Wordpress

Once your website is live, you will have an access to the dashboard of your website. This is where you will be able to make the necessary customisation to your website such as install themes and plugins, upload content etc. This would be the backend of your website. Whatever you do here will reflect in the front-end of the website.

Your dashboard will only be visible to your and those who have been given the username and password or are made “users” (with their own username-password) under settings. More on this later.

The first thing you would need to do once you have the access to your new wordpress dashboard is to upload a theme.

There are a couple of good themes out there, however, we would always suggest you to go for wordpress themes with frameworks. A good example of this would be genesis themes.

Read here as to why wordpress themes with framework are better.

Some good themes in the market are:

genesis
thesis
…..

Do note that these are are paid themes. Though we always recommend people to invest in a good theme; for the start, you can even go for any of the free themes provided by wordpress.

Read here on how to install wordpress theme.

The next step in the process would to install some important plugins. We would recommend you to install the following:

Yoast SEO
W3 Total Cache
Akismet
Contact form 7
Any social media sharing plugin

Check out the full list of plugins that we use. Do note that you will also have to invest in some good paid plugins as to website starts to grow. However, for now FREE ones would also do.

Check out the list of essential free plugins that are must for your wordpress site.

Note: It is important that you keep the minimum number of plugins installed on your wordpress website as having a lot of them can negatively affect the performance of your website.

It is also important to check that the plugins you install are developed by reputed developers, providing good technical support and regular updates. (A very important point from security and stability of your website)

Read – why do we use websynthsis from studiopress for our wordpress websites

Checkout other important settings for your wordpress website here.

Having an online presence is a must these days. Whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or a high-profile executive, having an online identity is necessary for your professional growth.

Having started my digital journey almost 10 years back, we’ve seen the industry and the technology supporting it change drastically. However, it is easier than ever for any one to create their online presence not only to showcase their services/products but also to attract new clients.

Without wasting anymore of your time, let’s get straight into setting up your first website online.

Note. I do not like to refer any self-hosted personal/professional identity as blog as it tends to make people casual towards my business. I like to term all my online assets as websites, including my “personal blog”.

Step 1:

Choose a domain name and register the same.

It is important to give a solid name to your website, which will not only be your future brand but will also be used to drive traffic to you product/service page (we will take about this in future).

Finding a good website name related to your business or industry is a tricky and time-consuming task. Do spend some time to come up with some catchy name, which would be easy for people to remember and gives a sense of your industry. For e.g if you are a wedding photographer who wants to sell photography services, you can choose sometime like – weddingmemories.com or weddingbells.com (These names are too common and just for example purpose. But you get the idea). However, it is not compulsory to choose a name with your industry/service name in it. If you feel your chosen name is catchy, just go for it. At the end, it is how you market and position yourself is what matters the most.

Note: Whichever name you choose; always make sure to check if the domain for that particular name is available or not. This is important to keep a sync between your online and offline marketing efforts. We do not want to name our company as “weddingbells” and then find out that weddingbells.com is already taken by someone else.

Check domain name availability on any domain registration websites. We suggest:

domain.com
namecheap.com
godaddy.com
siteground.com

It is also prudent to check trademark/copyright directory of respective country to ensure that a particular name has not been already registered to prevent infringement issues later on. (If you are a local business who is not planning to go international, you can always choose domain names such as .in (country initials), .info,.co, .net etc. However, we would suggest you to give first priority to .com.

If you are finding a tough time to come up with interesting names, you can use business name generating websites such as:

Step 2.

Buy A hosting Plan

This should be your next step once you register your domain name. You would need to host your website online and connect your domain name to the host. (More on this later)

You can always choose to buy the domain name and hosting space from the same service provider. However, we always suggest to buy the domain name and the hosting from two different service providers. This is because if one of the service provider goes down or has a technical glitch, you know who is at fault.

Choosing a hosting name can be confusing. This can be because of one or all of the below reasons:

1. you don’t know how much space you would need for your website
2. you don’t know who is the best and provides value for money service
3. you don’t understand the technical jargons

For the uninitiated, unless and until you are planning to make a 100 + or 1000+ pages website and drive a massive amount of traffic to its pages, go for any “starter” plan which will usually be a shared hosting plan.

Once your website starts getting traffic and reaches a certain number of visitors per month, the hosting providers will send you a mail to upgrade the plan. That would be the right time to move your plan with higher bandwidth and space.

Note: The key here to to just start without getting bogged down by various things. As you move ahead, make the necessary changes as required.

For those looking for hosting providers, you can choose from the below:

siteground
bluehost
namecheap
web synthesis (Studiopress)

How to setup your hosting and install wordpress?

Once you purchase any hosting service, you need to point your domain name to your hosting space. In simple terms, connect your domain name to your hosting server.

Every reputed hosting service will have proper documentation and instruction manual. You can also contact them for assistance (Some service providers can get it done by taking some minor fee or even do it for free). However, we highly suggest to go through the “how-to videos” of the hosting provider and some youtube videos to help you navigate through the process. There is no doubt a learning curve, but it’s fairly simple. It will also help you to know the very basics of your website, which we feel is very important in the long run.

You can also take help from some professional on sites like Upwork and Fiverr.

Once you have connected the domain, please do note that it can take 24-48 hours or even couple of days for your website to go live. This is very normal.

A general setup procedure can be found here.

It is also important that for advanced security reasons, you purchase an SSL certificate as well. Read about the importance of SSL certificate for your website here.