You’ve finally decided that it’s time to start that website that you’ve been thinking about. You have your idea ready, you’ve set aside some time, and now you’re going to get started. But, where do you start?
You can’t just build your site anywhere. You want a site that will stand out from the crowd.
If you’re looking for a mind-blowing website that people will want to keep coming back to, you need to start with WordPress. If you’re not sure how to use WordPress, keep reading.
We’ll walk through everything you need to know to create your business website using WordPress.
1. Select the Right Plan for You
WordPress offers a few different plans for you to choose from. When you’re looking to build your site, you’ll have five different options:
- No plan (free)
- Personal ($4/month)
- Premium ($8/month)
- Business ($25/month)
- eCommerce ($45/month)
The differences between the plans mainly come down to the cost and the features that each plan offers. We highly recommend that you go with option three, four, or five if you’re looking to take advantage of the business-related features that WordPress offers.
If you’re not ready to fully commit (or you don’t want to pay until your site is finished and ready), go with the free option for now. You can always upgrade later.
With WordPress.com, you don’t need to worry about hosting. It comes free with any plan that you choose.
2. Write a Domain Name
The domain name of your website is what comes after the ‘www.’ and before the ending like ‘.com’ or ‘.net.’
If you’ve been thinking about a website for a while, you likely already have a domain name in mind. To keep things simple, make your domain name your name or your company’s name.
You can change it later, but it’s more difficult than you may anticipate. That’s why we recommend taking some time to figure out what the domain name is now.
If you’re having some trouble coming up with a domain name, try relating it to what your website is going to be about. If you’re going to make a website about security guard training, include that in the name. If you’re doing a cooking blog, include something about cooking.
We suggest this because you could improve your search engine optimization by including a targeted keyword in your website’s name. If you’re going into a competitive niche, it may make sense for you to go with a keyword-targeted domain name.
3. Choose a Template or Start Fresh
WordPress offers many templates and themes to choose from. You can start with a clean slate, but we don’t recommend it, especially if you’re not a web designer.
Take a moment to browse the selection that they give you after you set up your website. It’s likely that you’ll find a few that you like.
Keep in mind that you can change the text, colors, and other minor details. You aren’t stuck with what you choose.
You can click on the templates that you’re considering to see more about what the pages and the layout as a whole look like.
If you’re unsure which template you want, get up and go away from the computer. Get a pencil and a piece of paper and draw out what your dream website would look like. Think about the ideal layout you would want your visitors to see when they click on your site.
Once you’ve crafted an idea of what you want, go back to the templates. Find the one that is the most similar to what you want and start there.
4. Customize Everything
As we said, it’s unlikely that the template that you chose is exactly what you were looking for in a website. That means that you should take the time to make everything look exactly the way that you’ve been dreaming of.
Change the colors, move the titles, and choose a font. Do whatever you need to do to make the website exactly what you want.
That being said, customization is arguably one of the hardest parts of setting up a website. It means that you have to know what you want and make those things come to fruition. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.
However, customization also includes those small details that everyone is bound to love about your website. It’s the fun colors and the easy-to-read blog posts that will make your visitors attracted to your site. This is other than the content of course.
5. Create New Pages
It’s likely that the theme that you’ve chosen doesn’t have all of the pages you want. It’s time to add these in now.
Again, go back to the drawing board. Think about what content you’re going to make for your website as well as how you’re going to divide that content up.
Are you going to have separate pages for the kinds of content, like videos and photos? Will you lump all of the media into a page and split up any exclusive content elsewhere?
If you’re feeling lost, look at what other successful sites are doing. See how they’re dividing up their content for their audience. If it’s a popular website, it’s likely that they’re quite successful with the way that they’ve been dividing the content.
Obviously, you shouldn’t copy what anyone else is doing. But, you can take some inspiration here and there from your favorite websites.
If creating website pages seems like too much, you should consider hiring a website developer. That being said, you can trust J+B Website Development. Our team is committed to building quality websites that search engines and visitors will like.
Building a website on your own is difficult. That’s why we work with individuals just like you to make the website of their dreams.
6. Post a Few Things
Before you start showing your website to the world, you should get a few things written down. Write a few posts and complete your pages to the best of your ability.
As you grow, you’ll be able to change details and add more content. But, for now, you can’t just let your website be blank. Having some content to start out with is crucial to bringing your site’s first visitors on board.
Arrange any membership content that you may have and post your first page. Attach your social media accounts to your website and bring in some pictures.
Make the website look like it’s been running for years, even though it’s brand new.
As you’re getting all of this together, don’t forget to add an ‘about me’ page and a ‘contact me’ page. The former allows your audience to get to know you, while the latter allows your audience to talk with you.
Take a few days to get everything together so that your website is looking its best when others come to look at your content.
7. Install Plugins
Now, it’s time to add even more to your site. You need to add plugins.
With WordPress, there are so many to choose from. One of the first ones you should be downloading if you’re involved in ecommerce is WooCommerce.
This makes it easy to sell any products for your new business.
Along with this plugin, you may be interested in an anti-spam plugin like Akismet Anti-Spam. This one helps prevent spammers from commenting on your posts. This leaves room for other commenters to leave their genuine remarks while also making sure that you don’t have to keep up with the spammers.
Look at all of your plugin options, including Advanced JetPlugins, and decide which ones are going to work the best with your website.
8. Optimize Your Website
We touched on SEO (search engine optimization) briefly, but this isn’t enough. SEO is extremely important to anyone who is looking to gain traffic for their website. SEO helps your site rank higher on search engines like Google and Yelp.
More people will see your content. Therefore, you have the potential to make more money.
Now that we’re talking about money, you’re probably dying to know how you can optimize your website. Well, lucky for you, there are many ways to do this:
- Improve your loading time
- Decrease the number of page elements
- Include keywords everywhere
- Share your content
- Create useful, interesting content
- Backlink to other popular sites
- Link to pages within your site
From technical SEO to on-page SEO, you should have all of your bases covered so that you have the best chance to rank higher and higher on those search engines.
Developing a Website on WordPress
Now that you’ve read through every step, you’re ready to start developing a website on WordPress. Remember to take your time and go through each step slowly.
It’s okay to take a while to develop your website. It’s going to take time to make something noteworthy.
This being said, we’d like to remind you of our website development services. You’re likely feeling very overwhelmed right now, and we can help.
Request a quote today so that we can get started working on your dream website. The sooner we talk, the sooner you can get your website running.
