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Build your own website, no developer needed
The pieces a WordPress site is made of, and the order you put them together in.
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01 The idea
WordPress is a program, not a website
WordPress is an open source content management system. In plain words, it is a program that sits on a computer somewhere, keeps your writing and pictures in a database, and builds a finished page every time a visitor asks for one.
Nothing on your site is stored as a ready-made page. Someone clicks a link, WordPress looks up what belongs on that page, assembles it, and sends it back. That is why you can change one setting and every page changes with it.
Open source means the code is free to read, use and change. The software costs nothing. The only bills you will meet are for the space your site lives in and the address people type to reach it.
More than 40% of all websites currently online were built and maintained using WordPress software.Price, 2021
02 Set up · one
A site is three separate things you rent or install
The domain is the address. The hosting is the space it lives in, a computer that never switches off. WordPress is the software you put in that space. They are bought from different places and they are easy to confuse.
This is also the difference between the two WordPress routes. WordPress.com rents you the space and runs the software for you, and your address sits under theirs, such as yourname.wordpress.com. It is free, it is looked after, and you cannot upload your own themes or plugins.
WordPress.org gives you the same software to download for nothing, and you supply the rest: your own domain, your own hosting, your own updates. That is the route the rest of this summary follows, because it is the one where you own everything.
If you want your own plugins, your own themes, or to sell anything, you need the self-hosted route. If you only want to write and be read, WordPress.com will do, and you can move later.
03 Set up · two
Pick the hosting plan your traffic actually needs
There are more than 330,000 hosting companies, which sounds like a decision you cannot make. It is smaller than it looks. WordPress will only run on a host that meets three technical requirements, and the plans on offer come in four familiar shapes.
Shared hosting puts your site on a server with other people's sites. It is the cheapest and it is where almost every beginner should start. A virtual private server gives you a fenced-off slice of a shared machine. A dedicated server gives you the whole machine. Cloud hosting spreads you across many machines and grows or shrinks with your traffic.
Many hosts install WordPress for you. Managed hosts such as WP Engine hand it to you already running. Others give you a one-click installer in the control panel. Either way the install itself rarely takes more than five minutes, so do not let it be the thing you dread.
The host must support PHP 7.4 or newer, MySQL 5.7 or newer (or MariaDB 10.3 or newer), and HTTPS. Also look for free domain registration, a free SSL certificate, and a money-back window.
04 Build · one
A theme decides where everything on a page goes
A theme is a folder of files that gives your site its layout, fonts, colours and spacing. Inside it are templates, and each template is responsible for one part of a page: the header, the sidebar, the footer. That is why swapping a theme moves everything at once.
The part in the middle is run by something the manual calls the Loop. It queries the database for the posts that belong on this page and hands them back in order. No content appears until a query and a loop have finished, which is the whole reason a page can show your newest posts without you editing it.
Two more things you place yourself. The menu is the navigation across the top, and you build it from your pages under Appearance, Menus. Widgets are little pieces of content that live outside any single post: a search box, recent comments, a map, a sign-up form. They go in the sidebar, the footer, or wherever your theme offers a slot.
Think of your WordPress theme as your personal stylist, but for your website.Selynna Payne
05 Build · two
Posts and pages are two different shapes
They look almost identical in the dashboard, and they behave nothing alike. A post is dated. A page is not. Getting this right early saves a lot of rearranging later.
Posts are for things that keep arriving: articles, updates, reviews, news. They stack newest first and get archived by month and year. You keep them findable with categories, which are broad and can have subcategories, and tags, which are specific and have no hierarchy. Every post should have a category. Not every post needs a tag.
Pages are for things that stay: About, Contact, Privacy. They are hierarchical instead of dated, so a page can have child pages under it, the way a chapter has sections. You order them by hand, and you build your menu out of them.
Ask whether you would ever write a second one. A second match report, yes, so it is a post. A second About page, no, so it is a page.
06 Go live
Publishing has a fixed order, and a way back
You write in the block editor, which WordPress calls Gutenberg. Every element is a block: a paragraph, a picture, a video, a button, a table. You stack them on the left and set everything else in the column on the right.
The right-hand column is where the work that matters happens. Set a featured image, the thumbnail that represents the post when someone shares it. Pick a category and any tags. Choose who can see it: public, private, or protected by a password. Then publish now, or set a date and let WordPress do it while you are asleep.
Nothing here is final. Preview shows the post as a visitor would see it, and you can go back and change blocks as many times as you like. If you have to stop, save a draft and it will wait.
Go to Settings, Permalinks and choose Post name. The default gives you addresses like yoursite.com/?p=432, which tells a reader and a search engine nothing. While you are there, check that Settings, Reading is not blocking search engines.
07 Keep it running · one
Every plugin you add is also a bill you keep paying
A plugin is a small piece of code that adds a function WordPress does not ship with. There is one for nearly everything: WooCommerce turns a site into a shop, WPForms builds contact forms, Yoast helps with search, WP Rocket speeds pages up.
They install in a few clicks. Plugins, Add New, search, Install Now, Activate. Plugins bought elsewhere are uploaded from the same screen, and they only work on a self-hosted site.
The cost arrives later. Every plugin loads on every page, so more of them means a slower site. Every plugin needs updating, and an out-of-date one can break when WordPress moves on. Every low-quality plugin is a way in for someone who should not be there. This is the honest drawback of the platform, and the answer is restraint, not avoidance.
Plugins operate much in the same way as applications on your phone.Selynna Payne
Open Plugins, Installed Plugins and deactivate anything you have not used in a month. Then delete it. An inactive plugin still sits in your files.
08 Keep it running · two
Nearly every attack answers to the same short list
A popular platform is a popular target. The threats sound alarming and the defences are dull, which is good news, because dull things are easy to do. Most break-ins get in through software nobody updated.
Keep WordPress, your theme and your plugins current. Use a long, unique password, add a second login step, and change the default login address. Choose a host that watches its own servers. Run a security plugin or a firewall. Keep a backup in two places, one on your computer and one in cloud storage, because a backup is the only defence that works after something has already gone wrong.
When something breaks it is rarely dramatic. A 404 on one page is almost always a permalink, so rewrite it under Settings, Permalinks. A 403 that locks you out is usually a plugin or a file permission, so deactivate plugins one at a time and check that folders are set to 755 and files to 644. A blank white screen usually means a script ran out of memory, or one plugin or theme is faulty. Turn them off one by one until the site comes back.
Back up first, then try the change on a copy. A staging site, which WordPress calls a Sandbox, runs the same setup as your live site, so what works there will work here.
09 The whole book
Set it up, build it, keep it running
Every chapter falls into one of three stages, and they happen in that order. Nobody has to understand the whole thing before starting the first one.
Address, space, software
Buy a domain, rent hosting that meets the three requirements, install WordPress. Start on a shared plan and move up only when your traffic makes you.
Theme, pages, posts
Pick a theme, because it decides where everything sits. Make pages for what stays and posts for what keeps arriving. Build the menu from your pages.
Update, back up, test
Add plugins sparingly and delete the ones you stopped using. Update everything. Back up in two places, and try every change on a copy first.
You do not need a developer and you do not need to learn to code. You need to know what the pieces are, and to put them together in the right order.
Adapted from Practical WordPress for Beginners: A Guide on How to Create and Manage Your Website
Selynna Payne · © 2022 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services · 59 cited sources in the source edition