WordPress 101: 5 Steps to Create Your First Perfect Site

Today, all companies strive to have more online presence. The Blogosphere is developing too, and many people want to share their experiences through writing blog posts on their sites. WordPress takes its place among the best online tools for creating websites. Being user-friendly and rather simple, it still requires some efforts to be put into the site’s creation and configuration. Here is a short but comprehensive beginner tutorial on how to build and manage sites with WordPress.

Make Up a Domain Name

Your new site needs a name. It is an address that other people type into a browser’s address bar when they want to visit your website. When thinking about it, consider how you want to be found, what exactly your website is, and what type of content you have there. If it is a travel blog – come up with an idea that refers to it. Not less important is the selection if keywords because using them will make it easier for your target readers to find your blog; for the name of your blog use words from the suitable category like ‘traveling’, ‘world’, ‘road’, ‘land’, etc. A perfect example is YTravelBlog.com. If it is a site for your company – just use your company’s name like Edu Birdie did.

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Below are the key characteristics a good domain name must possess:

  • catchy – your URL should be simple and captivating in order to attract attention at once;
  • easy-to-type – it is great if you have made up a creative name, but make sure it does not require moving hands too much over the keyboard;
  • memorable – you definitely want your website’s name to be remembered without much effort, especially by the first time visitors;
  • short – and summing up all of these points, a perfect domain name should not be long.

Find a Host

Picking a hosting provider is vital too. There are a plenty of them, and they all differ in terms of quality and price. Yet, it does not necessarily involve paying thousands of dollars for your hosting like some of the famous websites, such as Twitter or Google, do.

Bluehost is one of the hosting providers recommended by Word Press itself. It perfectly suits those who create their first sites. There are several pricing plans, so you can select whatever seems more convenient to you, depending on the possibilities you want to have. Yet, it can be upgraded anytime later, so it is recommended to begin with a starter package.

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Customize Your Website’s Design

Whatever content you have on your website, its relevance and information value are not all that matters. It should also look appealing and vivid. WordPress offers a great range of templates, available for free download, so you will definitely find the one that you and your visitors will like. Besides, it will not be difficult to install the chosen template and make it custom.

Selecting a template is a matter of a personal taste as well as the analysis of a target audience. Some bloggers and business owners prefer to redesign their websites every now and then, while others pick one template, test its effectiveness, and stick to this theme for a rather long time. It is a smart idea to make seasonal changes in design.

Make It Functional

There are several ways you can make your WordPress website more functional:

  • WordPress plugins.
    A plugin is a piece of code or a script that offers additional functions on your website. It may be social media sharing buttons, a contact form, and even a plugin to block spamming comments.
  • WordPress widgets.
    These serve for the same purpose of adding more functionality to your website. There are pretty enough of widgets you can use, which includes recent comments and posts sections, a search bar, a subscribe bar, calendar, customer service.

Take Care of the Content

Finally, it is the content on your pages that your visitors come there for. Therefore, you should ensure that the texts, images, and all the other sorts of information on your site are interesting, relevant, and give some value to people. Content writing and managing is a true art. So, make sure you know at least some fundamental things about it or hire a person to help you out with it.