Hello everyone, I am here to share an overview of installing your own WordPress blog or website for the first time. In today’s post let’s have a quick overview of how you get started over choosing a domain name, a hosting, how you can connect them, and how you can finally set up your WordPress blog or website by yourself. So let’s get started with a very basic. Before starting to build your own website, the first two things that are required for this process are getting a domain and a hosting server.
So what is a domain? The domain is the name of the website. For eg – flipkart.com or name.com
What is hosting? Hosting is where the website files are stored.
Now there are some service providers who provide domain and hosting together and in that case domain and the hosting server are already connected. But you can also buy a domain from one service provider and rent the space i.e. hosting server from other service providers. In this scenario, you must connect the domain and hosting service provider. So in order to connect these two, we need to have a common link, right? So here the nameservers come into action. Nameservers are used to connect the domain and hosting. Hosts give the nameservers. Then we put the name servers in the domain. So now the domain knows the server.
So, go ahead and let me share the mind map that I have created for you to understand the steps of the installation process of WordPress blogs or websites. You can see I have given some names of the service provider of both domains and hosting servers. You can choose anyone from it. Among the hosting service provider, WPX is excellent and slightly expensive, you can also go with A2, Namecheap & BlueHost, they are equally good. But if you are in a beginner stage and you want to make a small investment, I will recommend buying Hostinger. In Hostinger you will get a free domain and SSL certificate for the first year. Besides that, you will get other features also such as 100GB SSD storage, 100 subdomains, 100 email mailboxes, and more other features which you see by visiting its website.
Link – https://mm.tt/map/2437002355?t=DXwlWIO7mP you can refer to this link for the mind map.
You can also buy domains from other service providers such as Name.com, GoDaddy.com, etc. In this scenario, we have to update nameservers in the domain service provider. You can choose your own domain name and check whether it is available or not. But if you just started I will recommend buying the domain and hosting from the same service provider. After you make a purchase you will get all the details into your email id. You will get your login credential by which you can log in to your hosting server dashboard.
Hostinger –
In Hostinger you will get to download two types of hosting Shared Hosting and WordPress Hosting. I will recommend downloading WordPress hosting, as in that case you don’t have to install WordPress manually. So, I will recommend going ahead with WordPress hosting and purchasing the plan according to your requirement. But try to purchase at least 12 month’s plan. You will get a free domain and SSL certificate for the first year. After purchasing the plan you will get all the information and login credentials to your hosting server dashboard in your email id. If you haven’t purchased WordPress hosting, in that case you need to install WordPress manually. So, you need to install WordPress from the cPanel or hPanel of the hosting server.
let’s discuss some important points you need to know after the WordPress installation –
SSL Certificate –
Then we need to know about the SSL certificate. What is SSL? SSL is HTTP+SSL = HTTPS. It actually adds some inscription to your websites which will help to minimize any type of security issues. So this is one of the important features and you should have an SSL certificate on your websites. For the first year, the maximum hosting service provider provides a free SSL certificate, or sometimes it may be paid option or you can go to Cloudflare from where you can install an SSL certificate for free. But most service providers will give you a free SSL certificate for the first year.
Settings –
Then after the installation of WordPress, now you need to make it better. So in order to do this, we need to go to Settings. First of all, go to General settings where you can change your site title, you can give your tagline, can modify your site address URL, can select your language, time zone, and date format. Then go to Discussion settings where you can select your settings according to your needs. After that go to Reading settings and you can choose your homepage display as a static page or display your latest posts. It mainly depends on the nature of the website. If you are using your website as a blog then try to select display’ your latest posts in your homepage displays. Another important setting is the Privacy policy page, where you can change or create a privacy policy page according to your business requirement. Then finally the last setting I want to show you, is the Permalink setting, select the checkbox of Post name.
Appearance –
Now we go forward to options called ‘Appearance’ and select the options ‘Menus’. You can create a primary menu or a secondary menu. Under the primary menu, you can create a home page, about us, blog page, contact us, etc. which will display on your website. You can also determine your theme which comes under appearance. Theme is that which determines the look of your website. You can choose your own themes from the list of all the installed themes from different categories. You can also upload your own theme. You can also customize your theme which also comes under appearance.
Pages and Posts –
There are also some options like pages and posts. You can create your own pages or posts and also you can modify or delete them according to your requirements.
Plugins –
Then if you want to add more features to your website you need to go to Plugins. You can install or add new plugins from here, and also you can delete whichever is not required. There are some important plugins you need to install such as Yoast SEO (for SEO services and it comes with Google XML Sitemaps), UpdraftPlus for backup purposes, W3 Total Cache, HFCM (Header Footer Code Manager), Akismet Anti-Spam, and Site Kit by Google (which will help to make appear on Google).
Google Search Console and Google Analytics –
Then the last and most important part is to go ahead and activate Google Search Console and Google Analytics. In order to activate this, we need to install Site Kit by Google from the plugins option. These two will helps to check the traffic sources to your website, and user behavior on your website. You need to index your website with your google search console. Type your domain name in the search button in the Google search console and click on ‘Request Indexing’. So after activating both the analytics and search console now you need to connect both of them. In order to connect go to the analytics page, click on landing pages under the search console, add choose your appropriate website, and click save.
Conclusion –
So these are the basics and fundamentals of WordPress that you need to keep in mind to get started. If you have any questions or queries regarding this you can post them below in the comments section and I will be happier to help with this. Thanks for visiting my website.