Are you looking to streamline your WordPress development process and build WordPress sites faster and more efficiently? This guide will show you how to install and build a WordPress site from the ground up in a few minutes, from setting up a free WordPress staging environment to making your site live with one click using InstaWP-managed WordPress hosting.
How to Install WordPress and Build Sites? (Complete Guide)
Follow the steps outlined below to build your WordPress site. Take the WordPress site from development in InstaWP’s WordPress staging environment to live using InstaWP Live WordPress hosting.
Step 1 – Creating a WordPress Staging Site
First, log into your InstaWP dashboard. If you do not have an InstaWP account, you should create one. From your dashboard, click on Staging at the top navigation and then the Add New + button.
From the popup, you have three different options to install and build your WordPress site.
1. From Scratch
As the name implies, this option involves building a fresh WordPress site from scratch. This means you only get the basic WordPress installation and build the website from the ground up.
To use this option, select the From Scratch tab. Even though you are building from scratch, you can preinstall the plugins you wish to use, pre-set the WordPress version you wish to install, and some other configurations. When you finish, click Create Site, and your WordPress site will be created in a few seconds.
2. From Template
Templates are copies of pre-designed or ready-made WordPress sites that you can reuse to design replicas of the original site. This option is for developers who already have created templates in their InstaWP dashboard to speed up their WordPress development workflow.
To build from your existing template, select the From Template tab, select your template, and click the Create Site button to proceed.
3. Store
The InstaWP Store offers many free and premium templates by other developers for WordPress development. This option allows you to use different templates to set up completely designed WordPress sites, leaving you with little to do, such as site title, logo, and page content.
To use a template from the InstaWP store, select the Store tab. You can scroll down or use the dropdown to sort by page builder, free or paid, and category. You can also use the search form to find a template. When you see a template to your liking, select that template and click on the Create Site button to proceed.
Whatever option you choose, your WordPress site will be automatically created within seconds, and you will be given the login credentials.
Simply click on the Magic Login button to be automatically logged into the WP Dashboard of your newly created WordPress site.
Note: You do not need to memorize the login credentials or URL of the WordPress staging site just created. You can always access it from the staging section of your InstaWP dashboard.
Step 2 – Configuring WordPress Settings
Now that you have successfully installed and logged into your WordPress staging site, the next step on your WordPress development journey is to configure some basic WordPress settings.
Setting Up Site Title, Tagline, and Timezone
You need to name your site and briefly describe it. You also need to set the timezone, preferably to the country you are targeting with your website. These three options can be set together.
To make this change, select Settings > General from the left sidebar of your WP Dashboard. Then, enter your site title and tagline (short description).
Then, scroll down to the timezone and set it (e.g., UTC-4 is the time zone for Washington, DC, USA). Click Save Changes.
Configuring Permalink Structure
The next thing you want to configure is the permalink structure. The permalink structure describes the path of pages and blog posts. The default WordPress permalink (linking post format) upon installation is https://yourdomain.com/p=123.
To change your permalink structure, Go to Settings > Permalink and select an available option or use the custom structure option. Then, click Save Changes.
Configuring Media Settings
You will be uploading images on the website. To ensure uniformity and consistency across the site, it’s best to set the image dimensions from the onset before uploading any images. To adjust media settings, Go to Settings > Media.
Adjusting Discussion Settings
The Discussion settings allow you to describe how comments are handled. To make adjustments, Go to Settings > Discussion.
This part is self-explanatory. You can leave the default settings or adopt the one in the image above. However, from here, you can set whether you want comments to be approved by you before they show on your blog—usually to prevent spam comments.
Step 3 – Choosing and Installing a Theme
A theme is the design of your blog—how it looks and feels. There are thousands of themes out there, both free and premium for WordPress development. However, it is advisable to go for lightweight themes so your website speed is not affected. If you are on a budget, there are many good free Themes to explore.
WordPress themes are usually easy to customize, and most themes come with demo templates and installation guides called documentation (usually on their developer’s websites).
To add a theme, navigate to Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme.
You can either upload a zipped version of the Theme (from the developer) or install a Theme from the WordPress Theme repository. To use a Theme from the repository, scroll through or use the search field to find one and click the Install button next to the Theme.
After uploading or installing your chosen Theme, click Activate.
Step 4 – Customizing Your Site (Adding Plugins and Custom Code)
WordPress Plugins are what make WordPress tick. They are extensions that add extra functionality and features to WordPress development. They add more (extend) features to the core WordPress features, and there is a WordPress plugin for almost anything. If you want to add related posts, share buttons, or an author bio beneath each post, or you want to sell your products or create a membership site, there’s a plugin—nay, there are plugins—for that.
However, you need to avoid the temptation of wanting and installing too many plugins. They will add more load or weight to your website and cause it to be slow. Also, too many plugins make it difficult to troubleshoot a plugin-related error.
Most plugins have installation and documentation to guide you; few come with demo content where applicable.
A simple Google search (e.g., How to set up [PLUGIN NAME HERE] WordPress plugin) can save you the stress of figuring out yourself by exposing you to countless step-by-step blog articles that can guide you.
From the left navigation menu, Click on Plugins > Add New Plugin.
The WordPress repository for plugins will open. You can use the search form to find the plugins you need.
Click the Install Now button next to a plugin you want. After installation, you can search for more plugins to install or click Activate.
You may not find some plugins that you like on the WordPress repo, or you may buy a plugin from a marketplace or developer. In either case, you must upload the plugin file, usually in .zip format. To do this, use the uploader on the Upload Plugin instead, just at the beginning of the Add New Plugin page.
To see the plugins installed on your WordPress website, Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins.
There, you will find all your active and inactive plugins. You can activate, deactivate, update, or delete plugins here. You can also access the link to their settings from here.
You can add custom code to your WordPress site by using a site-specific plugin for developers or by utilizing the Code Snippet WordPress plugin for easier code management.
Once the Code Snippet is installed and activated, Go to Snippets > Add New. Enter the desired title for your custom code and the custom code appropriately. Then, click the Save Changes and Activate button.
Step 5 – Adding Content to your Site
After you have completed your WordPress site configuration, you can start adding content to the website. Here is how to add content to WordPress.
Adding Blog Posts
To add blog posts to your WordPress site, click on Posts > Add New Post.
Enter the title of the blog post and type or paste the content.
To add media, tables, hyperlinks, lists, headings, quotes, and so on to the content, click the plus (+) sign. From the popup, select the type of content you wish to add. If it is not among the quick options, click Browse All to see them.
On the right column, set the post URL, enter the post category and tags, and upload the cover image in the Featured Image section. When done, click Publish from the top left corner.
Note: You can always preview your blog posts before publishing, save them as drafts, or schedule them to be published later.
Adding Pages
To add pages to your WordPress site, click on Posts > Add New Page.
Enter the page title and type or paste the content. You can add media, tables, forms, hyperlinks, lists, headings, shortcodes, etc, to page content like you add to blog posts. You can also add a Featured image, set the page URL, and preview the page before publishing. When you are done, click Publish.
Step 6 – Optimizing for SEO
A website not optimized for SEO is already dead. With good SEO, your site can enjoy tons of organic traffic from Google and other search engines when it goes live. It takes time to
start ranking for keywords on search result pages, so it’s best to optimize the site for SEO early enough–during its development.
Here are some SEO techniques for WordPress that you can use to optimize your site, making it easy to crawl and index and positioning it to rank better in search engine results.
Enable Search Engine Visibility
In WordPress, you have the option to make your entire site visible or invisible to search engines. Ensure that the “Discourage search engine from indexing site” is unticked.
It’s good SEO practice to use words from the post name instead in your WordPress URL—so you can insert keywords and get some traffic from search engines like Google.
Permalink
To use keywords from the post name, Click Settings > Permalink and select Post name. Then, click Save Changes.
Install an SEO Plugin
SEO plugins such as Rank Math or Yoast SEO can help audit and improve your content and keywords, ensuring your blog posts are always optimized for search engines. SEO plugins can also help you set indexed pages to tell Google bots which pages to crawl and index and which to exclude.
Add WordPress XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a page that acts as a map, guiding search engines to your relevant pages. Sitemaps make page indexing faster, as you can submit them to Google Search Console, Bing, and other search engines and request immediate crawling and indexing of your site.
Fortunately, WordPress 5.5 upward comes with an in-built XML sitemap feature, made available to search engines when you enable search engine visibility. You can add /wp-sitemap.xml to your domain to confirm its availability.
SEO plugins like Rank Math and Yoast SEO have sitemaps settings and generation included.
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions
When publishing blog posts, provide a meta title of 50-60 characters and a meta description of 150-160 characters for every post. Enter them appropriately in the SEO section provided on the post editor page by your SEO plugin or SEO-optimized Theme.
Redirect 404 Pages
When a page or URL no longer exists on your site, visitors and bots are taken to a 404 error page. This can affect SEO, so it’s best to redirect 404 pages to either your homepage or similar content using a 301 (permanent) redirect. You can set up 404 redirects with .htaccess, your theme 404.php file, or a 404 redirection WordPress plugin.
Step 7 – Hosting Your Site (Going live with InstaWP Live)
Now that your website has been built from the ground up and optimized for SEO, the next stage in your WordPress development journey is to take the website from the WordPress staging environment to live development with InstaWP WordPress hosting. It takes a few clicks.
To use InstaWP Live managed WordPress hosting, select the Go Live rocket icon next to the staging site you have finished developing.
From the popup, select InstaWP Live and click the Next Step button.
Select the pricing plan that fits your budget and website needs. Then, proceed to make the payment with your card.
After payment, return to your InstaWP dashboard, navigate to Hosting > select the dropdown > Map Domain.
Copy the A records provided and enter them into your domain settings at your domain provider website, such as Cloudflare or Namecheap. Then, enter your domain name and click the Map Domain button.
Conclusion
As you can see, building WordPress sites with InstaWP’s WordPress staging environment and hosting them with InstaWP Live is as easy and smooth as possible. InstaWP is one tool that you must integrate into your WordPress development process. Once you get the hang of it, you can build WordPress sites on the fly.
