Knowing how to build a website is almost mandatory these days for anyone who wants to start a business. A regular part of maintaining your WordPress website is keeping plugins and themes up to date, as well as monitoring your website’s technical health. If you’re all about efficiency, go for one of the ready-made Page Layouts. This convenient WordPress.com feature adds a collection of blocks right into the editor, ready for you to edit as desired.
By default, WordPress shows a feed of blog posts on the front page of your website. You can change that and make WordPress show any static page as the homepage of your website (we’ll show you how to do that later what is wordpress used for in this guide). WordPress comes with two default content types called posts and pages. Posts are part of the blogging functionality and appear in reverse chronological order (newer items are displayed first).
Some website builders may offer free options, but we strongly recommend against using those website building solutions. Often, they will insert their advertisements on your website, which doesn’t look professional and offer a terrible user experience. WordPress will now use the page titled ‘Home’ as your site’s front page and ‘Blog’ page to display your blog posts. Remember, you don’t need to finalize all theme settings right away. You can customize it much better once you have some content on your website.
Our comprehensive CPT guide will show you how to create these with a plugin, or by manually editing your functions.php file. You’ll use WPForms to configure the rest of your form’s features as well, and determine where form submissions will be sent. To find the options you need, you can access the WPForms menu option in your dashboard.
When you publish posts on your website, WordPress automatically provides a comment section to each post. Your site’s visitors can add remarks to your posts, providing interest for other readers and an opportunity for you to boost engagement. However, comments are only beneficial if you take the necessary steps to moderate them effectively.
With this many plugins, how do you find which plugins to install? See our guide on how to choose the best WordPress plugin. For more detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to add a navigation menu in WordPress. Don’t forget to click the save changes button to store your settings.
This will show a preview of your site within your account, allowing you to toggle between device views to ensure it looks polished on various screen sizes. And, if you’ve been working with Categories and tags, our lesson on them (part of our treasure packed Intro to Blogging course) offers plenty of further clarity. From your main dashboard↗︎, click on Posts↗︎ in the sidebar on the left. It’ll look pretty familiar if you’ve been experimenting with pages. It even has the same sections for Published, Drafts, Scheduled, and Trashed.
WordPress is easy to use but also an extremely powerful content management system. Occasionally, you may find yourself looking for some quick WordPress help. They allow you to add features and customizations to your WordPress site. Once you are finished, don’t forget to click on the Save button to store your changes. Click on the area where you want to add or edit the menu, and WordPress will open it for editing.
However, depending on the host you choose, you may need to install a plugin. Consider a good backup plugin, such as UpdraftPlus, to create backups daily or weekly to avoid losing your website’s files. Upon logging in for the first time, you’ll notice the WordPress toolbar on the left-hand side of the screen. It contains all the tools and settings you’ll need to begin building your site. The main dashboard screen contains quick links for viewing or managing pages, editing the design of your site, useful links, and WordPress-related blog posts. Title your page something simple like “Contact” or “About Me.” Dive into the editor with your blank canvas and start building content with blocks.
You can easily add an online store to your WordPress website. We have created a list of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress. You can also follow our step-by-step guide on how to start an online store. The last step in the process is to take your website live. Since we built our site on a temporary domain using SiteGround, you’ll need to add a domain first. If you built your site in a development environment, there are different steps to take.
Using plugins, you can add any feature to your WordPress website. Most of them are free, but you can also purchase premium add-ons to get priority support from developers. There is also a ton of free WordPress help and support available.
There’s no intensive coding to learn; rather, it works much like old word processors. Proprietary website builders and hosted platforms come with different pricing options. You have to pay a monthly fee for a fixed set of features. WordPress allows you to use third-party themes and plugins. This means you can choose from thousands of professionally-designed templates for your website.
Did you opt for a blank page instead or miss the page layout option? You can change your theme at any time, in fact it’s a great idea to give your site a facelift now and then. When the time comes to switch themes on a live site, as mentioned above, our Switching Themes lesson is your go-to resource. Once your site is created, be sure to explore your theme’s Info page and Demo.