Have you always wanted to create your own website? WordPress is the way to go! Whether you want to create your own personal blog, an online store, or a business website – with WordPress, creating your own website is easy as pie. If you know what you’re doing, of course. In this video, we’ll guide you through the steps needed to make a WordPress website.
New to WordPress? Don’t worry! Our FREE WordPress for beginners training is here to help. Find out how to set up your own site, learn the ins and outs of creating and maintaining it, and more. Soon you’ll be able to do it all by yourself!
Table of content
1. Introduction to WordPress
WordPress is a content management system (CMS), which means it allows you to build a website and publish content that you want to share with the world. There are basically three elements that are central to what WordPress does:
- It is a text editor that allows you to create content
- It offers ways to manage and structure your content
- It has options to customize how your site works and what it looks like
One of the cool things about WordPress is that there are gigantic libraries of ready-to-use templates and features that people have created for you to hand-pick and use on your site. Some of those are free, and for some you’ll have to pay.
WordPress itself is free, which means you won’t have to pay license fees to use it: you can just download it. WordPress is open-source software. Open-source software is a software that is developed within a community. Everyone can use, alter and distribute the code.
Read more: What is WordPress? »
The difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
There are two different versions of WordPress: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. In short, WordPress.com is basically a site where you can create an account and, like that, create your own site or blog. WordPress.org allows you to download the WordPress software so you can install it on your own site. While the latter sounds more difficult, we also think it has a lot of advantages.
We recommend using WordPress.org. This option has much better customization options, and you can install any theme, plugin, and do just about anything with your site.
2. Getting started with WordPress
Getting WordPress up and running
Hosting
When setting up a WordPress.org site, the first thing you’ll have to decide is what hosting company and what hosting plan suits your needs. You can think of the following elements:
- the server location
- the type of site you’re building
- how much storage space and bandwidth you need
- what type of hosting you need (shared, dedicated or VPN)
Keep reading: WordPress hosting »
Select a domain name
When you’ve decided which hosting party
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This article was written by Iris Guelen and originally published on Yoast • SEO for everyone.