By helloDarwin
May 26, 2023
How to Create a Professional Website with WordPress in 16 Steps
You've decided to choose the WordPress CMS to create your website. Here's a 16-step guide to building a professional website. However, before getting started, you need to ask yourself a few questions to get off on the right foot.
Creating a professional WordPress website
Creating a site on the WordPress platform also means working upstream, in other words, establishing the objectives you want to achieve through the site. Is it a transactional or informative site? This type of question will help you make informed choices when creating your site. In any case, you can save your work and come back to it later. Here are a few guidelines:
- Know your objectives: do you want to sell products? Is it to gain notoriety? Improve your search engine rankings through SEO? What do you want visitors to do when they arrive on your website?
- Next, prioritize your objectives, i.e. put forward what you feel is most important. The clearer and more clearly defined your objective, the more optimally your site will be built.
- Get to know your target audience (your persona) in terms of their tastes, purchasing profile or interaction with a website, for example.
- Ask yourself about your brand identity (brand image). What spirit do you want your site to have?
- Think about dynamic design (responsive design) too, so that your site can be accessed by your visitors on a desktop computer as well as on your phone.
- Think about the content you want to publish to improve your Google ranking. Blog posts? Videos? There's no limit to the options and tools available to you.
There are many ways to create a site, and on Wordpress, there's an array of customization options. Here's an outline of how to create a Wordpress site.
Step 1 - Choose a domain name
This is the name of your website. You can use a platform like Godaddy to get one, with hosting options. If you outsource the development of your site, your supplier will take care of it!
Step 2- Find a web host
When you select a hosting site, you also choose the domain name. Some web hosting sites may offer you a temporary name, others a permanent one. Some will offer 24-hour customer service by phone, chat or e-mail.
The price for web hosting is generally between $3 and $5 per month. You can start with the smallest plan and change along the way for more options. Several web hosting companies exist to meet your needs. Among the most popular are Hostinger, GoDaddy and Bluehost.
Do you have a website design project?
Why choose a web host?
If you have coding or programming skills, you can set up your site yourself and then find a web host. You could save a bit of money. However, if you don't have these skills, the Wordpress host will take care of all the technical and programming behind your website. As well as taking care of backups and updates.
Why bother with a web host? The web host makes your site's content available and distributes it on the web. It ensures that your site runs smoothly and is protected. 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 domain name. What's more, if you encounter any problems with your site, you can contact the host and they'll help you sort out any technical issues.
Step 3 - Install Wordpress
Once you've got the domain name, install Wordpress via the hosting site. This is free of charge. It can take between two and twenty-four hours for the site to appear on the web or to be functional. So you'll have to wait a little here or come back later.
Step 4 - Creating the Worpress website
To make it easier to find your way around the site, you can delete the plugins that are automatically installed with WordPress. In the menu, go to Plugin, select all and delete. This way, you'll have better control over the plugins you install, or you can install the ones you want. You can always leave the settings as they are.
To have a professional site, it's all about the details that will enhance your site and have an impact on people. So let's start by creating more professional URLs.
Go to the dashboard and settings. You'll see that there are several URL choices, choose "Post name". The name of your home page will appear after the domain name. This simplifies your URL. Instead of numbers and more technical names that mean nothing to Internet users, they'll see a word. What's more, it's shorter if you want to copy and paste. It's more professional and cleaner.
Next, perform an update to see if there's any software to update. This is your chance to find and fix any bugs in the software before continuing with the creation of the new site. This way, when you download the new plugins, if a problem arises, you'll know where to look.
Step 5 - Choose a theme
A theme gives style to your site's interface. On WordPress, there are hundreds of themes. You can find them on the site or download them from elsewhere on the net and then import them into WordPress. Some are paid and others are free. Each theme can have its own settings to be customized according to the brand and style you want.
To help you, you can choose the themes that have been the most popular with the stars and how many people have installed it. This can be a good indication of the level of difficulty for the settings. Once you've chosen the theme, install it and click on activate. Some themes may require plugins for further customization. So don't hesitate to install them if you wish.
Step 6 - Adding pages to WordPress
To add new pages, start by deleting the automatically installed pages. Pages represent products, services and contacts, while the post is the blog and the articles that make it up.
To change the title, go to Customize.
To add pages, go to "dashboard", scroll down to the "page" tab and add a page. Enter a page title and publish the page. Leave the pages blank while you create the structure of your site. This way, you'll have an idea of what your site will look like, and you can also put it on "hold" and come back later to finish it without losing the thread of your ideas. There's no limit to the number of pages you can add.
Step 7 - Edit the page
You have unlimited choice to create whatever you want in the CMS. You can edit your page by selecting text size, typography, special effects, position, colors and much more. It's in this editor that you insert your products, company mission, design, logo and blog post content.
Creating a professional website 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 customizations and extensions. To help you build your website, it's possible to download an extension that's used to build template pages or templates. In the menu, go to plugin, choose "Element or page Building", download and activate.
This way, the tool helps you customize web pages instead of starting from scratch. You download template pages from other sites on the Internet and import them into WordPress. You'll find you have thousands of choices. Again, you can change the text, size, typography, change the background, add a video and much more.
Step 9 - Add a video
To install a video, we recommend you upload your video to YouTube and then copy/paste the link into the website. Why do we do this? Because you save complex steps and YouTube compresses the video, plus you get a quality video on your website. Don't forget to upload a royalty-free video if you don't have one.
Step 10 - Create a button
To create a button, simply duplicate an existing one. 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.
What's more, you can view the different interfaces on the editing menu and make any necessary adjustments to optimize the website on mobile, tablet or desktop.
Then save.
Step 11 - Check mobile interface
Wordpress allows you to configure the mobile interface via the edit page. The options are located at the bottom of the menu. For example, if a video is not playing in the background on your cell phone, check the mobile settings. Wordpress will show you the mobile screen, and you can make the necessary corrections to optimize the customer experience.
Step 12 - Create a 2nd WordPress page
You can repeat steps 6 to 11.
You'll find that the steps are fairly repetitive, i.e. there's the template import, the customization and then a mobile check. The more pages you create, the faster you'll get going.
Step 13 - Integrate a contact form
To integrate a contact form, particularly to receive e-mails from visitors, you can download the template pages with Google maps. Then, in the elementor page Building section, add the templates to the site, import and adjust the information and colors as described above in the editing section.
Next, install the contact form plugin. Once downloaded, go back to the menu and click on contact. Check the e-mail address so that requests are sent to the right person. Next, copy the coding at the top of the text box, return to the elementor page Building, 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.
Notice that the contact form appears to the right of the company details? You can now make the necessary adjustments.
Step 14 - Insert a logo
From the menu, go to Custom Header, upload your logo and adjust the format. Place it where you want it on the interface.
Step 15 - Customize the top and bottom of the web page
Another important detail for the site's interface is the top and bottom bars, which contain the widgets. You follow the same steps to download the Divers template and then import it into "Elementor page Building".
Here there's 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'll find two screens: one for desktop and one for mobile. You can adjust the logo, social networks, size and position. Be aware that everything must be "centered" for the mobile interface, and save. Repeat the steps for the footer.
If you see gray areas on the sides of the bands at the top and bottom of the web page, go to the Footage folder you've created, choose the top and bottom, then click on "Stretch section". This way, the colors will stretch to the end of the screen. Check that all social network logos link to the desired site. Then check the mobile interface to see 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 that appears in the tab, simply go to customize, then site identity. You'll see that the image dimensions are 512 x 512 pixels. You can change the format if required and then upload the logo. Click on publish and the logo will appear on the tab.
You've now gone through the main steps for building a professional WordPress website. Don't forget to secure your website to protect it from malware. Your site could gain credibility by having an SSL certificate, so don't hesitate to take the necessary steps.
Don't forget that creating a professional WordPress site requires a minimum of computer skills and a great deal of patience. The advantages of WordPress are all the customization possibilities thanks to the plugins and tools available. The downside is that there are so many extensions and features to choose from, it's easy to get lost.
Ready to start creating a website and establishing your online presence? Take a look at our article on the different costs involved in creating your website.
Related Tags
Website creation
Wordpress
Web design
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About the author
helloDarwin
We create successful business alliances through tailor-made partnerships. Web marketing, video production, ERP/CRM integration... Whatever professional service you need for your business, helloDarwin helps you find the best service providers for your project. Free of charge, without any obligation and within 48 hours on average. We help you find grants, loans, aid and assist you throughout your digital transformation.