this is not a manual, still less a step-by-step in copy-paste style, but it is a headache-free real hot introduction for how to create hasslefree your website with wordpress CMS
don’t worry about the theme, you can use the standard theme and modify it easily, using a theme gets you into trouble, even if not noticing at the beginning, sooner or later it bites you
you also do not need a special wordpress hosting provider, they just create dependencies which might difficult later migrate to another service provider, just look for the cheapest, not free!, who can give you support for https, php and sql and has no hooks in his contract, ask him: what if I want to move out one day and want to take my site with me … and analyze the answer, rounds, not avoiding a point or another, then that is your partner
look for a hosting company in your country in order to get the best backbone routing for your costumers having fast access 24×7, most likely they can also assist in registering your domain name if you haven’t done it yet
once you have your new internet home set up, install the latest wordpress version following strictly the advices on screen, don’t try to be smart unless you know exactly what you do
ready? then log into the admin interface, look for SETTINGS down on the left panel, in GENERAL set your sitename, set your slogan (tagline), set your site address, aka as URL and be sure you write https:// before the domain name , your email address should be there already or change it, select your timezone and adjust the date/time format, save it
more in Settings, Media, set the image sizes in width, 300, 850 and 1280 would be a good choice and let the HEIGH empty or put a zero, that scales the images according to their original format, don’t forget to uncheck cropping
once more in SETTINGS, PERMALINKS and select POSTNAME as structure, what is positive for search engine results and visitors remembering it
now you’re underway and should make the decision if your site’s HOMEPAGE should be a static page edited by you, what is the preferred option, or if you want it to be the Latest Posts blog page, a good hint here is, you don’t have a lot os posts, maybe none, when you start, so it is better to design a nice home page where you describe your site, services or products, so go for home page, now go once more to Settings, Reading and make your choice and you’re done
you already can access your new site with a browser and see the standard home page, probably saying Hello World, very good
now we’re at a point where you need to understand that there are no secrets, secrets are made up by people who want to get your money for the secrets they say they have … here is how to avoid the money spending, and also, how to avoid headache
let’s design your site, exactly as you wish, independent, free without other people’s rules and sayings …
chose a font, or two, easiest way might be using Google Fonts, if you prefere another source look for “woff2” format, what is the actual preferred choice for the web
think this, basically you have the site title and other headers for paragraphs or sections, I call this the master font, then you have text allover, paragraphs, image descriptions, whatever, that is the most used font type on your site and should be easy to read, people spend time reading and should not riddle …, then we have controls like next, previous, links, paginations and it looks good having them stick out with another font type, and no need to make it perfect, once set you can easily change it later, problem is when you do not make any choice now, fiddling out later how to change everything is a mess … just to be complete, you do not need to search for fonts on the web, you can use the already installed wp fonts, but they are quite poor and there is another important point here, changing the default fonts is an important step to learn HOW wp styling works and will thank me when you come later to understand it
there are several ways to add fonts to wp, the independent way is using your theme-child/fonts/ directory or if you still don’t have created your theme, you can copy them to /wp-content/themes/twentytwentyfive/assets/fonts/ via ftp, scp or a “cpanel” filemanager provided by your hosting provider … you also can use a plugin, but then you will discover a series of thingies you might not like, so listen to me and do it the easy way, headache-free, it pays off
ok then, here we are, site set up, fonts ready, let’s step into customization, in the admin left panel you find APPEARANCE, then Editor, then Styles, which is your home for a couple of days, your playground to learn how that thing “wordpress” works, believe me, the time you spent here it is worth it, after this little suffering you understand how it works and can easily design your site AND! change any item with ease later whenever you want
now, one item, it is LAYOUTs, you skip for now, you explore all others, one by one to see what it does, SPECIALLY the lowest in the sidebar, which is BLOCKS, that is the beast which people try to sell you as their secret …
once you travelled through all available choices you have seen that every single block has a font setting part and eventually this moment is your first oohhh-moment, I hope so …
what we do next is looking at the templates, option at the left menu and study each of them to get an understanding about where the blocks we have seen in styles go, after that we do the same with Patterns
now your first task: figure out which blocks are fundamental, means which are present in any template, the repeated use of these blocks makes them be “the ones” you configure, the others can stay with their “DEFAULT” … there might appear some exceptions, but hey, no problem, you know already how to find it and fix it
sooo, very good, now you configure your fonts, their types, styles, sizes and eventual letter spaces and line height as well already
after that we are ready to design your first page, don’t be shy, look at the templates and find the one which has the name PAGES, click it, edit it, experiment with it until you get something you like, save it
after that you go to pages in the editor menu, click on the page, and you will see that the pages there have already your design inherited from the template you edited before, so where is the second oohhh? see … so easy it is
now you can edit the other templates and patterns, then you can add your first page from scratch and what comes out was you who made it, no plugin, no blablablaaa, no plugin, no nothing, just you completed the first step to be your own website developer
Congrats and go ahead, let the world see your talent! happy coding!
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