Creating a website with Wordpress

WordPress is a very common platform for creating websites that allows great flexibility, offers plenty of visual designs and additional options and has a user-friendly control panel, as well as supporting a large community where you can find help, tutorials and inspiration to carry out web projects.

Written by:
October 2, 2024
Author:
Pearu

Creating a website with WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for making a website, offering flexibility, a wide range of visual templates and plugins, and a user-friendly admin panel. In this guide, we will cover all the important steps and best practices to create a professional website with WordPress. Whether your goal is to create a business website, launch a blog or set up an online store, this blog post will help you achieve the results you want.

Source Reference - https://truelist.co/blog/cms-market-share/

Planning the creation of a website with WordPress

Setting goals and defining the target audience

Making a successful WordPress website starts with setting specific goals and defining your target audience. These two elements are the pillars that guide the entire process of creating a web page, from design to content. Here's a more in-depth look at why these steps are important and how to implement them.

Why it is necessary to set goals:
  • Creating Clarity:Setting goals helps you define what you want to achieve with your website. This can include raising awareness, increasing sales, improving customer relationships, or providing educational content.
  • Maintaining Focus:Clear goals help keep the project focused by ensuring that every element on the website supports the end goal.
  • Measuring Success:Once you have set goals, you will have the basis on which you can evaluate the success of your website. This allows you to measure whether and how your website fulfills its purpose.
  • Prioritization:Goals help determine which aspects of a website require the most attention and resources, thereby helping to allocate resources more efficiently.
  • Increasing Motivation:Having a clear goal helps the team stay motivated as they see how their work contributes to greater goals.

Definition of the target audience:
  • Content targeting:By understanding the needs and preferences of your target audience, you can create relevant and valuable content that captures their attention and answers their questions.
  • Marketing optimization:Knowing your target audience will help you better target your marketing efforts, ensuring that you reach the right audience with the right message.
  • Increase conversions:If you can deliver tailored and relevant content to your target audience, it increases the chance that visitors will engage in the desired activity, whether that's a purchase, filling out a contact form, or signing up for a newsletter.

Setting goals and defining your target audience are fundamental steps that lay the foundation for a successful WordPress website project. They help create a foundation on which to design, develop and market a website that not only meets your business goals, but also speaks to your target audience.

Domain selection and hosting

Choose a domain name that is as short, memorable and related to your brand as possible. Domain selection and hosting(hosting) are important components in the price of making a website. Choose a reliable hosting provider that offers good performance, security and customer support.

Source Reference - https://www.layerhost.com/blog/2020/03/26/the-meaning-behind-web-hosting/

Wordpress Temas and plugins

When choosing a WordPress theme and plugins, it's important to focus on your website's goals and functionality needs. We wrote down some general concepts according to which to choose wordpress visual templates and plugins.

Theme selection:Choose template (theme), which is customizable, Responsive(mobile-friendly), fast charging and compatible with important plugins. Make sure the theme supports regular updates and is secure. The theme should correspond to the objectives of your website, whether it be the needs of a portfolio, a blog or an online store.

Plugins:Plugins add functionality to the website. Some important plugins include SEO tools (e.g. Yoast SEO), security plugins (e.g. Wordfence), caching plugins (e.g. WP Rocket) and contact form plugins (e.g. WPForms). WooCommerce meets the needs of e-commerce. Choose plugins that improve the performance, performance and user experience of your website, but be aware that using too many plugins can slow down the website.

Source Reference - https://sitenerdy.com/most-popular-wordpress-plugins/

It is important to choose a theme and plugins that not only meet your needs, but are also well maintained and constantly updated to ensure the best security and compatibility. Less is often more — focus on quality to ensure a smooth and secure website experience.

Creating a website with WordPress

Installing and configuring WordPress

Installing and configuring WordPress is the first step in creating your own website. Thanks to the popularity of WordPress, many hosting partners offer simple solutions for a quick and worry-free installation of WordPress. Next, we'll take a look at how WordPress installation and initial setup goes, and introduce two hosting partners that offer dedicated WordPress hosting packages.

How to install WordPress:

Most hosting providers offer one-click installation or automatic WordPress setup, which makes it very easy to get started. During the installation process, you need to select the domain name on which WordPress will be installed and, if necessary, specify a folder if you want to install WordPress on a subdomain or a specific subfolder. After the installation process is complete, you will be given access to the WordPress admin panel, from where you can start customizing your website.

First setup:

After installation, you need to make some initial settings:

  1. Title and description of the site:Give your website a title and a short description that reflects the purpose or mission of your website.
  2. Persistent references: Set up a permalink structure (URL format) to ensure a better user experience and search engine optimization.
  3. Privacy settings:Choose whether you want search engines to index your website, or prefer your site to be unpublished until it is fully completed.

Hosting partners who offer WordPress installation

There are several hosting providers in Estonia that offer dedicated WordPress hosting, making the process of creating a website easier and faster. Two prominent examples are Zone and Web Hosting, both known for their quality service and local customer support.

Zone.eeis one of the leading hosting providers in Estonia, known for its reliable and secure hosting service. Zone offers a versatile WordPress hosting package that is suitable for both small and large projects. Zone's WordPress hosting includes:

  • A simple one-click WordPress installation that allows you to quickly start creating a website without technical headaches.
  • Automated security updates and regular backups to ensure website security and data retention.
  • Customer support in Estonian, offering help and advice on WordPress or hosting related issues.

Zone is a great choice for those looking for a local and reliable partner for their WordPress project.

Veebimajutus.eeis also well known in the Estonian market, offering a wide range of hosting services, including dedicated WordPress website hosting. The services they offer are aimed at both beginners and advanced, including:

  • Fast and easy WordPress installation right from the control panel, allowing users to start building their website right after activating the hosting package.
  • Pre-installed WordPress security and performance plugins, helping to optimize the performance of the website and protect it from possible threats.
  • Free SSL certificates for all domains hosted in the Web Hosting environment, ensuring secure data transfer.

Web hosting emphasizes user-friendliness and security in its services while offering competitive pricing and local customer support.

Both companies, Zone.eeyes Veebimajutus.ee, are excellent options for Estonian users who want to create a website based on WordPress. Not only do they offer a simple and fast WordPress installation, but they also offer a wide range of additional services to help ensure the smooth operation and security of your website.

Creating pages and posts

Creating content for a web page in WordPress is mainly divided into two: creating pages and creating posts. Both are fundamental elements of the WordPress content management system, but they have different uses and functions. Here is a more detailed overview of how and when to use them.

Creating pages

Pages are designed for static content in WordPress. They are suitable for information that does not change frequently, such as “About Us”, “Contact”, “Services” or “FAQ” pages. Creating sheets is easy:

  1. Add a new page:From the WordPress menu, select “Pages” > “Add New”. The page editor will then open, where you can add a title and content to your page.
  2. Adding content:Use the WordPress editor to add and format text, add images, videos or shortcodes. The Gutenberg or Elementor plugin allows you to create and design content using blocks, making the content creation process more visual and intuitive.
  3. Publication of the page:After adding and formatting the content, you can publish the page by clicking the “Publish” button. Before publishing, you can choose the date and time of publication of the page, determine the visibility of the page, and add keywords or categories to the page.

Source Reference - https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/create-pages/

Creating posts

Posts are designed for dynamic content in WordPress, such as blog posts, news articles, or blog updates. Posts are sorted by time and can be categorized or tagged to make it easier for visitors to find related content. Creating posts is similar to creating pages, but includes additional features such as categories and keywords:

  1. Add a new post:Select “Posts” > “Add New” from the WordPress dashboard. A post editor opens, where you can add title, content, and media elements.
  2. Creating content:Use the Gutenberg or Elementor plugin to add text, images and videos. You can also use different blocks such as galleries, buttons and quotes to make your post more visually interesting.
  3. Categorization and keywords:Assign categories and keywords to your post to help visitors find related content and improve the SEO of the website.
  4. Publication:Once you're happy with the post, click “Publish” to share your content with the world. You can also set a date and time to publish the post if you want to publish the content later.

Source Reference - https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/write-posts-classic-editor/

Creating pages and posts in WordPress is intuitive and easy, allowing you to create rich and engaging content for your website. By taking advantage of WordPress's flexible editing capabilities, you can create professional-looking pages and posts that speak to your target audience and support your website's goals.

Customizing the design

Customizing the design in WordPress allows you to create a unique and memorable website that reflects your brand identity. Using the WordPress Customizer, you can change the visual aspects of your website, including colors, fonts, layout, and more, without having to write a single line of code.

By adding custom CSS, you can go even further by creating completely unique design elements. Customizing your WordPress design is a powerful tool to help you stand out and make a lasting impression on your visitors.See from herehow the customization of the design goes in more detail.

WordPress Website Optimization

SEO optimization in WordPress

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) optimization in WordPress is essential to increase the visibility of a web page in search engines. Use SEO plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math SEO to help you add meta titles, descriptions and keywords, thereby improving page indexing.

Source Reference - https://www.rankbyfocus.com/seo/yoast-seo-vs-rankmath-seo/

It is also important to create a sitemap and submit it to search engines to ensure that all pages are searchable. Make sure your content is high quality and relevant by including important keywords that will help you target the right audience. In addition, optimize the URLs of the web page using clear and descriptive words that include keywords and improve the user experience.

Speed and performance optimization

Website speed and performance are important factors that affect both user experience and SEO. To increase the speed of your WordPress website, use caching plugins such as W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket, which reduce page load time by temporarily storing copies of the web page.

Source Reference - https://kinsta.com/blog/wp-rocket/

Optimize images using plugins like Smush or EWWW Image Optimizer, which reduce the size of image files without losing quality. Make sure your hosting provider offers enough resources and is optimized for WordPress to ensure the best possible performance. Reduce the amount of JavaScript and CSS files by minimizing them and removing unnecessary scripts to reduce the time it takes to load the page.

Security and maintenance of a WordPress website

Website security and maintenance

Security and regular maintenance is one of the most important aspects when managing WordPress websites. By following these tips, you can protect your website from potential threats:

  1. Strong passwords:Use complex passwords for the administrator, FTP users, and the database. Simply guessed combinations should be avoided, using long random sequences of letters, numbers, and special characters instead.
  2. Updates:Keep your WordPress version, themes and plugins updated at all times. Outdated software is one of the most common ways attackers gain access to a site.
  3. Use of security plugins:Install security plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri that provide firewall, virus scanning, and other security-related features.
  4. SSL Certificate:Use an SSL certificate (HTTPS) to protect data that moves between your website and visitors. This is especially important if your website collects sensitive information, such as personal data or payment information.
  5. Backups:Make full backups of your website on a regular basis so you can restore all content and settings in case your website falls victim to an attack.

Summary

With this article, we gave an in-depth look at how to make a website with WordPress, from planning and goal setting to design customization, SEO optimization, and website security and maintenance.

If you are looking for a reliable partner to create your WordPress website or need more information and help, contact us. We are here to help you achieve the results you want and bring your business to the forefront online.

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