Creating a WordPress website is a 3-step process: you need to sign up for hosting, choose a WordPress theme, then customize the theme to design your site. While all of this can technically be done for free, most businesses will pay a small monthly hosting fee (~$3/month) in order to use their own domain and premium features.
In this guide we’ll walk you through the entire process of how to make a WordPress website, starting with choosing a host provider:
Step 1: Sign Up For Hosting
A host is the service that “stores” your website, and typically can also provide your domain name (www.YourSite.com) and business email accounts. While technically you can use any host to set up a WordPress website, a few specialize in WordPress specifically, meaning the platform comes comes pre-installed.
We compare a few of these providers below, including WordPress’s own hosting service, WordPress.com, and our recommended provider Bluehost.com.
| Starting Price | |||
| Storage | |||
| Custom Domain Included? | |||
| Email Included? |
For the price, Bluehost gives you the most storage, and offers the perk of professional email accounts (You@YourSite.com). You may be tempted to go with the free version of WordPress, but bear in mind, you’ll have to use a WordPress subdomain (YourSite.WordPress.com) and you’ll have limited design and customization options.
If you want to compare hosting options in greater detail, check out our full guide to WordPress hosting costs. We’re going to continue with instructions on how to set up Bluehost, our recommended host provider.
How to Make a WordPress Website with Bluehost
To get started with Bluehost, simply follow the link and click “Get Started Now.” The first step is to choose your hosting package. Their basic plan is just $2.95/month when you sign up for 36 months, and should be sufficient for most small businesses.
Next, you’ll choose your website domain— e.g. www.YourBusiness.com. Most businesses prefer to use a .COM name, since its the most popular and well known extension. If your top choice is taken, consider adding an extra word, like your city name, or check out our top 25 domain name ideas for additional tips.
You can also use the tool below to see what’s available:
Lastly, you’ll enter your payment information and finalize your order. Keep in mind, in order to get the best pricing, you do need to pay for 3 years upfront. However, you can also cancel within 30 days for a full refund. If you aren’t happy how your website turns out, simply cancel and try a different option.
Accessing WordPress
Once you’re registered with Bluehost, you’ll be prompted to set a password and confirm your email address. After this, you’ll reach the Bluehost welcome page. Before you begin working on your site, there’s 3 quick steps to complete:
- Click “My Sites” on the left panel, then “Manage Site.”
- Find the “Settings” panel. In the box that says “Site URL,” change the temporary URL to the one you just purchased. This ensures your new domain is linked up with your new site.
- Now click the “Security” tab. In the box that says “Free SSL Certificate” click enable. This will change your website to an “https,” which is better for search engine rankings.
Once those steps are complete, click “Log in to WordPress” to start working on your site.
Step 2: Choose Your WordPress Theme
To create a WordPress website, you first need to choose a theme. A theme is basically a pre-designed website that you personalize with your own text and photos. It’s much easier than starting from scratch, since you get to follow a visual template on where each photo, paragraph or feature should go.
Fit Web Themes: Business Edition — a free WordPress theme designed by us at Fit Small Business
We’ve designed a few free WordPress themes ourselves at Fit Small Business. Pictured above is our Business Edition, designed specifically for B2B, service and retail business. We also have special free themes for restaurants and salons.
To create these, we analyzed how visitors are using business websites in 2018. Customers often browse from their smartphones, and are looking for quick information at-a-glance, like your operating hours, phone number or street address. As a result, we designed our themes to look great on both mobile and desktop, and provide this essential information upfront.
To design your website, you just need to input your text and photos. There’s no programming required, although you can modify just about everything—like fonts, colors and formatting—from the simple customization menu.
To view and download our themes, click for instructions below:
- Fit Web Themes: Free Business Edition
- Fit Web Themes: Free Restaurant Edition
- Fit Web Themes: Free Salon Edition
If you want to see even more options, you can browse through the WordPress free theme database, or view premium themes by clicking “Commercial Themes.”
Step 3: Design Your Site
When you first log into WordPress, you reach your WordPress dashboard. This is the main ‘control center’ of your website where you’ll design your pages, make edits, add blog posts, etc. using the menu options on the left side:
Here’s a quick rundown of each of these menus:
- Posts: If you want to add a blog to your business website, “Posts” is where you’ll go to write, edit and publish new blog articles.
- Pages: This is where you create website pages, like your About, Contact or Pricing pages.
- Appearance: This is the main menu for editing your website’s style. Under “Appearance” you can choose between different themes, and then customize the colors, fonts, and other formatting options for your website.
- Plugins: These are additional features you can add to your website, like contact forms, or ecommerce. Some plugins are free while others charge a one-time or recurring fee.
The steps for setting up your website will vary depending on your theme, so I recommend choosing a theme first, then finding specific instructions for that theme. For example, if you chose a Fit Web Themes WordPress theme, you can find instructions linked above.
The Bottom Line
WordPress is one of the most professional and economical ways to design a business website. The platform is easy to set up, ranks well in Google, and through the use of specialty themes and plugins, can support just about any industry.
For more help designing your site, check out our Top 25 WordPress Tips & Tricks. Also, once you’re up and running, be sure to check out our marketing section for tips on how to rank better in search engines, advertise online, and get more visitors to your website.
Paulina
Hi, and thanks for this overview. What’s your opinion on registering your domain with a separate company & then pointing the domain to Bluehost? I’m told this way protects you if something happens and you have to leave Bluehost. From what I understand, Bluehost also doesn’t keep your site design hostage if you leave; you just take the code for your site with you. But if you also buy your domain from Bluehost, they keep your domain. Am I misunderstanding anything?
Thanks, again.
0
0
Hi Paulina,
If you purchase your domain independently of your website hosting account, then you can both purchase your domain and get hosting with Bluehost, but keep your domain name as a separate service. That way, if you decide to move or cancel your site hosting for some reason, your domain isn’t affected, you still have that in the separate service. The only difference is you don’t get their all-in-one deal, but domain registration is inexpensive, just about $12 per year with Bluehost. I hope this answers your question, good luck!
Cheers,
Krista
0
0
Bibipoki Oben'
Very informative. I have benefited immensely from this blog knowledge-wise. It’s come in very handy as I’m considering hosting a site for my t-shirt campaigns.
But to pay 36 months hosting fee upfront on Bluehost classic is really daunting to me. I thought it would be just about 3$ my first month and I keep paying monthly.
0
0
Hi Bibipoki,
I know, but that really is the best deal — and pretty much how all of the various hosting companies work. You can swap to a shorter annual plan once in the sign-up window, but you end up paying close to the same amount for a shorter term. Bluehost really is one of the most economical hosting plans out there, I have a site with it, plus sites running on three other services so I can check them all out. Bluehost is the lowest-cost service of them all. Now, you can launch a free WordPress site on WordPress.com, but your free site will have their ads running in headers and sidebars, plus it runs under their subdomain, not on your own domain. I hope this helps clarify how it all works!
Cheers,
Krista
0
0
mgmpoker88
is very fond of this article because it gives a lot of inspiration thanks
0
0
AttorneyUsaLawyer.com
Hello just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a
few of the images aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but
I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both
show the same outcome.
0
0
Hello,
Thank you for reading and commenting. It looks like everything is loading here. Might have been a server load time issue but seems to be resolved. Thank you for keeping up updated!
Cheers,
Krista
0
0
GarenaPoker Situs Agen Judi DominoQQ BandarQ Capsa Susun Poker Online
My spouse and I stumbled over here different web address and thought I might as well check
things out. I like what I see so i am just following
you. Look forward to looking over your web page again.
0
0