You have decided to choose WordPress to create your website. Here are the 16 steps for an optimal professional site. However, before you start, it is necessary to ask yourself a few questions to get off on the right foot.
Before creating a professional WordPress site
Creating a WordPress site also means working upstream, that is to say, establishing the objectives you want to achieve through the site. Is it a transactional or informational site? This type of question will help you make informed choices when creating your site. In any case, you can save your work and resume it later. Here are some leads:
- Know your goals, including: do you want to sell products? Is it to gain notoriety? What do you want the visitor to do when they arrive on your website?
- Then, prioritize the objectives, that is to say put forward what seems most important to you. The clearer and more well-defined your objective is, the better your site will be built.
- Knowing your target well regarding their tastes, their purchasing profile or their interaction with a website, for example.
- Ask yourself about your brand identity. What spirit do you want to give to your site?
- Also think about the “responsive” design so that your site is accessible both on a desktop computer and on your mobile.
Know that there are several ways to create a site and on WordPress, there is a panoply of customization options.
Do you have a website creation project? Contact a web Development Company in Lahore to get quotes from experts (for free).
Why choose a web host?
If you have coding or programming skills, you can build your site yourself and then find the host. You might save some money. However, if you don’t have his skills, the WordPress host will take care of all the technical and programming aspects behind your website. In addition to taking care of backups and updates.
Why care about the web host? It is used to make the content of your site available and ensures distribution on the web. It guarantees the proper functioning and protection of the site. If you want to make online transactions and collect personal information such as credit card numbers, an SSL certificate can be installed to increase security. WordPress hosts create the website and the domain name. In addition, if you encounter problems on your site, you can contact the host and the latter will help you resolve the technical level problems.
Create a website with WordPress in a few steps
Step 1 – Choose a domain name
This is the name of your website. You can use a service like GoDaddy to get one, with hosting options. If you outsource the development of your site, your provider takes care of it!
Step 2- Find a web host
By selecting a hosting website, you also choose the domain name. Some web hosting sites may offer you a temporary name and others may offer you a permanent one. Some will offer 24-hour customer service either by phone, chat or email.
The price for website hosting is usually between $3 and $5 per month. You can start with the smallest plan and change along the way to have more options.
Step 3 – Install WordPress
Once you have the domain name, install WordPress through the hosting site. It’s free. Before the site appears on the web or is functional, it can take between two hours and twenty-four hours. So, we have to wait a bit here or come back later.
Step 4 – Create the WordPress website
To better find yourself on the site, you can remove the plugins that are automatically installed with WordPress . In the menu go to Plugin, select all and delete. In this way, you will have better control over the plugins or you can install the ones you want. It is still possible to keep the settings as they are.
To have a professional site, it is above all the details that will enhance your site and that will have an impact on people. So, we will start by creating more professional URLs.
Go to Dashboard and Settings. You will find that there are several URL choices, choose “Post name”. The name of your homepage will appear after the domain name. This is a detail that simplifies your URL. Instead of more technical numbers and names that mean nothing to internet users, they will see a word. Moreover, it is shorter if you want to copy/paste. It’s more professional and cleaner.
Then perform an update to see if there is any software to update. This is an opportunity to find computer bugs and fix them before continuing to create the new site. This way, when downloading the new plugins if any problem arises, you will be able to know where to look.
Step 5 – Choose a theme
A theme gives a style to the interface of your site . On WordPress, there are hundreds of themes. You can find them on the site or download them elsewhere on the net and then import them into WordPress. Some are paid and some are free. Each theme can have its own settings to be customized according to the desired brand and style.
To help you, you will be able to choose which themes have been the most popular with stars and how many people have installed them. This can be a good indication of the level of difficulty for the settings. Once you have chosen the theme, you install it and click on activated. There may be themes requiring plugins for more customization. So feel free to install them if you wish.
Step 6 – Add Pages to WordPress
To add new pages, first remove the automatically installed pages. The pages represent the products, services and contacts, while the post is the blog.
To change the title, go to Customize.
To add pages, go to “dashboard”, go down to the “page” tab and add a page. You register a page title and publish the page. Leave the pages blank while you create your site’s structure. In this way, you will have an idea of your site and you can also put on “hold” and come back later to finish it without losing the thread of your ideas. There are no limits for adding pages.
Step 7 – Edit the page
You have unlimited choice to create whatever you want. You can edit your page by selecting text size, typography, special effects, position, colors and many more . This is where you insert your products, company mission, design, and logo.
Creating a professional site on WordPress takes time and patience, as all company and product information must be entered manually.
Step 8 – Download the “web page builder” plugin
Many web developers love WordPress because of its endless choice of customization and plugins. To help you build your website, it is possible to download a plugin that is used to build model pages or templates. In the menu, go to plugin, choose “Element or page Building”, download and activate.
In this way, the tool will help you customize web pages instead of starting from scratch. You download template pages from other websites and import them into WordPress. You will find that you have thousands of choices. Again, you can change text, size, typography, change background, add video and more.
Step 9 – Add Video
For installing a video, it is recommended to upload your video to YouTube and then copy/paste the link into the website. Why? Because you save complex steps and YouTube compresses the video in addition to having a quality video on your website . Don’t forget to upload a royalty-free video if you don’t have a video.
Step 10 – Create a Button
To create a button, simply duplicate an existing button. Go to the existing button, right-click, duplicate and move it to the desired location. You can drag a box from the edit menu to add text.
Moreover, it is possible to see the different interfaces on the editing menu and make the necessary adjustments in order to optimize the website on mobile, tablet or desktop.
Step 11 – Check interface on mobile
Indeed, WordPress allows you to configure the mobile via the edit page. The options are at the bottom of the menu. For example, if a video is not playing in the background on mobile, check the mobile settings. WordPress will show you the mobile screen and you could make the necessary corrections to optimize the customer experience.
Step 12 – Create a 2nd WordPress Page
You can redo steps 6 to 11.
You will find that the steps are quite repetitive , i.e. there is the import of the templates, the customization and then a verification for the mobile. By dint of creating pages, you will gain speed.
Step 13 – Integrate a contact form
To integrate a contact form, you can download the template pages with Google maps. Then in the Building page element, add the templates to the site, import and adjust the information, the colors as we saw above with the editing section.
Thereafter, you must download the “contact form” plugin. Once downloaded, return to the menu and click on contact. Verify the email address so that requests are sent to the correct person. Next, copy the coding located at the top of the text box , return to the Building page element, select the word coding from the menu and drag it into the contact form box. A box will open and this is where you paste the coding .
Step 14 – Insert a logo
In the menu, go to the custom header, upload your logo and adjust the format . Place it in the desired location on the interface.
Step 15 – Customize the top and bottom of the web page
Another important detail for the site interface is the top bar and the bottom bar which contain the widgets. You do the same steps to download the Divers template and then import it into “Element or page Building”.
Here there is a new step, go to Theme, Library and click on “add new” at the top of the page. Name the page Footage and return to the web page builder to import it and build your page. You will find two screens: one for desktop and the other for mobile. You can adjust the logo, social networks and adjust the size and position. Know that everything must be “centered” for the interface of a mobile and save. Repeat the steps for the footer.
If you see gray areas on the sides of the strips at the top and bottom of the web page , go to the Footage folder you created, choose the top and bottom, and click “Stretch Section”. This way the colors will stretch to the end of the screen. Check that all social media logos refer to the desired site. Then, do a check on the mobile interface if it suits you.
Step 16 – Put logo in tab
To position yourself as a professional WordPress site, it’s the details that make the difference. To change the image, which appears in the tab, just go to personalization, the site identity. You will find that the dimensions of the image are 512 x 512 pixels. You can modify the format if necessary and then upload the logo. Click publish and the logo will appear on the tab.
You have now gone through the main steps to build a professional WordPress site. Don’t forget to secure your website to protect it from malware. Your site could gain credibility by having a SSL certificate, do not hesitate to take the necessary steps.
Remember that creating a professional WordPress site requires a minimum of computer skills and also a large dose of patience. The advantages with WordPress are all the customization possibilities thanks to plugins. The downside is that there are so many choices that it’s easy to get lost.
