The Ultimate WordPress Website Guide (FREE)

In this ultimate WordPress website guide, I will show you how to create your own WordPress website for your business that looks beautiful and professional using the best free tools.

Hi, my name is Lami Godlove and in the next minute, I’ll quickly show you what we’ll cover.

I will show you how to Get a Domain and Web Hosting

How to Install WordPress

How to Install the Free Astra Theme and the Free Page Builder called Elementor

And then I’ll show you how to Create Your Amazing Website by choosing from a dozen of premade templates that you can import with a few clicks

Those pages are made by professional designers and you can even import all the pages to your website in the same style for free

Then we will adjust those pages to our wishes

I will show you how to change the text, add image, adjust colours, use background videos and how to adjust your website in a way that people would want to make use of your services

I will talk about the footer elements, free WordPress plugins to add more functionality to your website

How to make your website responsive for all devices

And of course how to optimise your website for the search results

I have been creating websites for over 5 years now and people seem to love what I do..

I do my best to become better and better in creating various kinds of websites and I’ll do my best in showing you how you can become a pro in making websites

If you have a comment or feedback, feel free to leave your comment below this post.

After going through this post, you will be able to create your beautiful website…but not only that.

You can build websites for a living. I’ve heard from a tone of people who now create websites for a living because of my offline training and this makes me really thankful

So if that’s something you’ll like to do, you can do that and you can make good money with it

So feel free to learn all those beautiful things I’m sharing with you and help other people to boost their business by creating a website for them.

So having said that, please, comment or share this post if you like it.

Subscribe for more upcoming WordPress-related posts so that way, I’ll send you more posts straight into your inbox or anywhere that you prefer me to which is all about helping you to grow.

And now let’s get started…

So for who is this post?

1.   This post is for anyone who doesn’t want to spend a lot of money on a website

2.   For anyone who doesn’t have much time

3.   For anyone who has never made a website…so for complete beginners

4.   For anyone who wants to adjust or edit their website themselves without paying huge money and waiting for someone to do it for them

5.   And for anyone who wants to learn about the Astra theme and the Elementor page builder

STEP ONE: The First Step is to Get a Domain Name and Web Hosting and I can give you a Discount of 60 %

If you have it already then it’s great. Then you can skip this part.

If you don’t have it; let’s go to WEBHOSTING237.com to go to Name Hero.

And it’s not only my opinion.

They’re other web builders out there talking about the amazing web hosting services that Name Hero has to offer.

The website hosted with Name Hero is super-fast

You can call them 24/7 or you can Open a Chat Session with them when you need help.

A few times that I had no idea how to figure something out and then I went on a chat session with them and within a few minutes they were always ready to help me out.

And in the chat session they can say; “you could do this! And this! And this!” But their customer care often says; “let me do it for you if you want to”. 

So the support is really amazing!

And because Name Hero believes in their products and services, they offer you a 30-Days Money Back Guarantee

So for some reasons if you somehow do not like them, you can get your money back no questions asked.

So there’s no risk. I don’ think you will spend your money in 30 days

It’s amazing to get your domain name or web hosting through Name Hero

I host almost all my websites with Name Hero and I will walk you through the various plans

They have 4 plans

• There’s the Starter Cloud; ideal for beginner/personal websites

• Plus Cloud; best for small business websites

• Turbo Cloud; Most popular package for course and medium size businesses and more.

• Business Cloud, ideal for eCommerce websites.

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The Starter Cloud package is 2 dollars 69 cents per month, and you can have one website that means one domain.

Then, there’s 1GB of RAM supported by FREE LiteSpeed which is how fast your website is going to load on the internet

You also have Unlimited SSD Storage (web space) which is amazing which is more than enough.

You can install WordPress for FREE,

There’s cPanel FREE & Auto SSL that means your website becomes secure.

With other web hosting companies you need to pay money for that and some go as far as 120 dollars per year to get an SSL certificate and with Name Hero SSL certificate it is FREE.

You can have FREE Website Migrations

Unlimited FREE email addresses like; info@yourdomain just like mine is info@lamigodlove.com 

A FREE Staging Area where you push a button and staging is created.

With the staging you can modify your website and put one button and your modified content immediately goes to your live website.

One backup on the cPanel and I will also show you how to create as many backups offsite as you want. So if you mess up your website somehow, you can go to those backups day before and restore your website from the backups and you’re good to go.

To Get Started with the Starter Cloud click here

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Then, there’s the Plus Cloud, 5dollar 18 per month. And with this plan, you have everything included in the Starter Plan plus 7 websites.

What does it mean?

With the Starter Cloud, you can have only one website so one domain, but here you can have 7 domains. So you can have for example 7 different websites hosted all on the Plus Cloud

So that’s the great thing about the Plus Plus Cloud.

You can have 2GB RAM supported by FREE LiteSpeed that means your website(s) will run even faster.

And if you already have a website, you can have a FREE Professional Site Transfer from Siteground

You have staging so you can change things in your website and then push on one button and then it goes to the live website.

Two backups on the cPanel.

I personally use the Plus Cloud Plan however, you can go with the hosting package that’s best for you.

To Get Started with the Plus Cloud click here.

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And then there’s the Turbo Cloud 7 dollars 98 cents. And you have Unlimited websites .
You can have 3GB RAM supported by FREE LiteSpeed and;

• Unlimited NVMe StorageNEW
• FREE Domain
• FREE cPanel
• FREE & Auto SSL
• FREE Website Migrations
• FREE Enhanced WordPress Security
• FREE Premium SSL
  (e-commerce)
• FREE LiteSpeed w/Speed Boost
  And if you want to know more about all these options, click over here and you can just compare the web packages for yourself.

So what I love the most about the Turbo Cloud is that it has Unlimited websites and very high performance.

But when you’re creating your first website, you can choose between the Starter Cloud and the Plus Cloud

If you’re good to go, click here to Get Started with the Turbo Cloud.

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And finally, there’s the Business Cloud $11 dollars 98 cents /m ideal for ecommerce, banking, stock exchange, crypto exchange platforms and more with extra options;

• Unlimited Websites
• 4 GB RAM
• Unlimited NVMe StorageNEW
• FREE Domain
• FREE cPanel
• FREE & Auto SSL
• FREE Website Migrations
• FREE Enhanced WordPress Security
• FREE Premium SSL
  (e-commerce)
• FREE Email Filtering
• FREE LiteSpeed w/Speed Boost

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It’s up to you. I’ll go with the Plus Cloud package so I click over here on ‘Order Now’

And all we can do is register a new domain name. On the left, type your domain name. In my own case lamigodlovedigital

If you have a domain name already then you can fill in your domain name at the right side of the page, then choose between .com or .net or .org and then click on ‘Search’. or ‘Next’ respectively

Then there are extensions. You can say .com or .net or .org or .edu and there are also country specific extensions like; .nl, .uk, .us, .cm and more.

If you want to go international then I suggest you use .com; not .net or .org or dot other ones but not .cm or .ng

So be creative and make sure it’s available. If it’s not available and you click on the “Search” orange button, you’ll see it’s not available.

If it’s still available, you’ll see ; “Congratulations! lamigodlovedigital.com is available! So you need to take advantage of it fast before another searcher claims it somewhere on the web.

That’s amazing!

Now you want to Choose Your Billing Cycle by simply clicking between 3years, 2 years or 1 year depending on your budget.

NB: It is very important for you to note that your Discount is for the first purchase that means

If you choose 3 years, you get a huge 70% discount for 36 months

If you choose 2 years, you get a large 70% discount for 24 months

And if you decide to go for 1 year and test if it’s a good fit for you, you get a 70% discount for 1 year and after that period you’ll start paying the regular price

You want to give them your best email address that you have access to over here which is for them to send you very important details about your purchase.

You need to create a PIN and password that you remember and you need to confirm your password.

Then we scroll down a bit and we go to Client Information

First you need to select your country, first name, last name, if you have a company, you can fill in the details of your company, state or province, then fill in your city, your street address, your zip code and your phone number.

And then scroll down and go to Payment Information, you’ll fill in your payment details as well.

 

And the great thing is there crypto currency payment option so you pay with your Bitcoin, Ethereum…when you scroll down the check out page which is what I love about Name Hero

This is important, here it says; “period 12 month”. Remember you get a 60% Discount at Name Hero, but it’s only for the first payment period. So you pay $91.72 USD and then you have 1 year of web hosting with the Plus Cloud plan Saving $107.64 USD

 

If you’ll go for 12 months, then after 12 months you’ll start to pay $5.18/mo.

So if you’re sure you want to go with a lot of time with this domain then I suggest you should go for the 36 months

 

If I take a look at what a website means for a business, I know it is worth every penny.

So it’s up to you, if you want to go for 12 months, 24 months or 36 months.

I go with 12 months and then we go to the next step.

We register a domain name and then I also suggest you get ID Protection or domain privacy.

Why is that?

If you don’t get your ID Protection or domain privacy, people will see all the information you fill in on billing page (except your credit card details), and they will call you, they will email you like;

“Hey! I can design your website; you can have a business loan if you want to…”

People start spamming you. You don’t want that.

And for just $5.98 USD/1yr, you can get rid of that.

Total is $91.72 USD and you have a domain, website hosting and ID protection for a year.

I think this is an amazing deal.

What can you do now?

You fill in your the checkout form and then scroll down and tick the small box below that you’ve read and agreed to the Name Hero Terms of Service and Privacy

When you get these through WEBHOSTING237.com, you don’t pay more, but you get the 60% Discount and I get credit for it.

It’s a win-win situation. 

So thank you for that.

You click-on ‘Checkout’ and now ladies and gentlemen, you have a domain name and web hosting –Congratulations!

And the good thing with Name Hero is that your website is life on the internet immediately, you don’t have to wait for a couple of hours like the case with other web hosting providers.  

If you have followed all the steps correctly, you should get this congratulation message. If You Get stocked some how, just hit me with a WhatsApp message and If You Want Me To Do Everything For You, Click Here

STEP TWO: Then, we’re going to Install WordPress, Install the Astra Theme and the Page Builder Elementor

Click on ‘Continue To Client Area’

Then click on  My Cloud > Web Hosting – Plus Cloud > Login to cPanel

.On the Search bar Type in WordPress and Click on WordPress Manager by Softaculous and Click on Install

On the URL drop down choose https:// and make sure your domain name is the one you see chosen and in the Directory is empty as shown below

Then name your website based on what you are selling or your activity and on the description box below, you describe your activity using one captivating phrase

On the Admin Account section, you create your Admin Username, Password and fill in your email address that you always have access to.

Then leave everything as it is except the language, then Scroll to the End and click on Install and Boom! WordPress will be installed on your brand new website

Two links are created as you can see;

The first link is what people will see when they visit your website called the frontend. So go ahead and click the link and to be honest with you it looks really ugly but don’t worry, we’re going to fine-tune it a second.

And the second link is where the fun is about to begin. You click on the second link and it takes you to the backend or the dashboard of your website.

Take a look at this!

When you want to edit things and configure things, you can go to the backend.

You can only go to the backend when you can login into your website.

And since we are logged in, we have a beautiful black bar over here which says we are logged in.

If you type your domain name using incognito or a different browser, and go to your website.

You see you’re not logged in, so you cannot go to the backend.

If you login by typing your Username or email and password you created when installing WordPress, then you see the black bar and then you can go to the dashboard or to the backend.

 

But before we do anything, I want us to remove a few things.

Go to plugins on the left-hand-side and click on it, select all the plugins, then click on ‘bulk actions’> ‘deactivate’.

Click on ‘Apply’, so we deactivate all the plugins and when we have deactivated them, we can remove them.

So click there again, select all the plugins > bulk actions > delete.

Then click on Apply and okay.

Then go to the dashboard, and I want you to dismiss the messages and close some of them so that your dashboard looks clean.

There’s one page created by default. So we can go over to pages and remove both pages, so you Select all pages>Move to the trash > Apply.

Go to the trash and there you empty the trash.

I go back to the dashboard.

Now, I want to change my user name, because over here, it says; “howdy, @lamigodluv” and when I write a blog post on my website, it will say; “written by @lamigodluv”

So here you can do a few things – you can change the look and feel of the backend.

I like the default one.

You scroll down and you want to fill in your first name and last name there and then here at display name publicity, I want to select Lami Godlove, and now over here it says; “Howdy, Lami Godlove”.

Then I can scroll down, I can create a profile picture and generate a new password if you like.

First, you want to click on ‘Update Profile’ and if you want to get your image on the website which is highly recommended, then, you need to scroll down to ‘Profile Picture’ and you can change your profile picture on Gravatar.

So I click on it, if you want to know how to change your Gravatar profile picture, please click over here.

So, click on ‘Update Profile’ and now you have your image which is much better.

What else?

Go to Settings > General and if you scroll down, you can change the date format.

You can customize it, change it to something else and the time format, right now it’s; 1:55 pm.

You can change it and you can take a look at the time zone, at this moment at +2 and if you save the changes, the time is correct now.

If you prefer the time format with 24 hours, you can check this one.

You click on Save the Changes.

And now, you go to the permalinks, there at settings>permalinks, this is really important.

We want to optimize our website so we can be found on Google.

And sometimes the common setting is plain and then when you have a page or a post, it will look something like this; https://jobseekerstherapy.com/2022/03/03/sample-post/

Well that looks ugly and not optimized for search results.

I want to change it to post name, as it’s the case already.

Leave it as it is and click on ‘Save the changes’.

And now we have a blog post, for instance, my awesome journey.

It will say; “yourdomain.com/my-awesome-journey”, instead of something like this https://jobseekerstherapy.com/2022/03/03/sample-post/  because this looks really weird. This is something you don’t want.

So post name is perfect!

So go to the dashboard and now we’re going to do something amazing.

If you click here and you see, this is the free Astra them. Over here you have the paid version.

I will talk about the free stuff and here click on DOWNLOAD NOW – it takes you to another page and there you scroll down below, below, below to where it says; “can’t decide which plan is right for you? Download the free Astra Theme”.

You can click over here then you can leave your first name and your email address or you just say; “no thanks, I just want to download Astra”.

Ok! Downloaded and you close the tab.

There’s also a different way to get the Astra theme I want to show you in a minute.

What I want to show you now is how you can make use of their amazing starter templates. So that way, we’re going to save a tone of time.

If I scroll down, we’re going to make use of the free page builder Elementor. I will talk about it in a minute.

Click here, and take a look

If I change the selection from all to free, all those websites over here can be installed in a few mouse clicks for free into our website.

Isn’t that amazing?

Look at those! Look at that! You can check them all out and that’s really important because we’re going to install a template and from that point on, we’re going to configure everything, change the text, change images.

So depending on the kind of website that you want to have, you can choose a template.

You can also have web shops for free, how amazing is this?

What we’re going to do, we are going to choose a template and then configure it and I will show you step-by-step how you can do that.

Look at this – it all looks beautiful.

Wow! Another Web Shop

Wow! Another Web Shop – video in the background, or if you want to want a restaurant website, yoga, life coach – this is all done for you.

Look at this; it looks beautiful.

So over here you can take a look at all the other ones and when you find your ideal template, you can install it and I will show you how.

So what you will do now, close them all.

Before we’re going to install it, I want to show you something else.

Click on Elementor

This is the free page builder we are going to use.

This is the best free page builder in the world.

Here you see how it works, just drag and drop, making things better.

It is so easy!

It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on web designs and they keep on getting better and better.

We’re not going to work with a paid version, although that’s a really great option, we’re going to work with the free version.

So what we can do, we can download it by clicking here and then click where it says;

“Try the free version”

Create a free account and you are good to go. 

Another way I’ll show you is;

Go to the dashboard of your WordPress website.

On the Left-Hand-Corner go to Appearance > Click on ‘Themes’ and click on ‘Add New’ and on the WordPress repository Search for Astra and there it is – Astra. This first one

I click on install or Install >Activate. Awesome!

Now you don’t need the other themes anymore.

What’s a theme?

A theme is actually the layout of a website.

So if you take a look at you website now, the content stays the same, but the layout looks different.

 

So if you would choose 2021 or 2022 theme and activate it, now it’s active.

Go and refresh the page – the same title, my WordPress – but different look and feel.

So with the Astra theme, you have seen that you can create so many beautiful websites.

So, you choose the Astra theme and since we use the Astra theme, we don’t need the other themes anymore.

I prefer to keep things clean on my website by deleting things I do not use.

So delete the ones you don’t need; and leave just the Astra theme and the 2022 theme in case of anything you can switch themes

So, then go to plugins > add new  on the WordPress repository Search for Elementor.

Over 5+ Million Active Installations, it’s crazy.

Click on Install Now, and Activate it. Awesome!

Now go to the dashboard.

What you see over here, thank you for installing Astra.

You go to Appearance > Astra options and then click where it says; “Install Importer Plugin”.

So, now we import the Starter Templates for our website by going to Appearance > Click on ‘Stater Templates’ and look for the websites that don’t have the Premium batch on them and import them for free

Now we can select our page builder.

We select Elementor.

Ok, we navigate again, and if you take a look and see something you like, take a deeper look into the website.

What you will do now, you’ll grab your favourite websites and go through them.

STEP THREE: How to Create a WordPress Website Looking Professional

The question now is; What kind of website do you want to build?

I click to choose a medical laboratory website since I’ve also served as the marketing manager of LAB Yaoundé.

We can change the title, change the colours, change the images – we can add other stuff and I will talk about all of that.

So what we can do now, we import the website and then change everything and save a lot of time.

Now let me show you how really simple it is having your own website all designed for you in 3 Clicks

We upload our logo and adjust the width to 162 pixels or play with it depending on the size of your logo and/or click the ‘Skip and Continue’ button if you don’t have a logo yet. However, you can create your own pro-designed logo for free on either canva.com or Logo Makr using their pre-made templates or you can design it from scratch.

When you login to any of these platforms, they usually welcome you with short video tutorials to guide you on how to do it yourself.

Next I choose to keep the default colours and so feel free to choose your own colours

I equally choose the font to be Rubik / Open Sans then click Continue. However feel free to play with all these to your taste and liking.

Lastly, fill in your details and click on “Submit & Build My Website” that’s it.

You’re all done. Congratulations! Your are now the proud owner of a fully professionally designed website

Whether you are a marketer, a barber, a fitness coach, a beauty salon, a realtor, a local business, there are already pre-designed websites for you

How sweet is that?

And now, I will show you how you can change everything; the text, pictures, menu objects, footer and more.

We have already changed the logo but I will still show you where it is located if you didn’t have it and and now you have a logo you can change it at this point.

Now this is your brand new website and what people will see when they visit to your website; your logo, the Home page, About Us page, Services, Testimonials, Contact Us and a big Call-To-Action button.

But this beautiful black bar is what you will see because you are logged in to your website and any other person who is logged in to your website will also see this bar which gives access to modify anything on your website.

Now to edit this Home page, click on Edit with Elementor to the black bar above and you see, the Elementor dialogue box containing Elementor features will appear on the left side of the page as shown below.

So what is Elementor?

Elementor is a free and popular pager builder for building web pages on WordPress. Other page builders are; Beaver Builder, Gutenberg and Divi Builder.

To change the picture on this page using Elementor, just hover your mouse on the picture and click on the pencil icon.

Click on the picture as indicated by the arrow and it will take you to your media library.

Drag and drop the image file from your computer.

Copy the image file name and paste it on Alt Text dialogue box as indicated by the arrows on the picture below to optimize the image for search indexing and click on Insert Media

You can play with the Image Size Dropdown Menu by choosing from Full Size, Large Size, Medium Size and observe the results

For this case I choose Custom Size and I type in the Width and Height to 496 by 744 pixels and then I click on the green button Apply

To observe the changes made, on this page, hover your mouse and click on the Eye icon and the Preview Page will open on a new tab.

And when you are satisfied with the changes you’ve made, click the green Update button to save the changes.

To change the text on the page it’s very easy. Hover your mouse on the text and click on the pencil icon to open the Text Editor dialogue box. Then you type your text inside the text editor. When satisfied click on Update to save changes.

NB: If you Right-Click on and section or element, you see a dialogue box open as shown on the picture below where you can duplicate literarily anything on the page to save a lot of time. You also have the option to save this page or any section of this page as a template that you can upload on other pages that you want to create or edit.

To activate buttons or links on the pages like the Make An Appointment button to your Contact Page, hover and click on the pencil icon on the button.

Open the contact page on a new tab. Then Copy the URL of the Contact page and Paste it in the dialogue box numbered ‘2’

Finally, Click on Update and now you can quickly exit from the Elementor page builder as shown below and Click on the Make An Appointment button to test if it is working properly.

In the same way you can activate the Learn More button. All you have to do is create a page to talk about your services and paste the URL as you pasted for the ‘Make An Appointment’ button.

So now you can edit the rest of the pages on your website in the same way.

There is a lot to talk about Elementor and I will create another post to talk about all of that.

To quickly Exit from Elementor Page Builder, grab or select the URL shown on the picture below and press BACK SPACE and press ENTER on your Keyboard.

Now if you click on customize on the black bar, then you can see more options to customize the look and feel of your website from the theme. As the case here, we are using the Astra Theme.

Feel free to go through each one of the settings as they are very easy and self explanatory and when you click on each one of them, it takes your directly to that portion of the website and I will walk you through a few of them.

Global > Header Builder > Breadcrumb > Blog > Sidebar > Footer Builder > Performance > Site Identity > Menus > Widgets and more.

Let’s say we want to Change the logo and add some items to the menu section.

Simply click on Header Builder > Site Title & Logo > Change Logo and it takes you to the Media Library where you then click to select the logo image. On the down-right-corner click on Select > Skip Cropping > Adjust the Logo With to 162 pixel as to case here or to your desired size and when you are satisfied you click on blue button that says Publish and your changes will be live immediately.

To add items to your Menu; click on Header Builder > Primary Menus > Configure Menu from Here > Select the Menu You want and Click on Edit Menu > Click on Add Items and on the page dialogue box type the name of the page you want.

In this case I will create two pages under the service section of my menu; Clinical Lab Test page and then Immunes System Lab Test.

Once I click on Add then I click on each of the items and drag under the Service section to create a sub menu under the Services Section.

As you are about to drop each item under the Services move it gradually to the right and you’ll see a layout will indicate where to release your mouse and you’ll release it as shown on the picture below

And when are satisfied with the changes, you click on the Blue Button – Publish to save those changes.

Click the back arrow to exit this section

Click on the ‘X’ above to exit the customization section.

This is the Footer Section of this Website. This website has 5 different areas and you can add some areas, remove some areas or leaves the footer areas as it is and just edit them to your wises.

To Edit the Footer Section, again Click on Customize > Footer Builder

Now, all you have to do is hover the mouse on any of these area and click where the pencil icon appears to edit that area and when you are satisfied with the changes, click on Publish and that is all.

There is so much more you can do when it comes to customizing your website but for the purpose of this tutorial we are not going to much more in-depth.

Conclusion

When you combine the free Astra Theme and the free page Builder Elementor, you will have astonishing results that will blue your mind and the minds of your target audience

One thing I can assure you is that, as you dive into this adventure of creating your own website, you will discover so many things on your own. So feel free, relax, grab a cup of coffee, juice or beer and enjoy your adventure in to this new skill of web design.

At the time you are reading this sentence you maybe through with creating your website.

I want you to go to the dashboard, hover on Plugins and click on Add New. search for the following plugins one after the other and activate them on your website.

iThemes Security by iThemes is a Security plugin that will protect your website from hackers

Rank Maths by Rank Maths is an SEO plugin that will help rank the content of your website on Search Engines like Google

UpdraftPlus by UpdraftPlus.Com, David Anderson to back up your website and I will show you how you can easily setup these plugins

Congratulations for making it right up to the end of this post.

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I hope you learned a ton of stuff and you’re able now to create a beautiful website.

Good luck with creating your website or maybe you finished it already when you’re reading this; good luck with your business or what you’re going to do with your website. Have a great day; feel free to comment if you like it.

Feel free to subscribe for more upcoming posts and feel free to leave a comment or give me feedback on how to improve, or maybe you like it the way it is, and then I hope to see you on my next post.

And if you are busy and Want Me To Do Everything For You, Click Here