GET STARTED

Our guide is designed for beginners and we have made it very easy for anybody to create a website - even if you're not a techie!

This guide is updated daily based on user feedback to make sure it isn't outdated and is up to date on best practices for websites. Fast Setup

Even if you've never setup a website before and are a complete beginner, you can have a site online within an hour. Guaranteed!

We think our guide is the easiest way for beginners to setup a website, but if you do get stuck, we're available to help! Just send us a quick message through our contact form and we'll work with you to get your site online - for free!

CompanyName.com or YourName.com are good choices. Any keywords that describe your site briefly work well - i.e. SiteBeginner.com

Keep the domain easy to type for added brand and marketing value. Try to use simple words, not too long, that are spelt how they sound.

You want the name to be simple and easy and roll off the tongue so that when your friends and family talk about it they will remember the domain.

Stick to .com, .net or .org domain extensions. There are lots available, but most people won't understand or remember your .awesome name!

It's tempting to add hyphens and go for Your-Company-Name.com but it's hard to explain and doesn't look good for branding!

Don't spend hours choosing a domain. If you find something simple and catchy and you like it then register it before somebody else does! :)

In this final step you'll learn how to install WordPress on your web host and set up your website.

Hosting check! Do you have your web hosting account and domain name all set up? If not, head to Bluehost.com now to get that set up so that you can follow the guide below.

Once you've got your hosting account and domain, the next step is to install WordPress. There are two ways to do this and one of them is much easier for beginners.

All well-established web hosts have WordPress available to install in one click - including Bluehost. This option is available from your control panel when you login to your web hosting account. The step-by-step process looks like this:

Need help? Click the button below to watch a video showing exactly how to install WordPress from the Bluehost control panel.

WATCH VIDEO

In rare cases, you might choose a web hosting company that doesn't have a one-click installation for WordPress. In that case, you would need to download the WordPress software yourself, set up a web database and install all of the files yourself!

Avoid web hosts that do not offer a one-click installation of WordPress unless you have advanced skills and know what you are doing!

When WordPress has been installed, you'll have a basic, but very stylish design with the default theme, which is called Twenty Seventeen. This is what it looks like:

There are thousands of themes you can use for WordPress to make your site look amazing and you can customize each of them to make it even more unique!

To get started, head to Appearance → Themes from your WordPress dashboard. The URL for that is http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/ and it looks like this:

From the Themes page, click Add New Theme and you can search for themes based on features like the color, layout, and popularity and with such a large selection there are some great themes to choose from. In our follow-up series, we'll cover themes in more detail and show you which one we use for Site Beginner too.

Once you find a theme that you like, choose Preview to see how your site might look using that theme, or click Install to add it to your site, and then Activate to make it your theme.

After you have a great theme installed and activated. You're ready to start adding content to your site. Below we will cover some of the basics for adding content, pages and menus to your site.

Click any of the buttons below to view the step-by-step setup for each of the options.

Adding a page to your site is really easy with WordPress. Pages are most often used for static content like an About or a Contact page. If you can use a simple word processor like Microsoft Word, you'll have no trouble creating content in WordPress. Here's how you do it:

From your Dashboard, go to Pages Add NewChoose a Page title and create your content in the text boxClick the Publish button and your page will be live on your website

Need a visual guide? Take a look at the animation below to see exactly how a Page is created in WordPress.

If you want a blog for your website, you can add Posts to your site. These are sorted in date order showing the most recent first. The process is very similar to adding a Page, but Posts also let you choose a Category and add Tags so that you can group related posts together. Here's how to add a Post:

From your Dashboard, go to Posts Add NewChoose a Post title and create your content in the text boxCheck a category for the post, or add a new category in the right sidebar under the Categories heading(Optional) Add Tags to your Post, separating each tag with a commaClick the Publish button and your post will be live on your website

Watch a Post being created! Take a look at the animation below to see exactly how a Post is created in WordPress.

Chances are you'll want a navigation menu that visitors can follow to find pages. Luckily almost all WordPress themes make this very easy. Here's how to add a menu to your website:

From your Dashboard, go to Appearance MenusChoose a Menu name and click Create MenuOn the left, check the Page or Pages you want to add to the menu (you can also add Category links or your own Custom linkClick Add to MenuOn the right, you can drag and drop the menu items into the order you'd likeChoose a menu location by checking a box under Theme locationsClick Save Menu to publish your changes

Need help? Take a look at the animation below to see exactly how to create a navigation menu in WordPress.

By default, WordPress will show your blog posts on the front page. For some sites though, you might want to choose the content of your front page yourself and move your blog posts to another page. For this, you'll need to set a static front page, like this:

From your Dashboard, go to Settings ReadingUnder Front page displays, select the static page optionFor the Front page dropdown menu, choose the page that you want to show on the front page of your siteUnder the Posts page dropdown, choose the page you'd like to show your blog posts (a page called Blog or similar works well)Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page to publish the changes

Need help? The image below shows exactly how to set a static front page in WordPress.

Below are some frequently asked questions to customize your WordPress even further.

Sometimes you might not want to allow comments on pages or posts (if you have a business site for example). You can disable comments for all posts and pages by default by visiting Settings Discussion and unchecking the Allow people to post comments on new articles box:

You can also disable comments on individual pages or posts by heading to Posts All Posts and clicking the post you want to edit. Then you can uncheck the Allow comments box:

Note: you might need to enable the Discussion module on the edit screen by clicking Screen Options in the top right of your screen and checking Discussion:

The title of your site is shown at the top of the page and often this would be your business name, or your personal name if you're starting a blog.

You can also set a tagline, which is a quick description of what your site is all about. So if your site was about photography, your site title might be Spiffy Photos and your tagline could be Free HD photo downloads or similar. To see the site title and tagline, visit Settings General:

Most themes have a sidebar on either the right or left side which can be used to add content like a menu, links to popular pages or other content on your site you want to highlight. Here's what a sidebar looks like:

You can add content to your sidebar really easily by going to Appearance Widgets from your Dashboard. Widgets are small pieces of content that you can drag and drop into your sidebar to easily customize your site. We'll cover widgets in more detail as part of our follow-up series.

After following each of the steps in this setup guide, you should have a really nice looking website. Well done! :)

Hopefully, you've found this guide to be very useful and easy to follow along with. Below, you'll find some options on what you can do next to continue your learning and improve your newly created website!

get the free follow-up email course

If you followed this guide all the way to the end, you should now have a very strong foundation and a fully-functional website. But there is so much more you can do!

Our free email follow-up series will teach you how to customize your site further, and will cover things like which theme we recommend and how to add an email newsletter to your site, as well as introducing plugins - small applications you can install to WordPress to add things like a contact form, an online store and many more!

To get started, enter your name and email address below and you'll receive tutorials every week that will help you to improve your website.

Your details are never shared or sold, and we hate spam as much as you do, so we'll never do it.

If you found any of the sections in this guide difficult, or have a question about setting up your website that we didn't cover then please contact us with your questions and we'll be happy to help!

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