How to Create a Website by WordPress (Checklist Included)

Creating a website for your business may seem technical and overwhelming at first glance. But the truth is that with the right guidance, anyone can build a fully functional and impressive website that brings in real customers.

Learning how to create a website by WordPress is worth your time and effort. WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS), It provides a powerful and user-friendly platform to create and manage your website. 

This guide is tailored specifically for business owners and beginners who are serious about investing their time to learn, implement, and grow their online presence through WordPress.

Let’s begin straight away. 

Buying Domain and Setting Up Hosting

The first step in building your WordPress website is securing a domain and hosting plan. These two components are fundamental, your domain is your website’s address (such as yourbusiness.com), while hosting refers to the server that stores your website’s files and makes them accessible online. 

Selecting The Domain

When choosing a domain name, select something that conveys your brand identity. It should be short, relevant, and easy to remember. Avoid numbers or special characters that might confuse users.Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you’ll need to register it using a reputable domain registrar. This could be: 

• Namecheap
• GoDaddy
• DynaDot 
• Hostinger 

Setting up hosting

Web Hosting, on the other hand, is where many new users feel overwhelmed, but it’s simpler than it seems. Reliable hosting providers like – :

• Hostinger
• Bluehost
• SiteGround

– offer beginner-friendly interfaces and often include one-click WordPress installations. Many also provide a free domain and SSL certificate, says Host Merchant services.

After purchasing hosting, you’ll connect your domain to your hosting server through DNS settings. Most hosting platforms guide you through this step by step.

WordPress Dashboard

After the installation of WordPress, you’ll be directed to the WordPress dashboard, this is essentially the control panel where you’ll manage everything on your site. 

At first, it may look complex, but each section serves a straightforward purpose.

Posts

This is the section where you’ll publish blog content.

Media 

This contains all the images, documents, and files uploaded to your site. 

Pages

This is where you create static content like a homepage, contact page, or services section.

Comments

This enables you to manage feedback from visitors if you allow them to comment on your blog. 

Appearance

Here, you can customize your website’s theme, adjust the layout, and manage widgets or menus. 

Plugins

This section lets you extend the capabilities of your site by adding new features without coding. 

Users

This allows you to assign roles or manage multiple people working on your site. 

Tools

This section is used for importing, exporting, or diagnosing site issues. 

Settings

This contains options that affect your entire website, such as site title, tagline, permalink structure, and more. Understanding these parts of the dashboard helps build confidence early in your WordPress journey.

WordPress Website Plugins

Plugins are essential in turning a basic WordPress installation into a feature-rich website. For SEO optimization:

Yoast SEO

This is a powerful tool that guides you to improve your content’s visibility on search engines. It offers insights into readability, keyword placement, and allows you to edit meta titles and descriptions.

Really Simple SSL

This automatically activates your SSL certificate without complicated configuration. 

Elementor

This provides a drag-and-drop interface, making layout design accessible even to complete beginners.

WPForms

This gives you the ability to create contact forms, lead capture pages, and surveys using an intuitive interface. These five plugins alone can elevate a simple website to a highly functional and optimized business asset.

WordPress Website Themes (Astra and Defaults)

Downloading and Installing Astra

Themes dictate the visual appearance and layout of your website. WordPress offers thousands of free and paid themes.These impact everything from speed to user experience. 

Astra is widely considered one of the best themes for beginners and professionals alike. It’s lightweight, highly customizable, and works seamlessly with Elementor. The installation process: navigate to the ‘Appearance’ tab in the dashboard, click ‘Themes,’ and search for Astra. Once found, install and activate it with a click.

Free vs Paid WordPress Themes

When comparing free and premium themes, the main differences come down to design and performance. 

Free themes work well for basic websites. If you’re building a brand or business, the added functionality and reliability of a paid theme is often worth the investment. Astra’s paid version offers more templates, layout options, and faster performance.

How to Create a Web Page Using WordPress

Creating your first page in WordPress is simple and foundational. Inside the dashboard, go to ‘Pages’ and click ‘Add New.’ 

You’ll be presented with the Gutenberg block editor, which allows you to build pages using content blocks such as paragraphs, images, buttons, and headings. Give your page a title, like “About Us” or “Our Services” and start adding content in sections.

Each block can be formatted individually, and you can move them up or down as needed. Once your page looks the way you want it to, click ‘Publish’ to make it live.

For a basic business website, you should start with pages like Home, About, Services, and Contact. Each page serves a purpose, so make sure to write high quality content that clearly communicates your value to visitors.

Create a Web Page Using WordPress in Elementor

For those who want more design control, Elementor can be a go-to. 

After installing it, you can edit any page using its intuitive visual interface. Instead of blocks, Elementor uses elements, such as images, text, headings, buttons, and forms. You can drag and drop these  anywhere on the page.

You can customize spacing, colors, font sizes, and layout structure with pixel-level accuracy. It also includes pre-built templates, which allow you to build full pages in minutes. This flexibility is especially useful for entrepreneurs and small business owners who want a unique brand presence without hiring a designer. Elementor’s mobile preview and editing features ensure your site looks professional across all devices.

How to Start a WordPress Blog

Starting a blog within your WordPress website allows you to generate traffic, engage customers, and improve SEO. Go to the ‘Posts’ section and click ‘Add New’ to begin. 

The editor works similarly to pages, you enter a title, write your content, and insert media as needed. But unlike static pages, posts are organized by categories and tags, which help users navigate your content.

Customize each post by using headings, bullet lists (where appropriate), and strategic internal linking to other pages or posts. Good formatting keeps readers engaged and improves SEO. Speaking of SEO, Yoast will play a major role here, analyzing your post for keyword usage, structure, and metadata before you publish.

How to Make Website Mobile-Friendly on WordPress

In today’s mobile-first digital landscape, making your website mobile responsive is necessary. Fortunately, WordPress and Elementor both provide tools to help you optimize for smaller screens.

Elementor includes a responsive editing mode, allowing you to preview and adjust your design for desktop, tablet, and mobile views individually. Use this feature to tweak font sizes, column spacing, and navigation menus so they work seamlessly on mobile. 

Additionally, the WordPress Customizer lets you manually adjust layout settings and apply mobile-specific styles. Your goal should be a site that loads quickly and provides an excellent experience on any device, especially smartphones.

Test and Track Your WordPress Website

Google search Console (GSC)

After launching your site, it’s critical to track performance and fix any errors that arise. Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool that lets you monitor how your website performs in Google search. You can see which pages are indexed, what search terms bring in visitors, and any technical issues affecting visibility.

Using other Google Tools to Monitor Performance

To consolidate analytics and monitoring, Google’s Site Kit plugin integrates GSC, Google Analytics, and PageSpeed Insights into your dashboard. This setup allows you to see where your traffic comes from, which content is performing best, and how your site speed measures up. Tracking and optimization aren’t one-time tasks; they are part of an ongoing process to keep your site efficient and competitive.

Checklist

Here is your step-by-step checklist on how to create a wordpress website from scratch. I use this one myself, so it is a little bit personalised to me. Feel free to change it for your needs. 

• Add Website in Hostinger and Connect Domain
• Download Astra Theme & Delete Others
• Download Plugins: Yoast SEO, Really Simple SSL, Elementor, 404 Page, WPForms
• Delete extra plugins
• Delete: All Content, Extra Pages
• Add Home, Blogs, Contact Us, About Us page
• Edit all in Astra > customize
• Edit all in Elementor ( except Blogs Page )
• CSS Code for The Footer to stick Below (Use AI) 
• Make Website Responsive
• Play with Setting in WP Dashboard (Reading, Writing, users etc.)
• Complete SEO Checklist using ChatGPT 
• Optimize with YOAST SEO 
• Compare with Google 200 Ranking Factors 2025
• Start Adding Content (Posts)

Conclusion

Learning how to create a website by WordPress is one of the most valuable investments you can make as a business owner in the digital age. With the right foundation, you can build a professional website that brings real results. 

WordPress provides the flexibility and control needed to grow with your business, and once you master the basics, there’s no limit to what you can build. Take your time, follow each step carefully, and you’ll have a fully functional WordPress website that stands out and delivers value.

*Information in this article is to the best of my knowledge and experience 

*The article was written with the contribution of two different writers