Building a website in this day and age is a lot simpler than it used to be. For one, you don’t need to have superior technical skills or web development experience to get a site up. All you need is a good website builder, a bit of time and the right kind of content.
Wordpress is probably one of the most popular site building platforms today, with millions of websites born out of it since it was first introduced years ago. When you think of blogging, a Wordpress website quickly comes to mind. This is why it’s quite understandable that beginners might want to lean towards learning how to use Wordpress to get their own websites up and running.
With that being said, here is a quick Wordpress tutorial and what it really takes to build a site on this website building platform.
1. Setting up
Wordpress is a self-hosted website building platform that allows you to create feature-rich websites. The use of this platform is completely free but you will have to arrange for your own domain name and hosting service. It basically provides you with a framework for creating your own website but you will need to obtain the infrastructure where the website and all its relevant files will sit.
Many hosting providers offer a seamless way of installing Wordpress into your web server. All you need to do is purchase a domain name for your site and you can move on to the next step.
2. Select wordpress templates
Once the backend part of your site is settled, you can get on to creating your website’s frontend. The visual appearance of your site at this point is controlled by a Wordpress theme - these are templates that basically give you the shell of a website. Alternatively, you can also install one of the many free wordpress themes provided within the platform. You can choose certain design elements and customize the appearance of your site through the website editor.
3. Add content
After laying out the sections and pages that you will need for your website, the next step is to start adding in content. Wordpress has a user-friendly text editor that lets you easily create posts and publish content on your site. The only thing is that it can be difficult to visualize how your content will look like on the actual site until you preview the page. For beginners, this can be a challenge because it’s difficult to know if the content or image you are adding would look good on your site until you view a sample of the page after editing.
If you’re not used to using website editors and this is the first time you are building your own website, you might find yourself facing a steep learning curve with a wordpress website. You will have to devote some time learning how to use wordpress and get used to the interface before you can get to work on designing your website and adding the content.
Best alternative to Wordpress
If you’re not keen on having to learn how to code your way to building a full featured website, Strikingly offers a great alternative to using Wordpress. For starters, you can actually set up your website for free on this platform because it offers hosting services as well as a free subdomain to get you started. There’s no need for you to obtain separate hosting and domain at least while you’re just starting out. Once your website starts attracting traffic, you may want to upgrade to the Pro accounts and take advantage of the additional features and bandwidth.
Whatever website you plan to build - be it a blog, online portfolio or even an online store - you can get it up for free with Strikingly.
