite online business gurus were using and recommending Bluehost, and I just didn’t see a reason to switch. It wasn’t until I switched over that I finally realized why they were always so highly recommended.

Customer Service – I’ve had a couple of times when I’ve contacted them to talk about various things, (Mostly on whether or not I needed to upgrade to a bigger plan, more on that later), and I’ve always been connected to a knowledgeable representative who has answered my questions thoroughly.
Maintenance – They are constantly on top of maintenance, and they keep you in the loop on any maintenance that will be happening on your server.
User Interface – Most Web hosting companies provide a user interface called CPanel, which gives you a ton of administrative control over your hosting. Bluehost is no different, but I really appreciate their straight forward, easy to use interface for other administrative tasks such as domain management as well.

By purchasing a hosting plan with Bluehost, you’ll be able to create a WordPress site, or any other type of site you wish. It gives you ultimate freedom and control over what you want to do with YOUR space.

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