How to Build a Modern-Day High-End WordPress Website at No Cost!

The pandemic has changed how we market our products and our brands. In fact, it has changed the way we use the internet altogether.

Another significant change is the boost in small businesses and e-commerce activities. According to Statista, e-commerce share of total retail sales worldwide jumped from 13.8% in 2019 to 21% in 2022.

And it all starts with creating a website!

Having a website increases your credibility, gives a space for you to showcase all your product/service offerings, market them, and of course, sell. A website is absolutely essential to build an online presence.

One cannot deny that it often feels overwhelming, but let me assure you that there is no need to worry. There is fantastic software that helps you to make attractive and effective websites. It is called WordPress.

This ultimate guide to building a website with WordPress will cover fundamental step-by-step processes. Along with it, you will get pro tips to implement while you create a WordPress site. Also, if you’re completely new here and to WordPress, read WordPress from Scratch.

Eye-catching WordPress stats and figures

In his book Shaping the Dream, famous blogger and motivational speaker Israelmore Ayivor clearly states: “Create a link through which you can market your dream products. Create a blog or a website of your own, depending on what you want to be recognized for. Share your experiences through these media.”

So it is true that if you want to push the accelerator on your dreams and zoom past others, you need to have a website or a blog. But how to get one?

‘Build website with WordPress.’ This is the advice that a majority of the pundits will offer.
You must be wondering why.

What is the ex-factor that WordPress has, unlike any other website-making platform?

Since its launch in 2003, WordPress has trodden quite a distance and is now one of the most powerful tools to make your online dreams come to life.

Let the numbers to do the talking. 

• Currently, WordPress powers nearly 43.8% of all the websites in the world. 
• 14.7% of the top websites in the world are crafted using WordPress.
• WordPress dominates a whopping 65.2% share in the CMS market worldwide. 
• More than 500 websites are built each day on WordPress, helping it edge way past its nearest competitors like Squarespace and Shopify.
• WooCommerce – the open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress powers more than 20% of the world’s top e-commerce websites.
• WordPress has an infinitely large plugin directory featuring almost  60,000 plugins.

Yes, these figures are not only eye-catching but mind-boggling as well!
Let’s move ahead to find out why WordPress is the most revered and recommended platform to build a website. 

Why is WordPress the best solution for developing your website?

Wikipedia lists more than 100 content management systems (CMS) that help you build a new website and personalize your site’s content with easy-to-use tools. There is absolutely zero knowledge of coding and sophisticated technicalities required. 

Why would you always prefer sites created with WordPress?

Let’s find out the reasons.

• WordPress is open-source 
• WordPress is free
• Building a website with WordPress is a DIY solution
• WordPress also works as a website builder. It allows you to create lightning-fast, highly optimized, and secured websites.
• It is highly versatile – you can create any type of modern WordPress website, especially with the recent technological and monumental changes to the core software, and its editor.
• You can create a WordPress site and promote it easily since it is SEO-ready.

Now you might have a question at this point. What is the WordPress we are referring to here?

In our discussion, we are referring to the WordPress software or WordPress.org. There is a commercial service which is known as WordPress.com. The primary difference between the two lies in who is hosting your website. It could be done by you, using a third-party hosting provider, or allowing WordPress.com to host your website on your behalf. For complete and in-depth analysis, read: Self vs Managed WordPress hosting.

Now let’s inch closer to how you can create a WordPress site. We will provide you with every intricate detail to implement these and build a high-end WordPress website yourself.

What are the steps to build a high-end WordPress website?

Now that we are familiar with what WordPress is, let’s concentrate on making a WordPress website. 

Here we have listed the detailed steps to build a modern WordPress website. 

• Finding and registering a domain name 
• Choosing the ideal web hosting partner for your WordPress website
• Installing WordPress 
• Getting familiar with the WordPress UI
• Selecting the perfect template to customize your website design 
• Creating a WordPress homepage and adding content to your site 
• Starting a blog 
• Creating a modern WordPress website with maximized abilities by choosing the suitable custom plugins
• Adjusting your website navigation

Step 1: Finding and registering a domain name 

This is the primary step to build any WordPress website.

For beginners, a self-hosted WordPress.org site will be the ideal way to go forward.

If you are in any way apprehensive about it, then let me assure you that WordPress.org is stuffed with thousands of design templates and add-ons that make it one of the most resource-rich platforms you will ever come across. 

Now let’s walk through the domain name and web hosting basics. 

A domain name is your website’s unique address on the internet. It is like having a unique house name, and if your friends want to reach your house, they just need to enter your house name in Google Maps, and voila!

Similarly, users will enter the domain name in their browsers to reach your website—for example, google.com.

However, since there are about 2 billion websites on the internet, it will be quite a challenge to stay original. Also, you need to use a unique word or phrase that resonates with your brand image, your business, or yourself. In short, a good domain name should have the following. 

• Make it short and unique to make it easier to memorize.
• Should be easy to type and hard to mix up.
• It should be brandable and should contain niche-related keywords.

The typical cost of a domain name for sites created with WordPress revolves around a range which is affordable and has lots of scalability and customizations. You should first check the availability of your domain name in popular platforms like Bluehost or use a keyword to generate a unique domain name for your would-be high-end WordPress website.

Step 2: Choosing the ideal web hosting partner for your WordPress website 

Before we guide you to choose the ideal web hosting partner for your high-end WordPress website, let’s simplify the idea of web hosting for you.

For starters, websites are not just ‘on the internet.’ They are housed within web servers or web hosting setups and are served to the internet traffic. Hence, this is absolutely essential for every website as it needs to rent out a server space from a web hosting company to be accessed and used by visitors. 

There are hundreds of companies online that sell you a web hosting package. How to select the ideal web hosting partner for your high-end WordPress website?

Go for a web hosting service that is:

• Reputed
• Offers a wide range of web hosting plans
• Affordable
• Offers 24/7 customer service
• Intuitive account interface 
• Several resources for beginners 
• Offers at least 99% uptime
• Offers superior security options 
• Supports domain name management 
• Supports existing site migration

According to WordPress, almost every web hosting service out there meets the minimum requirement for WordPress hosting.

However, according to WordPress.com, Bluehost, DreamHost and SiteGround are the best-suited for hosting a high-end WordPress website. They boast of user-friendly interfaces, offer seamless installation, and are highly WordPress-centric.

Apart from these, you can also take a look at managed WordPress hosting providers like WordPress.com, etc.  WPEngine, Kinsta, and Hostgator as they are some of the best web hosting services that power top WordPress websites. 

After your domain name is registered, you need to select an ideal hosting plan for your website. Once done, ask the hosting service to install and configure a clean version of WordPress on its hosting setup. 

Step 3: Installing WordPress

Once you are done with the sign-up and are ready to go with your hosting setup, you need to install WordPress. 

It is possible for you to install WordPress manually and create a WordPress site. You can also check out the various processes to install WordPress.

However, you can have all the comfort in the world if you use Bluehost as your web hosting service. You simply need to log in to your profile and use the easy setup wizard to install WordPress on your hosting setup.

You can also use your browser and type yoursite.com/wp-admin/ to log in to your WordPress dashboard.

Alternatively, you can go to the My Sites section on Bluehost and use the one-click WordPress installer to create multiple WordPress websites. Bluehost just needs the name of your new site and your username/password for managing your high-end WordPress website. 

Step 4: Getting familiar with the WordPress UI

Familiarity with the WordPress UI is the first step to creating your high-end WordPress website. 

Type your domain name in the address bar followed by /wp-admin (example: yoursite.com/wp-admin) to reach to your site’s WordPress user panel. You can then use the access credentials used in your web hosting service to reach your WordPress dashboard. 

Here you will find the main WordPress interface. 

There are several sections like-

• Welcome message
• Pages
• Posts
• Media
• Plugins
• Settings
• Comments
• Users
• Appearance
• Present status of your WordPress website

You should use some basic WordPress settings to get started. These will be discussed in detail later. 

Step 5: Choosing the ideal template to customize your website design

If you want to develop a high-end WordPress website,you need to concentrate on the visual appearance of your site. 

Customizing the visual appearance of your sites created with WordPress is super easy. You need to use WordPress themes. These are nothing but professionally designed templates that help you personalize your site’s appearance and create an impact on the visitor of your site.

Customize the appearance of your WordPress website by going to the Appearance > Themes page and selecting from a variety of free and paid WordPress themes available in the WordPress.org directory by clicking on the Add New button. 

Once you sort out your desired theme by using filters such as latest, featured, etc., click on the install button. Next, you can go to Appearance > Customize to launch the theme customizer, where you can change the settings of your theme according to your wish. You will get a live preview option to help you choose better. 

However, you can finalize the theme settings once you have added some content to your would-be high-end WordPress website. 

Step 6: Creating a WordPress homepage and adding content to your site

There are two types of content that you can add to your WordPress website –

• Pages 
• Posts. 

While pages display static/one-off type content like Homepage, About Us page, Contact page, etc., Posts represent the WordPress blogging functionality and appear on your Homepage. But you can also remove them from your WordPress Homepage and make it display any other static page of your website. 

Alternatively, you can use a separate page for your blog or news section or create a website without these sections. 

To create a new page, you need to head over to the WordPress admin area and go to Pages > Add New. 

After adding a title to this page:

1. Start adding content by clicking on the text editor.
2. Add multiple texts, links, photos, and embed videos to make this page exciting. You can allow comments by enabling Discussion on this page.
3. Hit Publish to publish this page.

Repeat the same process to create different website pages like About Us, Privacy Policy, Contact Us, Blog/News section, etc. 

Congrats, you are inching closer to the ultimate, high-end WordPress website!

Step 7: Starting a blog

According to SEMrush, one-third of all the web pages in existence are essentially blogs!

Since the content marketing industry is projected to reach nearly USD 412.88 billion by the end of 2021, you can focus on blogging while dishing out a high-end WordPress website. A blog is multifaceted – it will not only help you promote your website but other products as well.

Since WordPress has super-efficient blogging tools embedded in it, you can just leverage its power and start publishing your blog posts relevant to the content of your high-end WordPress website. 

The process of creating a blog post is very similar to creating a new page. You simply need to go to Pages > Add New on your WordPress dashboard and create a blank page. You can call it ‘Blog’ for your convenience. 

Next, go to Settings > Reading and select your newly created ‘Blog’ page as the posts page. You can also go to the new page and find all your blog posts there. 

However, one of the most challenging things to crack here is not creating the blog page but blogging regularly. Starting a blog will definitely give yourhigh-end WordPress website increased visibility and authority. But you need to keep at it to maintain the credits your website collects from the search engine and the traffic.

Step 8: Creating a modern WordPress website with maximized abilities by choosing the suitable custom plugins 

Plugins in a WordPress site are like the apps on your iPhone or Android phone that have every functionality that you like or frequently use at your disposal.  

WordPress plugins are the best way to customize your high-end WordPress websiteand expand its functionalities. 

Click the Plugins page from your WordPress dashboard, and you have around 60,000 plugins to choose from! You can also find paid plugins sold by third-party websites and developers.

However, it is natural to get confused with such a flurry of choices. So, you should know how to choose the best plugin for your high-end WordPress website, like for:

• SEO – You can use Yoast SEO to improve your WordPress SEO and enhance site visibility.
• Security – You can use Wordfence Security to boost the security of your high-end WordPress website.
• Analytics – You can integrate your WordPress site with Google Analytics for WordPress to monitor the traffic analytics data and tweak your website accordingly.
• Contact form – Use WPForms to add a contact form to your website. 
• Image gallery – Use Envira Gallery Lite to add a beautiful image gallery to your website.
• Image optimization – Use Optimole.
• Auto backups – Use UpdraftPlus to perform automatic backups of your high-end WordPress website.
• Caching – Use WP Super Cache, which is a free WordPress caching plugin to speed up a WordPress site.
• Page builder – Use SeedProd for its drag and drop functionality to create top WordPress websites without any technical know-how.
• Push notifications – Use PushEngage to connect with your website’s visitors after they have left, thereby increasing the possibility of your website traffic.
• Email marketing – Use Constant Contact for streamlining the email marketing operations of your WordPress business website.

You can also check out the list of the best WordPress plugins of all time to turn your website into a high-end WordPress website in no time!

Step 9: Adjusting your website navigation

Now that your key pages are online, you have started a blog and added custom plugins to amp up the performance of your high-end WordPress website;let us focus on adjusting the navigation of your modern WordPress website.

Menu

• Go to your WordPress dashboard to select Appearance > Menus. Create a new menu and start assigning pages and/or posts to the menu(s). This requires registration of menu locations which is typically done by themes. Menus once created should be assigned to the menu locations for those to show up on the website.
• But my friend, the time has changed with block themes and full-site editing. Now, create menu(s) and add it at any location on your website using the awesome Navigation block. Blocks weed out the need for themes to offer menu locations and ultimately the limitation to have menus at only specific areas on the website; hence more flexibility and ease of use.

Widgets

• Widgets are an old-school drag and drop feature of WordPress that enables you to add blocks of contents to different areas of your website – sidebar, footer, etc.
• Now with the advent of block themes, this has become a piece of cake with ready-to-use blocks available at your disposal.

To learn more and in-detail about block themes, read: Block Themes

What are some tips and tricks to keep in mind while building a website with WordPress?

The top tips and tricks to improve your high-end WordPress websiteand enhance its functionality are listed below. 

• Your WordPress business website should focus on a great user experience. Use themes and plugins accordingly.
• WPWhiteBoard is here with a pool of resources to kickstart and progress in your WordPress journey. Use WordPress online support regarding any query involving creating or using your high-end WordPress website. Feel free to write or just talk @ Get in Touch.
• While naming the files in your high-end WordPress website,use dashes and not underscores. Using the latter ruins the SEO since Google looks at underscores as joiners, while dashes imply separate words.
• Use image alt tag and title tag optimization to improve SEO.
• Try to learn and understand SEO basics to improve your website rankings, visibility, and traffic.
• Create an ‘About Us’ page thoughtfully, as it is proved to be the second-most visited page on every website.
• Regularly backup your website in case of unprecedented technological difficulties that compromise your data. 
• Use relevant plugins to amp up the security of your high-end WordPress website.
• Customize or create a custom WordPress homepage to improve user experience.
• Constantly monitor your website performance using necessary WordPress plugins.
• Create a custom navigation bar and structure your site according to buyer personas and your business objective to improve user experience.
• Consider using a plugin that creates a responsive, mobile-friendly design for your high-end WordPress website.
• Use maximum visual and video content.
• Write the excerpts for your blog posts to help users when they land on your blog page.
• Pick a suitable CRM from the list of the best WordPress CRM plugins to optimize your high-end WordPress websitefor maximum user engagement, lead generation, lead nurturing, and conversion.
• Use social proof to show your existing audience to the new users of your site.

Closing thoughts

Now that you are equipped with divine knowledge of creating a high-end WordPress website,we want you to take it a notch further and customize it according to your business’s unique requirements! You can always come back to WPWhiteBoard for All Thing Everything WordPress and master WordPress.

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