In this Article, I m going to show you how I easily madethis exact website in less than an hourwith zero coding required.This free video is a step-by-step tutorialwith not a single step skipped.Web developers would usually chargebetween 500 to $1,000 for a website of this caliber,but you ll be able to create your ownat a fraction of the cost.Seriously, anybody can do thiswithout any experience whatsoever.If there s one video you should watch today,it s this one, so stay tuned.(enchanting boom)Hey, what s up, guys?ODR Productions here with how2makewebsite.com,the number one online resourcefor helping you create your first website,both easily and affordably.For those who don t know me,I m the founder of RecordingNow.com,a website which I built using the exact same platformand techniques I ll be teaching in this video.If you re watching this video,then you re interested in creatinga website for your business.Now, whether you already have a businessor you re thinking of starting one soon,having a professional website is a necessaryinvestment in today s digital age.The website we re going to create todaycan be used in a variety of ways.If you ve been wanting to start a business for a while now,this website itself can actuallybecome an online business of its own.You can turn this website into an authority website,a profitable blog,or even an eCommerce store if you desire.For those who already have a business,you can use this website to promoteyour products or services,and allow customers to contact you through the website.Now that we have all that out of the way,you re probably thinking, what s the catch?How is all this even possible?Well, I m glad you asked, my friend.If you re wondering how we re going to be ableto make a website with zero coding,the answer is a little platform called WordPress.You ve probably heard the name before,but I ll give you some more detail into how it works.WordPress is known as a Content Management System, or CMS.Basically, WordPress is a powerful platformthat allows you to create and customize a websitewith several different themes and pluginsso you can create virtually any website you dream ofwithout ever having to touch a line of code.It makes making websites easy and even a little fun.
So now you re probably wondering, awesome,now, how can we get started with WordPress?Well, before, during the olden times,the process used to be quite lengthyand actually involved quite a bit of technical know-how.To explain it briefly,you used to have to get all these different parts separatelyand then connect them all together manually.Now, there are three main parts to each website.The first is a domain name such as RecordingNow.com,which you then had to connect to the second partwhich is a web hosting server.Now, on this web hosting serveris where you would install WordPress,which you had to download from wordpress.org,then upload that database via FTP,or File Transfer Protocol.Now, if any of that sounds a little confusing,don t worry, life is much easier now, and luckily,we have a simple one-step solution.All you have to do today is just sign up for Web Hostingand the rest will be automatically included.That s right, the domain will already be connectedand WordPress can be installed at the click of a button.It doesn t get any easier than this, folks,this really is the best timeto be making your first website.Okay, so now we re going to getinto the real step-by-step walkthroughfrom choosing a web host,to purchasing the right web hosting and plan,to setting up WordPress with that one-click installand to finally customizing your business website.If you need help with any step along the way,please feel free to comment any questionsyou may have and I ll do my best to help you out.So the first step, or shall I say, only step,is choosing the right web hosting company.All right, guys, so for choosing the right web host,I actually wanted to let you guys make the decisionand provide you guys with all the factsand all the resources in order to researchand compare the top web hosts.So, on how2makewebsite.com,if you go to Web Hosting,if you click the link in the description,or you could go to how2makewebsite.com and then go to Web Hostingand Best WordPress Hosting (Rankings),if you go into this page,it s actually going to have a listof all of the top WordPress web hosts.Yes, so, all the official recommended WordPress web hostsand then also all the popular web hostssuch as Bluehost, HostGator, DreamHost,are going to be featured on this listand they ve been ranked and all of these rankingsare up-to-date and they re being updated constantly.So, if you guys want to click the link in the description,you can visit this page which is constantly being updatedwith the top web hosts and everything is getting rankedbased on both performance and benefits,features, tech support, et cetera.So if you guys access that page,you guys can read through and then choose a web hostwhich seems right for you based on this comparison.So, I want you guys to click the link in the descriptionand then just do your own research,pick the right web host for you.For the rest of this video,I m going to be using SiteGround.Now SiteGround is the winner of our 2016Best Web Hosting for WordPress,as you can see here, they scored first placeand this is the current result of our WordPress rankings.SiteGround is an amazing web hostthat is an official WordPress recommended web host,as you can see here, and actually,if we go into.So, here we have wordpress.org/hosting,this is the WordPress official recommendedlist of web hosting.So we have Bluehost, DreamHost,Flywheel, and SiteGround, as I mentioned.So all four of these hosts are rankedon our top web hosting for WordPress page,and you can see, SiteGround actually came awaywith our number one pickbecause they had the best performance,they were faster than Bluehost, HostGator,they tested faster than 93% of other tested websitesbased on our independent speed tests using Pingdom.You get free domains, not just for the first year,but for life.Yes, that s $15 a year,no other host does this that I know of,certainly no other hosts on this list offers that,so right there is a great value that s going to save youa chunk of money depending how many yearsyou re going to be running your website.With that said, pricing is extremely fair,if not inexpensive, starting at less than $4 per month.Yes, that s one fast food meal or a couple cups of coffee.It comes with WordPress one click install, obviously,because it s a WordPress recommended web host,and last but not least,you get that 30-day money-back guaranteeand you really have nothing to lose.So SiteGround is definitely our choice,it s our first place winner of ourBest Web Hosting for WordPress 2016.Make sure to visit this pageso you can see the updated rankings in the future.So if you re watching this video like a yearor two years from now,check this page because it s going to be updatedonce again with whoever is the top web host at the time.
Okay, guys, before we begin,the prices that we re going to be looking atwill be discounted based on a special SiteGround promotionthat how2makewebsite.com has gained access to.If you wanna get access to the same discount,click the link in the descriptionwhich will take you to a resource pageand there will be a button that will take youto SiteGround s website and automaticallyhave the best promotion.Okay, guys, so as you can see here,we have three different sharedweb hosting plans to choose from.You have the StartUp, the GrowBig, and the GoGeek.Now, I m going to give you some adviceon helping you choose the right plan for youalong with recommending my favorite planfor beginners looking to create their first website.Now, right off the bat,my first piece of advice is to simply go for the mostweb hosting that you can afford.Now, I say this because whicheverweb hosting that you can affordis going to be the best value to start with.Now, the reason I say this is because look at these prices.If you look at the subtext,you see here that this starter plan is 60% off.The GrowBig is 45% off,and the GoGeek is 50% off the regular price.Now, these prices are all introductory,they re all promotional and they are limited pricing,or they re only offered for a limited time.Now what this means is that if you were to, let s say,start off with the StartUp planand you change your mind and you wanna go up to the GrowBig,then you may not be able to pay the 7.95 per month,or that price may not be offered,it actually might be the 14.95 per month,which is almost double the cost of the GrowBigif you were to start with the GrowBig from the get-go.Now, on top of that, in terms of value,you also get a lot of featuresand you get increased performance the higher up you go.Now if you go from the StartUp to the GrowBig,you get a feature known as SuperCacher for great speed,which is listed below.And what this means is that you getcaching which basically is when you visit a websiteand you download a portion of that websiteso that when you visit it a second or a third time,it loads up in about half the time as the first visit.Now, caching is very important,especially for a WordPress websitewith a ton of photos, videos,plugins and a lot of media,caching is what will decrease your load timesand make your website perform a lot fasteras compared to, let s say, this StartUp plan.Now, if you want even more performance,going up to the GoGeek plan,you get fewer accounts on server.So by definition, shared web hosting.This means that you are sharing a single serverwith multiple users.Now, if you have less users on each server,this means that you have more resourceswhich are going to be powering your website.
So the more resources, then the faster load timesand the more users you can haveconcurrently on your websitewithout, you know, experiencing any hesitation orlagging load times, et cetera.So, as I said, if you can go for the GrowBigor the GoGeek,then that would definitely be my recommendation.Another big feature which separatesthe GrowBig and the GoGeek from the StartUp planis that you can host multiple websitesalong with twice or three times the amount of web space,not to mention suitable for 25,000to 100,000 visits per month.Now, multiple websites,what this means is that you can hostunlimited websites and unlimited domains.Now with the StartUp plan,you can only have one websiteand you re limited to that single website.You know, when I started out,I created my first website, and then,about a couple months later,I realized that I didn t love the idea as muchas when I first started and I wanted to createa new website with a new domain.Now the problem is if I went with the StartUp plan,then I couldn t pursue any other ideaswithout either purchasing additional hostingor upgrading to the next plan.And as I said before,if you were to start with a StartUp planand then change your mind down the line and upgrade,then this price of 7.95 per monthmay not be offered to you,you may end up paying the full 14.95 per monthwhich is pretty much twice,twice as much as you would be payingif you were to just start off with a GrowBig plan.So, once again,I recommend that you go for the mosthosting that you can afford.Now, my favorite web hosting plan for beginnersis probably going to be the GrowBig plan.I think this presents the best value at 7.95 per monthand the ability to, you know, host multiple websites,multiple domains, and then you have all the premium featuresin addition to all the essential featureswhich really takes this plan to the next level.You re gonna get faster load times,you re gonna get more securitythrough the one year free Wildcard SSL.If you are going to create a business website of any sort,you definitely want to have that SSLwhich secures your website.As you can see here,you see this lock and https,this is a secured website through SSLand if you were to purchasethe GrowBig plan or the GoGeek,you would get that SSL for free for the first yearwhich would totally secure your websiteand add credibility to your domain.So yeah, I recommend going for the GrowBig if you can.If you really can, I would go for the GoGeek.As you can see, these prices,you know, this really is an investment,it s an investment in yourself, your online presence,your brand, your business.
So, you know, if we re talking eight bucks a month,15 bucks a month, you know,that s just a couple fast food meals,a few cups of coffee at Starbucksand you know, that s really not that expensivein terms of business expensesand things that you can invest in,a website is relatively affordablecompared to a lot of sort of businesses out there.So, that s why I recommend to go for the best planbecause this really is an investment at the end of the dayand there s no better investment than investing in yourself.And the next step is to choose a domain.So the domain name, the URL,is like how2makewebsite.com.It s your website s name, and with this,you wanna get kinda creativebecause there are a lot of domainsthat will probably be taken upand you want to just experimentand just try different things out.Once you find the domain that s available,click Proceed to move on to step three.As you can see here,domain registration is included free upon signup.So this is usually about 15 bucks a year,sometimes it s more expensive such as with WordPress,they charge $18 per year for a custom domain,but one cool thing about SiteGroundis that you get your domain completely freewith each web host signup.So we re gonna click Proceedand if your domain is available,it s gonna load up and it will take you to step threeand it ll tell you, congratulations,your domain is available.So just fill out your information here,fill out your payment information.Okay, so after you fill out the above information,scroll down to the bottom where it says purchase informationand here is where we get to finalizethe length of the term of our web hosting.So one cool thing about SiteGroundthat other web hosts do not offeris you can actually choose your data centerbased on which location is closest to you in proximity.So,for me, since I m in California,the data center in USA automatically loaded,which is in Chicago.Now if you live overseas,if you live in Europe or another country or continent,you can choose whichever data center is closest to you.So I think this is an extremely cool featurethat is exclusive to SiteGround.Most of the web hosts, you know,you don t know where you re getting the hosting fromor whatever, but with SiteGround,you can actually choose your data centerand by choosing the data center that is closest to you,you can ensure that you getreliable service from your servers.And so, for me, I m choosing Chicago,and then you get to select the period.Usually, when you purchase hosting,hosting is always usually bought in annual installments,so you buy one year, two year, three years,and you pay for it all at once instead of monthly.
Once cool thing I guess with SiteGroundis that you can do a one month trial,it s a bit more expensive, and honestly,I don t recommend it.I recommend, at the very least, to go with 12 months.Go for the one year planbecause when you go for the one year plan,you commit yourself to your websitefor a period of one yearwhich is a ton of time to startup,build, grow, and expand your website.Going for one year is also gonna bethe cheapest option here next to the one month trial,so that s why I recommend it.So we ve already chosen the GrowBig plan,but here we also have these extra serviceswhich are an addition to your plan of choice.Now, as you can see here,domain registration is totally free,say 14.95, and one thing that sets SiteGroundapart from a lot of other web hostsis that you get your domain free for life.Other web hosts simply do not offer this,some of them offer a free domain for the first yearbut every year after that,you d be paying for your domain,every single year, which is an additional cost,whereas with SiteGround,you get your domain free every single year for life,saving you 15 bucks per year,and in the long run, you know,you can save quite a good chunk of money.Now, let s move on to Domain Privacyand this is a feature which for any web hostI think is an absolute must-have.Now, what is domain privacy?So domain privacy basically protectsyour domain from people looking up your who is information.Now, the way that domains workis that when you sign up and when you register a domain,you actually have to give your legal nameand your address because this is just in compliancewith sort of ICANN and the internet.Now with that said, domain privacybasically protects your domainfrom ever being able to be looked upand you know, people finding out your legal nameand your address and everything and your phone number.You want to have this domain privacybecause it s the internet, you know.You don t really want people prying intosort of your personal life or whatever,and so, domain privacy basically protectsvery sensitive personal informationfrom being accessed through your domain.Now, as you could see here,this is included into the GrowBig plan,but if you were on the StartUp plan, an SSL certificate,as you can see here, authenticates and encrypts the datatransferred through the website to the server,protecting financial and other sensitive information.Once again, this is another featurewhich is for security and privacy purposes.
Now, as I explained earlier,SSL is what gives your websitesort of this verified status of having a lock and an https.Now, if you were to create a business website,for example, an SSL certificate is a must-have,in my opinion, because it simply offers credibilityto your business, to your website, your domain,and it s something that is definitely worth the price.As you can see with the GrowBig,you save $82 by getting this SSL certificatefor the first year completely free.That s another reason why I would go for the GrowBig plan,if not, the GoGeek,because you get this amazing feature for free.And the last feature here is HackAlert Monitoringat $12 per year.So HackAlert is a monitoring servicethat checks your website dailyand immediately notifies you if your website has been hackedor injected with malicious code.So, as you guys know, the internet,it s a beautiful place but it can also be a dangerous place.If you were to create a website,you know, you re putting yourself out there.You re putting information out thereand you re putting your work out therewhere anyone can, you know, they can view,and some people can even access or even mess with,and time and time again,you know, I ve seen websitesthat have gotten hacked, they have lost precious informationor you know,basically lost work overnight,and so HackAlert Monitoring,this is basically just another extra layer of peace of mind.Now, for me, the must-have options aredefinitely Domain Privacy.If I were to pick one of these services,the Domain Privacy is the servicethat I would have in every single website that I registeror sign up with because it is just that extra peace of mindthat is relatively inexpensive at just $12 per year,and it s just something that I like to havebecause, you know, I like to have my life privatefrom my online presence and with that said,it s just peace of mind so that people can t be looking upsensitive, personal information.Last thing is to check this,which I think is already checked,it s the terms and agreement,and then just click Pay Now to complete your order.All right, so after clicking Pay Now,your order gets processed and you will come to this pagewhich is a confirmation/thank you page.So, your account is now being created,once it s ready, you ll be able to log into the customer area.So as you can see here,our account has finished being created,so we re gonna proceed to the customer area.So when you first start,you re gonna get this message just saying,Welcome to the SiteGround Account Setup Wizard.Honestly, we can justclick Thanks, but I don t need helpbecause I m gonna help you outand I m gonna walk you step-by-stepon how to install and get started with WordPress.So, click that, hit Proceed,and this should take us to our dashboard.
All right, guys, so once you get into your account,once you get into the main dashboard, as you can see here,to install WordPress,all we have to do is go into My Accounts,and then you re gonna go to cPanel here at the top.Let s access the cPanel.(light music)All right, so cPanel is sort of a universal dashboardthat many of the top web hosts use.So, for SiteGround,it s nice that they use cPanel so thatif you re familiar with other web hosts,if you ve used other web hosts before,then you should be able to navigatepretty easily through SiteGround.Now with that said,if we want to install WordPress,all we have to do is scroll down.You can see there s an entire categorycalled WordPress Tools,and then you see WordPress Installer.This is a WordPress one click install,much like other of the top WordPress-friendly hosts.Okay, guys, to install WordPress,all we have to do after we click that WordPress Install,is to click this blue Install on the top-left,and then you re gonna have this information here,you can just scroll past this.Here we have our site settingswhere you can just specify the name of your blog,and then just a short taglineas you can see here.Then you scroll down to this Admin Account.Now this is very important,make sure that you write down your admin usernameand password because once we download WordPress,we re going to need this to log in for the first time.Okay, so scroll down to the bottom,you can skip everything else,and then just click Install when you re ready to go.As you can see here,you ll be greeted by a progress bar which will tell youyour progress of the install, and as you can see,WordPress was installed in just seconds, it was that easy.All we had to do is click a couple buttons,jot down some info, and next thing you know,WordPress is installed on our domain.So, what you wanna do is you want to open up this Admin URLwhich will take you to the WordPress login.You re probably going to be using this URL a lotto log in to the backend of your website,so you might want to bookmark it.Now take your username and passwordthat I told you to write down and to save before the installand then just copy and paste that into this page,as you can see here,and then click log in.(light music)All right, guys, so after clicking that admin URL,we were automatically logged into the WordPress Dashboard,so welcome to WordPress.As you can see here, it can look a little confusing at firstbut I m gonna show you guys how to navigatearound your website and how to change different thingslike your theme and how to add postsand also pages including a Contact Us page,so we re gonna do all that right now.
The first thing that I like to dowith any fresh install of WordPress is to change the theme.So you can do that by going into Appearanceand then Themes.Now, one of the best parts about WordPressis you have access to literally thousandsupon thousands of beautiful custom designsand you can change your theme at the click of a button.So as you can see here,these are the stock WordPress themeswhich are not bad, they re pretty clean,but also they re a little bland.So what I like to do is click Add Newto browse the thousands of available themes.Now as you can see here, right off the bat,there are a ton of different themesthat range from business websites to blogs and so forth.Now, what you ll wanna do is you want to check outall these different themes, preview them,and then install a theme that you like.So, looking at this preview, you know,some of them, they re not gonna have too muchbecause we don t have any content on our website yet,but with that said, if you look at the actual thumbnail,this is what your website can look likeonce you do add the content,the pages, the posts, and so forth.So, browse around, pick a theme that you like,and then I m gonna choose a themewhich you can use for your business.Now, it s important to note that a lot of these themesare completely free to try outwhile some of them have a premium settingthat you have to purchase in orderto access certain features.So for the most part, you can try all of these for free,some of them do require payment in order to usethe full theme, but with that said,I m going to choose a free theme that you canstart using today, free of charge.All right, guys, for this tutorial,the theme that I chose is called Bizlight,that s Bizlight by evisiontheme.So, if you want to get the same theme as this tutorial,just search up Bizlight in the Themes section,and then install and then activate that theme.So, this theme is pretty clean,I like it because when you scroll down,it s got some nice responsive design,it s got some cool little graphicsand some animation that pops up like I ll show you here.So if we visit our website,you ll see that our theme has changedand we have this slider up top, which is pretty cool,and we re actually looking at the blog page.So, as you can see here,this is the sample blog post that is already includedwhen you install WordPress for the first time.So what we need to do is we need to turn thisinto an actual homepage and not the blog page for the home.So what we re gonna do is we regonna go back to the dashboard,you re gonna go into Appearanceand then you wanna hit Customize.After you go into Customize,in order to activate our homepage,what we need to do is create a static front page,as you can see here,and the default is your latest post.What this means is the default settingis your blog post, as you can see here.So, if you had multiple blog posts,other than just this one,it would show up as a list on this page,including images for your featured image of that blog post.Now, we don t have any of that right now,we actually just want to make a static front page.So what we re gonna do is we re gonna click a static pageand then you re gonna wanna choose the front pagewhich you want to add.So right now we have a sample pagewhich we can include right nowjust so you guys can see an example.When you do choose a static page, as you can see,our front page has transformed into a homepagelike in the preview of the theme,rather than our blog post page.So we re just going to, for now,save and publish that,but let s create an actual homepage.So, let s go back and on the sidebar,you re going to see pages.Now what are pages?Pages are the sections of your websitethat are most likely going to be staticand that do not change, such as a blog post page.So what I mean is an About Us page, a Contact Us page.These are parts of your websitewhich are not likely to change,they are likely to remain staticand so you wanna have these up in the navigation.So the first page which we re going to addby going into the sidebarand then clicking Add New is the homepage,and all we have to do for this is just title this Homeand then click Publish.So what we re gonna do is we re actuallygoing to customize this page in the theme itselfby going to Appearance, and then Customize.So, what we just did a few moments agois we changed our static front pageinto the sample page, but let s change it into home so that,you know, we can keep track of all of our different pages.So we re gonna save and publish thatand then, as you can see, right now,if we exit back and then we visitour website in the top-left,you ll see that our homepageis no longer our blog post page.
Our homepage has now transformedinto the default homepage of the theme preview.So, as you can see, if we scroll down,we got some nice little animations,some cool little graphics here,you see these icons, they move if you hover over them,and overall, it looks pretty cool.So what we re gonna do is we re gonna customizethis a little bit so we can make it more of our own.So, what you wanna do is we wanna go backto that Appearance, and then Customize once again,and I ll show you guys the general processfor how we can customize this sliderand then the services hereso that you can sort of customize it for your own website.Now, what we re looking at at the top hereis we have a slider, right?So we have a slider and then we have services,but every single one of theseimages in the slider and also the services down hereis actually just a sample page.So, I m gonna show you what I mean by thatby going into Home/Front Featured Slider,and so, go into Select Slider From Page,Select Page For Slide 1,and then we re gonna choose Sample Page.Now, when I click this,you re gonna see that the first slide in the pageor on our homepage becomes that sample pagewhich is already loaded when we installed WordPress.You can tell because it says Sample Pageand then it says, this is an example page.It s different from a blog post because it willstay in one place, and so basically,this is the sort of the stockdescription on that sample page.So right now, we re just gonna save and publish thatso that I can show you guyshow we can customize each of these pages in the slider,which is really just a reflectionof one of our pages on our website.So let s go into Pages and let s go into that Sample Pagethat we were looking at.So, here s our sample page and you can see here in the text,this is an example page,it s different from a blog post, yada-yada,and that s exactly the snippet that showed upon our homepage because it s takendirectly from our sample page.So, if you want to,you can just rename this into anything you d like such asServices, Contact Us, About Us,so let s just do that right here,let s do an About Us,and then what we can do for the snippet is,you know, you can delete this if you wantor you can just scroll down,it s only gonna show the first few sentences so we ll say,we are a companythat was founded in 2009.We specialize in technology.There you go, just a very brief description,we re gonna update that,and ideally, what you wanna dois you wanna add a featured imagebecause this will be the thumbnailthat shows up on that homepage.
But before we add that,let s just look at our website nowand see if things have changed.As you can see, now that first slide,which was our sample page,is now the About Us, cause we changed the title,and it has that snippet of we are a companythat was founded in 2009.We specialize in technology.Look at that.Very simple, very easy, anybody can do this,all we have to do now is add that background imagewhich is the featured image on the page.So if we go back here, we go into Pages,go to our About Us page.You can add an image here, and inside the theme,when you go into Appearance and Customize,they will tell you the dimensionsof an image that would fit perfectly within their header.So let s go into that right nowso that we can go get an imageand then add it to our About Us page.So, when you go into the slider section,and then you look at the Select Slider From Page,it will tell you the recommended featured image sizeis 1360 by 530.So what that means is what we re looking at up here,these images are 1530 by,or 1360 by 530, I should say,and what that means is when you add an image of that size,it s gonna fit perfectly with the default name.Okay, so we ll go with that.What we re gonna do is we re gonna add our imageto the About Us page now.All right, guys, so to add your featured image,just go to the bottom-right here,click set featured image,and you can actually just go to Upload Filesand you can drag and drop your image right here.So I m just gonna take our thumbnail,I m gonna drag it into here, it s going to upload,there we go.So we tried it again and it uploaded successfully,all we have to do now is click set featured image,and as you can see here,our thumbnail is now live,make sure you click Update in order to save those changes.It s gonna say view page,let s actually go to our homepageto see what the thumbnail looks like that we just added.Check it out, guys.Okay, so this thumbnail, we just added that,and you can see it pops up in the background nowand all of a sudden,our website is starting to look pretty legit.We ve got that background, we have the little blurb,and then we also have the title which is About Us.Now, you can make this anything you want,you can change the title to anything you want,you can change the blurb to anything you want,and you can also add whatever image that you can findto the background in order to fit your needs,but this is the basic process.I m hoping that if I show you guys,you guys can take it from thereand then you can customize it as to your desires.
Now, let s go back.Okay, so we ve created the About Us page,we have a homepage, but let s add a Contact Us page.Now this is a little differentbecause with the Contact Us page,we actually have to add the functionalityof a Contact Us box, or a Contact Us form,that s going to email youand it s gonna allow you to respond backto that customer by giving you the emailof the customer and their information.So, we re gonna do that with the powerof something called plugins.Now, plugins is really what sets WordPress apartfrom those other website buildersbecause plugins are amazingpieces of code, or should I say packages of code,that can add functionality to your website.Now, what I mean by that is if we go into Pluginsand we go into Add New,I can show you guys the power of WordPressthat is available at your fingertips completely free.So if we scroll down,there s going to be a ton of pluginsthat you can choose from, most of these are free,and if you look at this,you got bbPRess, which is a forum software.So you can add an actual forum to your websiteat the click of a button.Now, if you look at BuddyPress,BuddyPress adds social networking features to your websitewhich allows people to register profilesto message each other, so on and so forth.So you can actually have sort of a social networkon your website at the click of a button.And it gets better from there, I mean,you have those, you got popular plugins,which we can look at right now,and the one which we re gonna addis actually called Contact Form 7,right here, we re gonna install that,but you guys have accessto tons upon tons of plugins.WooCommerce is one which I ll get into a little laterbut this is basically if you re gonnacreate an eCommerce store,all you have to do, download WooCommerce,and then add your products in and all of a sudden,you have a legit eCommerce website,and you didn t have to pay anyone to make it,it s awesome.So, right now, I was talking about the Contact Us page,let s install Contact Form 7which is going to be our contact plugin.So we re gonna install that, as you can see,it s already installed, we need to activate it.After it s activated, we need to go into the settingsso we can add it to a page.So as you can see here,we already have a contact form number one.Now this is just a default contact formand this is something that we can add to any pageand that we can customize for our needsbased on the information that youneed to get from your customer.So the default is just your name, your email,subject, and then a message,but you can change this into anything you want.So instead of subject, you can name this into quote,like a pricing quote,and people can input a variable thereand then so on and so forth.So basically what we re gonna do, real quick,is we re gonna take the short code,which is basically, it s like a shortcut,it s a snippet of code that you can copy and pasteinto any page and it s going to summon the plugin.So I ll show you what I mean right nowby adding a new page, so we re gonna leave that page,make sure you copied that,and we re gonna create a Contact Us page really quickly.All you have to do, at the top,we re going to label this Contact Usand then just paste in that short code.After you paste it in, make sure you click Publishto make sure that this gets added to the website,click Publish,now we can view that page.Check it out, look at that, guys.I literally made a Contact Us page in seconds.So, as you can see here,we have the Contact Us page,it has a nice little header,which was automatic from our theme,and then you have that contact formwhich I showed you guys,and then, they can just send their messagedirectly on the website,you ll receive it based on the email that you providewithin the settings.So make sure you customize the settings within the plugin but implementing a Contact Us pageis as simple as copy and paste, beautiful.All right, so now that we have that,let s go back, let s go back to the homepage,let s see what else we can do.
So we already have our basic website,let s look at this real quick.We have the About Us which is right here,we can actually add that contact page,it s not gonna have a thumbnail,but we can make the Contact Us page the second one hereif we go into the Customize, Appearance.So you can do that, you can create another page,whether it s your products, your services,speaking of which, our services, so you see these?These are just pages as well,but these are just the default.What you can do is you can makethe About Us page one of these,you can make a services page,you can make the contact page one of thesethrough the same exact process which I showed you before with the header.So, as I said before,you go into Appearance, you go into Customize,and then, so let s say you wanna changethe services portion right here, right?This is just the default, so in order to change this,all you have to do is go into Home/Front Service sectionand then click Select Service From Page,and then you can choose which page you wantfor each service.So let s say we wanna make the first one also about us,click that, check it out.It changed the title to About Usand it has that snippet which we added in,we are a company that was founded in 2009.We specialize in technology, perfect.So, that s exactly how you change this homepage,it s all very, very simple,and you guys can customize it whichever way you wantin order to fit your business.Now,let s go into,let s go back into Appearanceand let s change the navigation, cause this is one of the mostimportant parts of any website is this navigation up top.If you want to change this to add certain pagesor remove certain pages, it s very simple.We re gonna do the same process,we re gonna into Appearance, but this time,scroll down to Menus.So go down into Menus,and so for menus, we don t have any menu yet,so let s just create one, let s call it Public Menu,and then Create Menu right here.All right, so after you created your menu,you can select the menu to edit,so we re gonna select the Public Menu,then we ll select that.As you can see here,we have our pages on the left-hand side,then you have the menu structure on the right-hand side.So in order to structure your top navigation,it s so simple, guys.All you have to do is check the boxesof all the pages that you want to add, click Add to Menu,and they re gonna pop up here.Now, if you wanna change the order,all you do, drag and drop, simple as that.We have the Home page, the About Us,and the Contact Us page.When you re done, all you have to do is click Save Menuand it should apply it to the website.
So when you click that, it s already gonna be enforced.One cool thing, which I will show you guys how to do,is if you want subcategories.Now, let s say you wantthe About Us to pop up under Homeand you also want the Contact Usto pop up under that as well,all you have to do is drag it to the right,wait till there s an indent here, and then click Save Menu.If you want to choose a different menu,all you have to do, go into Customize,click Menus, and then choose the menu that you want.So we re gonna choose Public Menuand we re gonna make that our primary and our social menu.Now, check it out.So we ve already done that, let s save and publish that,then let s visit our website and I ll show you guysthe menu which we created just moments agois now the top navigation.See we have the Home,and then the About Us and the Contact Us pops up underneath.Now, let s split it up because wedon t want it to look like that,we do want the Home and the About Us and the Contact Usto all be separate, so let s change that one more timeby going into Public Menu, selecting that,then we are simply going to moveeverything back and make it not a sub item.So take it out, take it out, there we go.We have the Home, the About Us, the Contact Us,save that menu.Menu has been saved, let s visit the site once againand our changes should be enforced.All right, so as you can see here, guys,we have the Home, the About Us, and the Contact Usall up at the top and that s pretty much itas far as customization goes.As you can see, our theme is kind of cut off a little bitand the reason why is because we have this Admin bar up top.So what you wanna do is you wanna go into Dashboard,I m gonna show you a plugin where we can remove thatso we can actually preview what our website looks likewithout seeing that bar up at the top.So you re gonna add new and then you re just gonna searchhide admin bar, oh, look at that?It s already there, it s as if it can read our mind.Just pick the first one, there s a few of em,but just install that, activate that.Now when you visit your homepage,or your website for that matter,boom, voila.Now you can see the full theme, how it looks like,and it looks pretty awesome, guys.We have our navigation, which we set there,we have the About Us page, which we created,and we also have the, if we scroll down,perfect.So, as you can see in the top-left though,it says My Blog and it says my WordPress Blog.So, you obviously want to customize thatso what we wanna do is let s go back,go back to our dashboard,and then let s go into Appearance once again, Customize,and then let s change our site identity.As you can see, this is the textthat s appearing in the top-left.Let s change it into your businesses name.So we ll just call it Business Name, tagline.Okay, so you can add your business name and a tagline,Technology Since 2009, save and publish that,and then you ll see now we have finally changed thatdefault language, there you go.So you can add your business name in the top-leftalong with your tagline.So as you can see,everything is really, really coming together.If you want to update any of these once again,it s the same process, just go into Customize,Appearance, and then you can change that homepage.So for example, you have this little box at the bottomand the default language iswant to know more about our company?Now, you can easily change this.So all we have to do is delete thatand look at the text, it disappears.Now, you wanna add something new like Contact Us for a Free Quote Today,all you have to do is add that in.Look at that, beautiful.Save that, save and publish, and we are done.All right, so the last thing I wanna touch upon is blogging.How to add a new blog post and also adding a blog post page to our top navigation.If you want to add a new blog post,simply go over to Posts here in the sidebar and then click Add New.When creating a new post,it s much like creating a new page.You choose a title, which we ll title here,(light music)and then you can fill in this text box which will be your body.(light music)You can even add images here.(light music)With that said,you also want to add a category to your blog post.This way, you can easily sort through and allow users to search through your blog posts.(light music)The last thing you want to do with each blog post is to set a featured image.When you set a featured image,you allow a thumbnail to be shown every time this post appears on either another page or on a social network such as Facebook.After you re all done, click the Publish button right here which will publish your post to the web.(light music)You can even view the post after publishing.(light music)So let s go to the homepage once again and we should see a snippet of our latest blog post at the bottom here under Latest News.Pretty cool.
All right, so the last step is to add a blog post page which will display our latest blog posts and then add that page to the top navigation.So to do this,all you have to do is go into the sidebar,go into Pages and then click Add New.We re just gonna title this page Blog,and then click Publish.(light music)After that, next step is to go into your Settings and then Reading.We re gonna set the post page to our blog which we just created.After that saves, go into Appearance and then Menus.Once you re in Menus,make sure that you ve selected the Public Menu and then add blog to the menu structure.After it s added,you can rearrange the order anyway you like.Click Save Menu to save the progress.Now let s visit our website and see if the menu has updated.All right, as you can see here,we ve added our blog posts to the top navigation.Well that wraps this tutorial on how to create a website for your business.I truly believe that a professional websiteis one of the best investments you can make today.Once again, if you have any questions or need help with building your business website,please leave a comment belowand I ll do my best to help you out as soon as possible.I respond to all comments and questions so don t be shy.Lastly, if you enjoy this video and found it useful,please drop a thumbs up and comment letting me know.Also, make sure to subscribebecause there will be a lot more tutorials on the way.Thank you for watching and I hope you have a productive day.
So now you re probably wondering, awesome,now, how can we get started with WordPress?Well, before, during the olden times,the process used to be quite lengthyand actually involved quite a bit of technical know-how.To explain it briefly,you used to have to get all these different parts separatelyand then connect them all together manually.Now, there are three main parts to each website.The first is a domain name such as RecordingNow.com,which you then had to connect to the second partwhich is a web hosting server.Now, on this web hosting serveris where you would install WordPress,which you had to download from wordpress.org,then upload that database via FTP,or File Transfer Protocol.Now, if any of that sounds a little confusing,don t worry, life is much easier now, and luckily,we have a simple one-step solution.All you have to do today is just sign up for Web Hostingand the rest will be automatically included.That s right, the domain will already be connectedand WordPress can be installed at the click of a button.It doesn t get any easier than this, folks,this really is the best timeto be making your first website.Okay, so now we re going to getinto the real step-by-step walkthroughfrom choosing a web host,to purchasing the right web hosting and plan,to setting up WordPress with that one-click installand to finally customizing your business website.If you need help with any step along the way,please feel free to comment any questionsyou may have and I ll do my best to help you out.So the first step, or shall I say, only step,is choosing the right web hosting company.All right, guys, so for choosing the right web host,I actually wanted to let you guys make the decisionand provide you guys with all the factsand all the resources in order to researchand compare the top web hosts.So, on how2makewebsite.com,if you go to Web Hosting,if you click the link in the description,or you could go to how2makewebsite.com and then go to Web Hostingand Best WordPress Hosting (Rankings),if you go into this page,it s actually going to have a listof all of the top WordPress web hosts.Yes, so, all the official recommended WordPress web hostsand then also all the popular web hostssuch as Bluehost, HostGator, DreamHost,are going to be featured on this listand they ve been ranked and all of these rankingsare up-to-date and they re being updated constantly.So, if you guys want to click the link in the description,you can visit this page which is constantly being updatedwith the top web hosts and everything is getting rankedbased on both performance and benefits,features, tech support, et cetera.So if you guys access that page,you guys can read through and then choose a web hostwhich seems right for you based on this comparison.So, I want you guys to click the link in the descriptionand then just do your own research,pick the right web host for you.For the rest of this video,I m going to be using SiteGround.Now SiteGround is the winner of our 2016Best Web Hosting for WordPress,as you can see here, they scored first placeand this is the current result of our WordPress rankings.SiteGround is an amazing web hostthat is an official WordPress recommended web host,as you can see here, and actually,if we go into.So, here we have wordpress.org/hosting,this is the WordPress official recommendedlist of web hosting.So we have Bluehost, DreamHost,Flywheel, and SiteGround, as I mentioned.So all four of these hosts are rankedon our top web hosting for WordPress page,and you can see, SiteGround actually came awaywith our number one pickbecause they had the best performance,they were faster than Bluehost, HostGator,they tested faster than 93% of other tested websitesbased on our independent speed tests using Pingdom.You get free domains, not just for the first year,but for life.Yes, that s $15 a year,no other host does this that I know of,certainly no other hosts on this list offers that,so right there is a great value that s going to save youa chunk of money depending how many yearsyou re going to be running your website.With that said, pricing is extremely fair,if not inexpensive, starting at less than $4 per month.Yes, that s one fast food meal or a couple cups of coffee.It comes with WordPress one click install, obviously,because it s a WordPress recommended web host,and last but not least,you get that 30-day money-back guaranteeand you really have nothing to lose.So SiteGround is definitely our choice,it s our first place winner of ourBest Web Hosting for WordPress 2016.Make sure to visit this pageso you can see the updated rankings in the future.So if you re watching this video like a yearor two years from now,check this page because it s going to be updatedonce again with whoever is the top web host at the time.
Okay, guys, before we begin,the prices that we re going to be looking atwill be discounted based on a special SiteGround promotionthat how2makewebsite.com has gained access to.If you wanna get access to the same discount,click the link in the descriptionwhich will take you to a resource pageand there will be a button that will take youto SiteGround s website and automaticallyhave the best promotion.Okay, guys, so as you can see here,we have three different sharedweb hosting plans to choose from.You have the StartUp, the GrowBig, and the GoGeek.Now, I m going to give you some adviceon helping you choose the right plan for youalong with recommending my favorite planfor beginners looking to create their first website.Now, right off the bat,my first piece of advice is to simply go for the mostweb hosting that you can afford.Now, I say this because whicheverweb hosting that you can affordis going to be the best value to start with.Now, the reason I say this is because look at these prices.If you look at the subtext,you see here that this starter plan is 60% off.The GrowBig is 45% off,and the GoGeek is 50% off the regular price.Now, these prices are all introductory,they re all promotional and they are limited pricing,or they re only offered for a limited time.Now what this means is that if you were to, let s say,start off with the StartUp planand you change your mind and you wanna go up to the GrowBig,then you may not be able to pay the 7.95 per month,or that price may not be offered,it actually might be the 14.95 per month,which is almost double the cost of the GrowBigif you were to start with the GrowBig from the get-go.Now, on top of that, in terms of value,you also get a lot of featuresand you get increased performance the higher up you go.Now if you go from the StartUp to the GrowBig,you get a feature known as SuperCacher for great speed,which is listed below.And what this means is that you getcaching which basically is when you visit a websiteand you download a portion of that websiteso that when you visit it a second or a third time,it loads up in about half the time as the first visit.Now, caching is very important,especially for a WordPress websitewith a ton of photos, videos,plugins and a lot of media,caching is what will decrease your load timesand make your website perform a lot fasteras compared to, let s say, this StartUp plan.Now, if you want even more performance,going up to the GoGeek plan,you get fewer accounts on server.So by definition, shared web hosting.This means that you are sharing a single serverwith multiple users.Now, if you have less users on each server,this means that you have more resourceswhich are going to be powering your website.
So the more resources, then the faster load timesand the more users you can haveconcurrently on your websitewithout, you know, experiencing any hesitation orlagging load times, et cetera.So, as I said, if you can go for the GrowBigor the GoGeek,then that would definitely be my recommendation.Another big feature which separatesthe GrowBig and the GoGeek from the StartUp planis that you can host multiple websitesalong with twice or three times the amount of web space,not to mention suitable for 25,000to 100,000 visits per month.Now, multiple websites,what this means is that you can hostunlimited websites and unlimited domains.Now with the StartUp plan,you can only have one websiteand you re limited to that single website.You know, when I started out,I created my first website, and then,about a couple months later,I realized that I didn t love the idea as muchas when I first started and I wanted to createa new website with a new domain.Now the problem is if I went with the StartUp plan,then I couldn t pursue any other ideaswithout either purchasing additional hostingor upgrading to the next plan.And as I said before,if you were to start with a StartUp planand then change your mind down the line and upgrade,then this price of 7.95 per monthmay not be offered to you,you may end up paying the full 14.95 per monthwhich is pretty much twice,twice as much as you would be payingif you were to just start off with a GrowBig plan.So, once again,I recommend that you go for the mosthosting that you can afford.Now, my favorite web hosting plan for beginnersis probably going to be the GrowBig plan.I think this presents the best value at 7.95 per monthand the ability to, you know, host multiple websites,multiple domains, and then you have all the premium featuresin addition to all the essential featureswhich really takes this plan to the next level.You re gonna get faster load times,you re gonna get more securitythrough the one year free Wildcard SSL.If you are going to create a business website of any sort,you definitely want to have that SSLwhich secures your website.As you can see here,you see this lock and https,this is a secured website through SSLand if you were to purchasethe GrowBig plan or the GoGeek,you would get that SSL for free for the first yearwhich would totally secure your websiteand add credibility to your domain.So yeah, I recommend going for the GrowBig if you can.If you really can, I would go for the GoGeek.As you can see, these prices,you know, this really is an investment,it s an investment in yourself, your online presence,your brand, your business.
So, you know, if we re talking eight bucks a month,15 bucks a month, you know,that s just a couple fast food meals,a few cups of coffee at Starbucksand you know, that s really not that expensivein terms of business expensesand things that you can invest in,a website is relatively affordablecompared to a lot of sort of businesses out there.So, that s why I recommend to go for the best planbecause this really is an investment at the end of the dayand there s no better investment than investing in yourself.And the next step is to choose a domain.So the domain name, the URL,is like how2makewebsite.com.It s your website s name, and with this,you wanna get kinda creativebecause there are a lot of domainsthat will probably be taken upand you want to just experimentand just try different things out.Once you find the domain that s available,click Proceed to move on to step three.As you can see here,domain registration is included free upon signup.So this is usually about 15 bucks a year,sometimes it s more expensive such as with WordPress,they charge $18 per year for a custom domain,but one cool thing about SiteGroundis that you get your domain completely freewith each web host signup.So we re gonna click Proceedand if your domain is available,it s gonna load up and it will take you to step threeand it ll tell you, congratulations,your domain is available.So just fill out your information here,fill out your payment information.Okay, so after you fill out the above information,scroll down to the bottom where it says purchase informationand here is where we get to finalizethe length of the term of our web hosting.So one cool thing about SiteGroundthat other web hosts do not offeris you can actually choose your data centerbased on which location is closest to you in proximity.So,for me, since I m in California,the data center in USA automatically loaded,which is in Chicago.Now if you live overseas,if you live in Europe or another country or continent,you can choose whichever data center is closest to you.So I think this is an extremely cool featurethat is exclusive to SiteGround.Most of the web hosts, you know,you don t know where you re getting the hosting fromor whatever, but with SiteGround,you can actually choose your data centerand by choosing the data center that is closest to you,you can ensure that you getreliable service from your servers.And so, for me, I m choosing Chicago,and then you get to select the period.Usually, when you purchase hosting,hosting is always usually bought in annual installments,so you buy one year, two year, three years,and you pay for it all at once instead of monthly.
Once cool thing I guess with SiteGroundis that you can do a one month trial,it s a bit more expensive, and honestly,I don t recommend it.I recommend, at the very least, to go with 12 months.Go for the one year planbecause when you go for the one year plan,you commit yourself to your websitefor a period of one yearwhich is a ton of time to startup,build, grow, and expand your website.Going for one year is also gonna bethe cheapest option here next to the one month trial,so that s why I recommend it.So we ve already chosen the GrowBig plan,but here we also have these extra serviceswhich are an addition to your plan of choice.Now, as you can see here,domain registration is totally free,say 14.95, and one thing that sets SiteGroundapart from a lot of other web hostsis that you get your domain free for life.Other web hosts simply do not offer this,some of them offer a free domain for the first yearbut every year after that,you d be paying for your domain,every single year, which is an additional cost,whereas with SiteGround,you get your domain free every single year for life,saving you 15 bucks per year,and in the long run, you know,you can save quite a good chunk of money.Now, let s move on to Domain Privacyand this is a feature which for any web hostI think is an absolute must-have.Now, what is domain privacy?So domain privacy basically protectsyour domain from people looking up your who is information.Now, the way that domains workis that when you sign up and when you register a domain,you actually have to give your legal nameand your address because this is just in compliancewith sort of ICANN and the internet.Now with that said, domain privacybasically protects your domainfrom ever being able to be looked upand you know, people finding out your legal nameand your address and everything and your phone number.You want to have this domain privacybecause it s the internet, you know.You don t really want people prying intosort of your personal life or whatever,and so, domain privacy basically protectsvery sensitive personal informationfrom being accessed through your domain.Now, as you could see here,this is included into the GrowBig plan,but if you were on the StartUp plan, an SSL certificate,as you can see here, authenticates and encrypts the datatransferred through the website to the server,protecting financial and other sensitive information.Once again, this is another featurewhich is for security and privacy purposes.
Now, as I explained earlier,SSL is what gives your websitesort of this verified status of having a lock and an https.Now, if you were to create a business website,for example, an SSL certificate is a must-have,in my opinion, because it simply offers credibilityto your business, to your website, your domain,and it s something that is definitely worth the price.As you can see with the GrowBig,you save $82 by getting this SSL certificatefor the first year completely free.That s another reason why I would go for the GrowBig plan,if not, the GoGeek,because you get this amazing feature for free.And the last feature here is HackAlert Monitoringat $12 per year.So HackAlert is a monitoring servicethat checks your website dailyand immediately notifies you if your website has been hackedor injected with malicious code.So, as you guys know, the internet,it s a beautiful place but it can also be a dangerous place.If you were to create a website,you know, you re putting yourself out there.You re putting information out thereand you re putting your work out therewhere anyone can, you know, they can view,and some people can even access or even mess with,and time and time again,you know, I ve seen websitesthat have gotten hacked, they have lost precious informationor you know,basically lost work overnight,and so HackAlert Monitoring,this is basically just another extra layer of peace of mind.Now, for me, the must-have options aredefinitely Domain Privacy.If I were to pick one of these services,the Domain Privacy is the servicethat I would have in every single website that I registeror sign up with because it is just that extra peace of mindthat is relatively inexpensive at just $12 per year,and it s just something that I like to havebecause, you know, I like to have my life privatefrom my online presence and with that said,it s just peace of mind so that people can t be looking upsensitive, personal information.Last thing is to check this,which I think is already checked,it s the terms and agreement,and then just click Pay Now to complete your order.All right, so after clicking Pay Now,your order gets processed and you will come to this pagewhich is a confirmation/thank you page.So, your account is now being created,once it s ready, you ll be able to log into the customer area.So as you can see here,our account has finished being created,so we re gonna proceed to the customer area.So when you first start,you re gonna get this message just saying,Welcome to the SiteGround Account Setup Wizard.Honestly, we can justclick Thanks, but I don t need helpbecause I m gonna help you outand I m gonna walk you step-by-stepon how to install and get started with WordPress.So, click that, hit Proceed,and this should take us to our dashboard.
All right, guys, so once you get into your account,once you get into the main dashboard, as you can see here,to install WordPress,all we have to do is go into My Accounts,and then you re gonna go to cPanel here at the top.Let s access the cPanel.(light music)All right, so cPanel is sort of a universal dashboardthat many of the top web hosts use.So, for SiteGround,it s nice that they use cPanel so thatif you re familiar with other web hosts,if you ve used other web hosts before,then you should be able to navigatepretty easily through SiteGround.Now with that said,if we want to install WordPress,all we have to do is scroll down.You can see there s an entire categorycalled WordPress Tools,and then you see WordPress Installer.This is a WordPress one click install,much like other of the top WordPress-friendly hosts.Okay, guys, to install WordPress,all we have to do after we click that WordPress Install,is to click this blue Install on the top-left,and then you re gonna have this information here,you can just scroll past this.Here we have our site settingswhere you can just specify the name of your blog,and then just a short taglineas you can see here.Then you scroll down to this Admin Account.Now this is very important,make sure that you write down your admin usernameand password because once we download WordPress,we re going to need this to log in for the first time.Okay, so scroll down to the bottom,you can skip everything else,and then just click Install when you re ready to go.As you can see here,you ll be greeted by a progress bar which will tell youyour progress of the install, and as you can see,WordPress was installed in just seconds, it was that easy.All we had to do is click a couple buttons,jot down some info, and next thing you know,WordPress is installed on our domain.So, what you wanna do is you want to open up this Admin URLwhich will take you to the WordPress login.You re probably going to be using this URL a lotto log in to the backend of your website,so you might want to bookmark it.Now take your username and passwordthat I told you to write down and to save before the installand then just copy and paste that into this page,as you can see here,and then click log in.(light music)All right, guys, so after clicking that admin URL,we were automatically logged into the WordPress Dashboard,so welcome to WordPress.As you can see here, it can look a little confusing at firstbut I m gonna show you guys how to navigatearound your website and how to change different thingslike your theme and how to add postsand also pages including a Contact Us page,so we re gonna do all that right now.
The first thing that I like to dowith any fresh install of WordPress is to change the theme.So you can do that by going into Appearanceand then Themes.Now, one of the best parts about WordPressis you have access to literally thousandsupon thousands of beautiful custom designsand you can change your theme at the click of a button.So as you can see here,these are the stock WordPress themeswhich are not bad, they re pretty clean,but also they re a little bland.So what I like to do is click Add Newto browse the thousands of available themes.Now as you can see here, right off the bat,there are a ton of different themesthat range from business websites to blogs and so forth.Now, what you ll wanna do is you want to check outall these different themes, preview them,and then install a theme that you like.So, looking at this preview, you know,some of them, they re not gonna have too muchbecause we don t have any content on our website yet,but with that said, if you look at the actual thumbnail,this is what your website can look likeonce you do add the content,the pages, the posts, and so forth.So, browse around, pick a theme that you like,and then I m gonna choose a themewhich you can use for your business.Now, it s important to note that a lot of these themesare completely free to try outwhile some of them have a premium settingthat you have to purchase in orderto access certain features.So for the most part, you can try all of these for free,some of them do require payment in order to usethe full theme, but with that said,I m going to choose a free theme that you canstart using today, free of charge.All right, guys, for this tutorial,the theme that I chose is called Bizlight,that s Bizlight by evisiontheme.So, if you want to get the same theme as this tutorial,just search up Bizlight in the Themes section,and then install and then activate that theme.So, this theme is pretty clean,I like it because when you scroll down,it s got some nice responsive design,it s got some cool little graphicsand some animation that pops up like I ll show you here.So if we visit our website,you ll see that our theme has changedand we have this slider up top, which is pretty cool,and we re actually looking at the blog page.So, as you can see here,this is the sample blog post that is already includedwhen you install WordPress for the first time.So what we need to do is we need to turn thisinto an actual homepage and not the blog page for the home.So what we re gonna do is we regonna go back to the dashboard,you re gonna go into Appearanceand then you wanna hit Customize.After you go into Customize,in order to activate our homepage,what we need to do is create a static front page,as you can see here,and the default is your latest post.What this means is the default settingis your blog post, as you can see here.So, if you had multiple blog posts,other than just this one,it would show up as a list on this page,including images for your featured image of that blog post.Now, we don t have any of that right now,we actually just want to make a static front page.So what we re gonna do is we re gonna click a static pageand then you re gonna wanna choose the front pagewhich you want to add.So right now we have a sample pagewhich we can include right nowjust so you guys can see an example.When you do choose a static page, as you can see,our front page has transformed into a homepagelike in the preview of the theme,rather than our blog post page.So we re just going to, for now,save and publish that,but let s create an actual homepage.So, let s go back and on the sidebar,you re going to see pages.Now what are pages?Pages are the sections of your websitethat are most likely going to be staticand that do not change, such as a blog post page.So what I mean is an About Us page, a Contact Us page.These are parts of your websitewhich are not likely to change,they are likely to remain staticand so you wanna have these up in the navigation.So the first page which we re going to addby going into the sidebarand then clicking Add New is the homepage,and all we have to do for this is just title this Homeand then click Publish.So what we re gonna do is we re actuallygoing to customize this page in the theme itselfby going to Appearance, and then Customize.So, what we just did a few moments agois we changed our static front pageinto the sample page, but let s change it into home so that,you know, we can keep track of all of our different pages.So we re gonna save and publish thatand then, as you can see, right now,if we exit back and then we visitour website in the top-left,you ll see that our homepageis no longer our blog post page.
Our homepage has now transformedinto the default homepage of the theme preview.So, as you can see, if we scroll down,we got some nice little animations,some cool little graphics here,you see these icons, they move if you hover over them,and overall, it looks pretty cool.So what we re gonna do is we re gonna customizethis a little bit so we can make it more of our own.So, what you wanna do is we wanna go backto that Appearance, and then Customize once again,and I ll show you guys the general processfor how we can customize this sliderand then the services hereso that you can sort of customize it for your own website.Now, what we re looking at at the top hereis we have a slider, right?So we have a slider and then we have services,but every single one of theseimages in the slider and also the services down hereis actually just a sample page.So, I m gonna show you what I mean by thatby going into Home/Front Featured Slider,and so, go into Select Slider From Page,Select Page For Slide 1,and then we re gonna choose Sample Page.Now, when I click this,you re gonna see that the first slide in the pageor on our homepage becomes that sample pagewhich is already loaded when we installed WordPress.You can tell because it says Sample Pageand then it says, this is an example page.It s different from a blog post because it willstay in one place, and so basically,this is the sort of the stockdescription on that sample page.So right now, we re just gonna save and publish thatso that I can show you guyshow we can customize each of these pages in the slider,which is really just a reflectionof one of our pages on our website.So let s go into Pages and let s go into that Sample Pagethat we were looking at.So, here s our sample page and you can see here in the text,this is an example page,it s different from a blog post, yada-yada,and that s exactly the snippet that showed upon our homepage because it s takendirectly from our sample page.So, if you want to,you can just rename this into anything you d like such asServices, Contact Us, About Us,so let s just do that right here,let s do an About Us,and then what we can do for the snippet is,you know, you can delete this if you wantor you can just scroll down,it s only gonna show the first few sentences so we ll say,we are a companythat was founded in 2009.We specialize in technology.There you go, just a very brief description,we re gonna update that,and ideally, what you wanna dois you wanna add a featured imagebecause this will be the thumbnailthat shows up on that homepage.
But before we add that,let s just look at our website nowand see if things have changed.As you can see, now that first slide,which was our sample page,is now the About Us, cause we changed the title,and it has that snippet of we are a companythat was founded in 2009.We specialize in technology.Look at that.Very simple, very easy, anybody can do this,all we have to do now is add that background imagewhich is the featured image on the page.So if we go back here, we go into Pages,go to our About Us page.You can add an image here, and inside the theme,when you go into Appearance and Customize,they will tell you the dimensionsof an image that would fit perfectly within their header.So let s go into that right nowso that we can go get an imageand then add it to our About Us page.So, when you go into the slider section,and then you look at the Select Slider From Page,it will tell you the recommended featured image sizeis 1360 by 530.So what that means is what we re looking at up here,these images are 1530 by,or 1360 by 530, I should say,and what that means is when you add an image of that size,it s gonna fit perfectly with the default name.Okay, so we ll go with that.What we re gonna do is we re gonna add our imageto the About Us page now.All right, guys, so to add your featured image,just go to the bottom-right here,click set featured image,and you can actually just go to Upload Filesand you can drag and drop your image right here.So I m just gonna take our thumbnail,I m gonna drag it into here, it s going to upload,there we go.So we tried it again and it uploaded successfully,all we have to do now is click set featured image,and as you can see here,our thumbnail is now live,make sure you click Update in order to save those changes.It s gonna say view page,let s actually go to our homepageto see what the thumbnail looks like that we just added.Check it out, guys.Okay, so this thumbnail, we just added that,and you can see it pops up in the background nowand all of a sudden,our website is starting to look pretty legit.We ve got that background, we have the little blurb,and then we also have the title which is About Us.Now, you can make this anything you want,you can change the title to anything you want,you can change the blurb to anything you want,and you can also add whatever image that you can findto the background in order to fit your needs,but this is the basic process.I m hoping that if I show you guys,you guys can take it from thereand then you can customize it as to your desires.
Now, let s go back.Okay, so we ve created the About Us page,we have a homepage, but let s add a Contact Us page.Now this is a little differentbecause with the Contact Us page,we actually have to add the functionalityof a Contact Us box, or a Contact Us form,that s going to email youand it s gonna allow you to respond backto that customer by giving you the emailof the customer and their information.So, we re gonna do that with the powerof something called plugins.Now, plugins is really what sets WordPress apartfrom those other website buildersbecause plugins are amazingpieces of code, or should I say packages of code,that can add functionality to your website.Now, what I mean by that is if we go into Pluginsand we go into Add New,I can show you guys the power of WordPressthat is available at your fingertips completely free.So if we scroll down,there s going to be a ton of pluginsthat you can choose from, most of these are free,and if you look at this,you got bbPRess, which is a forum software.So you can add an actual forum to your websiteat the click of a button.Now, if you look at BuddyPress,BuddyPress adds social networking features to your websitewhich allows people to register profilesto message each other, so on and so forth.So you can actually have sort of a social networkon your website at the click of a button.And it gets better from there, I mean,you have those, you got popular plugins,which we can look at right now,and the one which we re gonna addis actually called Contact Form 7,right here, we re gonna install that,but you guys have accessto tons upon tons of plugins.WooCommerce is one which I ll get into a little laterbut this is basically if you re gonnacreate an eCommerce store,all you have to do, download WooCommerce,and then add your products in and all of a sudden,you have a legit eCommerce website,and you didn t have to pay anyone to make it,it s awesome.So, right now, I was talking about the Contact Us page,let s install Contact Form 7which is going to be our contact plugin.So we re gonna install that, as you can see,it s already installed, we need to activate it.After it s activated, we need to go into the settingsso we can add it to a page.So as you can see here,we already have a contact form number one.Now this is just a default contact formand this is something that we can add to any pageand that we can customize for our needsbased on the information that youneed to get from your customer.So the default is just your name, your email,subject, and then a message,but you can change this into anything you want.So instead of subject, you can name this into quote,like a pricing quote,and people can input a variable thereand then so on and so forth.So basically what we re gonna do, real quick,is we re gonna take the short code,which is basically, it s like a shortcut,it s a snippet of code that you can copy and pasteinto any page and it s going to summon the plugin.So I ll show you what I mean right nowby adding a new page, so we re gonna leave that page,make sure you copied that,and we re gonna create a Contact Us page really quickly.All you have to do, at the top,we re going to label this Contact Usand then just paste in that short code.After you paste it in, make sure you click Publishto make sure that this gets added to the website,click Publish,now we can view that page.Check it out, look at that, guys.I literally made a Contact Us page in seconds.So, as you can see here,we have the Contact Us page,it has a nice little header,which was automatic from our theme,and then you have that contact formwhich I showed you guys,and then, they can just send their messagedirectly on the website,you ll receive it based on the email that you providewithin the settings.So make sure you customize the settings within the plugin but implementing a Contact Us pageis as simple as copy and paste, beautiful.All right, so now that we have that,let s go back, let s go back to the homepage,let s see what else we can do.
So we already have our basic website,let s look at this real quick.We have the About Us which is right here,we can actually add that contact page,it s not gonna have a thumbnail,but we can make the Contact Us page the second one hereif we go into the Customize, Appearance.So you can do that, you can create another page,whether it s your products, your services,speaking of which, our services, so you see these?These are just pages as well,but these are just the default.What you can do is you can makethe About Us page one of these,you can make a services page,you can make the contact page one of thesethrough the same exact process which I showed you before with the header.So, as I said before,you go into Appearance, you go into Customize,and then, so let s say you wanna changethe services portion right here, right?This is just the default, so in order to change this,all you have to do is go into Home/Front Service sectionand then click Select Service From Page,and then you can choose which page you wantfor each service.So let s say we wanna make the first one also about us,click that, check it out.It changed the title to About Usand it has that snippet which we added in,we are a company that was founded in 2009.We specialize in technology, perfect.So, that s exactly how you change this homepage,it s all very, very simple,and you guys can customize it whichever way you wantin order to fit your business.Now,let s go into,let s go back into Appearanceand let s change the navigation, cause this is one of the mostimportant parts of any website is this navigation up top.If you want to change this to add certain pagesor remove certain pages, it s very simple.We re gonna do the same process,we re gonna into Appearance, but this time,scroll down to Menus.So go down into Menus,and so for menus, we don t have any menu yet,so let s just create one, let s call it Public Menu,and then Create Menu right here.All right, so after you created your menu,you can select the menu to edit,so we re gonna select the Public Menu,then we ll select that.As you can see here,we have our pages on the left-hand side,then you have the menu structure on the right-hand side.So in order to structure your top navigation,it s so simple, guys.All you have to do is check the boxesof all the pages that you want to add, click Add to Menu,and they re gonna pop up here.Now, if you wanna change the order,all you do, drag and drop, simple as that.We have the Home page, the About Us,and the Contact Us page.When you re done, all you have to do is click Save Menuand it should apply it to the website.
So when you click that, it s already gonna be enforced.One cool thing, which I will show you guys how to do,is if you want subcategories.Now, let s say you wantthe About Us to pop up under Homeand you also want the Contact Usto pop up under that as well,all you have to do is drag it to the right,wait till there s an indent here, and then click Save Menu.If you want to choose a different menu,all you have to do, go into Customize,click Menus, and then choose the menu that you want.So we re gonna choose Public Menuand we re gonna make that our primary and our social menu.Now, check it out.So we ve already done that, let s save and publish that,then let s visit our website and I ll show you guysthe menu which we created just moments agois now the top navigation.See we have the Home,and then the About Us and the Contact Us pops up underneath.Now, let s split it up because wedon t want it to look like that,we do want the Home and the About Us and the Contact Usto all be separate, so let s change that one more timeby going into Public Menu, selecting that,then we are simply going to moveeverything back and make it not a sub item.So take it out, take it out, there we go.We have the Home, the About Us, the Contact Us,save that menu.Menu has been saved, let s visit the site once againand our changes should be enforced.All right, so as you can see here, guys,we have the Home, the About Us, and the Contact Usall up at the top and that s pretty much itas far as customization goes.As you can see, our theme is kind of cut off a little bitand the reason why is because we have this Admin bar up top.So what you wanna do is you wanna go into Dashboard,I m gonna show you a plugin where we can remove thatso we can actually preview what our website looks likewithout seeing that bar up at the top.So you re gonna add new and then you re just gonna searchhide admin bar, oh, look at that?It s already there, it s as if it can read our mind.Just pick the first one, there s a few of em,but just install that, activate that.Now when you visit your homepage,or your website for that matter,boom, voila.Now you can see the full theme, how it looks like,and it looks pretty awesome, guys.We have our navigation, which we set there,we have the About Us page, which we created,and we also have the, if we scroll down,perfect.So, as you can see in the top-left though,it says My Blog and it says my WordPress Blog.So, you obviously want to customize thatso what we wanna do is let s go back,go back to our dashboard,and then let s go into Appearance once again, Customize,and then let s change our site identity.As you can see, this is the textthat s appearing in the top-left.Let s change it into your businesses name.So we ll just call it Business Name, tagline.Okay, so you can add your business name and a tagline,Technology Since 2009, save and publish that,and then you ll see now we have finally changed thatdefault language, there you go.So you can add your business name in the top-leftalong with your tagline.So as you can see,everything is really, really coming together.If you want to update any of these once again,it s the same process, just go into Customize,Appearance, and then you can change that homepage.So for example, you have this little box at the bottomand the default language iswant to know more about our company?Now, you can easily change this.So all we have to do is delete thatand look at the text, it disappears.Now, you wanna add something new like Contact Us for a Free Quote Today,all you have to do is add that in.Look at that, beautiful.Save that, save and publish, and we are done.All right, so the last thing I wanna touch upon is blogging.How to add a new blog post and also adding a blog post page to our top navigation.If you want to add a new blog post,simply go over to Posts here in the sidebar and then click Add New.When creating a new post,it s much like creating a new page.You choose a title, which we ll title here,(light music)and then you can fill in this text box which will be your body.(light music)You can even add images here.(light music)With that said,you also want to add a category to your blog post.This way, you can easily sort through and allow users to search through your blog posts.(light music)The last thing you want to do with each blog post is to set a featured image.When you set a featured image,you allow a thumbnail to be shown every time this post appears on either another page or on a social network such as Facebook.After you re all done, click the Publish button right here which will publish your post to the web.(light music)You can even view the post after publishing.(light music)So let s go to the homepage once again and we should see a snippet of our latest blog post at the bottom here under Latest News.Pretty cool.
All right, so the last step is to add a blog post page which will display our latest blog posts and then add that page to the top navigation.So to do this,all you have to do is go into the sidebar,go into Pages and then click Add New.We re just gonna title this page Blog,and then click Publish.(light music)After that, next step is to go into your Settings and then Reading.We re gonna set the post page to our blog which we just created.After that saves, go into Appearance and then Menus.Once you re in Menus,make sure that you ve selected the Public Menu and then add blog to the menu structure.After it s added,you can rearrange the order anyway you like.Click Save Menu to save the progress.Now let s visit our website and see if the menu has updated.All right, as you can see here,we ve added our blog posts to the top navigation.Well that wraps this tutorial on how to create a website for your business.I truly believe that a professional websiteis one of the best investments you can make today.Once again, if you have any questions or need help with building your business website,please leave a comment belowand I ll do my best to help you out as soon as possible.I respond to all comments and questions so don t be shy.Lastly, if you enjoy this video and found it useful,please drop a thumbs up and comment letting me know.Also, make sure to subscribebecause there will be a lot more tutorials on the way.Thank you for watching and I hope you have a productive day.
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