Hopefully you have now bought your website hosting, you have a domain name, and now installed wordpress.
So now it’s time to setup your wordpress website.
If you have never created or setup a wordpress website it can seem daunting at first. But it’s an essential skill to learn and worth taking the time to get the basics down.
If you have some money to invest and you are time poor, then it can be a good idea to hire an outsourcer or freelancer to do the work for you.
One of the best outsourcing websites and finding quality people is Freelancer.
Outsourcing can really help leverage your business by utilising other people’s skills.
There are some basics that you should know about WordPress regardless of whether you are getting someone else to create your site because you will start want to add content yourself or make some small changes.
Each theme will have it’s own setup instructions that are usually really easy to follow such as StudioPress.
Below are the basics and essentials for getting around WordPress.
You can also watch this video tutorial….
1. Install a theme
When you install wordpress onto your domain it will come with a basic default theme. You will want to add your own theme.
There are free themes you can select, or if you are serious then I highly recommend you pay for a premium theme such as StudioPress.
For the price it is definitely worth having a professional looking website and StudioPress is what I use.
They look amazing, they are cheap, they have awesome tutorials that are easy to follow, they are mobile responsive, they are fast, and they are really SEO friendly.
2. Change permalinks
One of the first things you should do is change the permalinks. This just means that every time you name a blog post or new page, the actual html page name link will automatically be whatever you have called it.
So if your blog post is called “Build an online business”, then the link it will automatically be
yourwebsite.com/build-an-online-business
This is just a handy tip to make your life easier.
3. Add Pages
To add pages to your website you simply click on “Add New Page”.
You then give it a title, and then create the content, and click publish when you are done and it’s now live.
I recommend creating your basic pages right now in order to help with the setup.
A good start would be…
- Home
- About
- Blog
- Contact
It’s also important to note that for a Page, you can change the layout.
You may want the page to be setup as a “Full Width Page”, or you may want to have your content and then a sidebar.
4. Add Blog Posts
This is the same method for creating blog posts.
Add new blog post, give it a title, create your content and then publish.
For blog posts you would ideally also want to create a few key categories which you can label each post under.
It helps with organisation and also for your visitor to find the information they actually want.
5. Create Blog Categories
To create categories you simply click on Posts and then Categories if you know the types of categories for your site.Eg. Business, Mindset, Affiliate Marketing, WordPress.
You can, however, create them within a post “as you go.”
6. Setup home page as static and blog posts page.
If you have created a page titled “Home”, you will want to make this the default page that comes up when you first type in your “domain.com”.
To do this, you click on Settings, and then Reading.As shown in the image, you would make the Static Home page, your “home” page that you have created.
And then also for your “blog” page, make that the posts page.
This will be clearer later on how when you start creating more blog posts and pages.
7. Setup menu
Every website usually has a primary menu at the top of the page. And also a footer menu.
You can create this by clicking on Appearance and then Menu.
Simply add any pages that you have already been created into a new Menu.
If you create any new pages that you want in the top menu of your website, just add them in as you go along.
8. Widgets
To add any widgets you click Appearance – Widgets.
For your blog page, or blog posts, you would usually have a sidebar.
This is where the widgets show up. You simply drag and drop from the available widgets on the left side.
Usually when you install plugins, they will have their own widgets which you are then able to add.
You can customise your sidebar depending on what you want.
Also for some themes, especially StudioPress, they have widgets available for not just the sidebar, but for your homepage or other pages.
This is a great option as it makes page creation really easy.
Another reason why StudioPress is the best.
9. Plugins
One of the great advantages of WordPress is being able to install plugins. There is a plugin for basically anything you can think of. There would be millions and millions.
You can download them externally and then upload them as a zip file. Or you can search for a plugin directly through wordpress.
A plugin is kind of like a small program that adds different functions to your website.
Note that the more plugins you have, the slower your website can become.
So don’t go crazy on them and delete any plugins that aren’t neccesary.
Make sure you check out the “10 Essential WordPress Plugins”.
