Transcripts
1. Course Introduction: Hi guys, It's Marty here from let's build WP.com. And I decided to make this wordpress tutorial for beginners to show you everything you'll need to know in order to build a website you can be proud of. You don't need to have any previous design skills. We won't be using any coding and it's only going to take us about 45 minutes to complete. So if you need a website for an online business you're starting, or maybe you just want to build a website for fun. This is how you do it. I'm going to walk you through the entire process step-by-step and in a way that anyone should be able to understand. So even if you've only ever used your computer for sending emails and watching random cat videos, you should still have no problems building this website. But rather than just talking about it, let's take a look at the actual website we'll be building. So I'm going to show you how to add a logo and a header image here at the top, and how to change our site colors. Then we'll also cover how to create different pages which will add to our menu. And these pages will have text, images and anything else we might need. We'll also be adding a form to our contact page as well so our visitors can send us a message if they need to. Then the website were buildings also going to have a blog where our posts will have these awesome featured images. And when we click into them, we'll have our text images and any other content we add. And then here at the bottom we'll also have a comment section where our visitors can leave us a reply. Then we'll also be covering how to change the WordPress sidebar, which is this part that runs down the right-hand side of our pages. And we can add things like images, text, and lists of our recent blog posts. This website's also going to be 100% mobile friendly, which means it's going to look amazing on any device. So if I just make this window a little smaller, we can see what our website looks like on a tablet. Then if we make it a little smaller, again, this is what our website's going to look like when being viewed on a mobile phone. So no matter what device it's being viewed on, it's always going to look great. I know you're probably not going to be building a website about coffee like my example site. But don't worry, this is going to work for almost any kind of business or websites you might need. So here's the CMB website with different images and branding to give you an idea of what I mean. And as you can see, the website's pretty much always going to look great.
2. The 5 Main Steps: Okay, so in the intro to this video, I said that you won't need any previous design skills and that we won't be using any coding to build our website. And that's because we're going to be using WordPress.org. This is the same platform used by companies like Forbes, cnn, and Sunni, just the name of few. And not only that, but WordPress is also super easy to use. In fact, there are only five main steps will need to follow in order to build a professional website with WordPress. So the first thing we need to do is setup a web hosting account for our site. And this is basically where the different files that make up our website will be stored online so people can gain access to our site even when our own computers switched off. Web hosting is something we will require in order to run a website, and it'll usually cost us around it the $12 a month. Then the next thing we need to do is register a domain name for our website. A domain name is basically the title of our website with www dot before it, and.com after it. And it's what we type in DIR Internet browser to visit a specific website. For example, google's domain name is www.google.com. Once again, a domain name is something we will require in order to run a website and will usually cost us around $13 a year. So we pay for our web hosting once a month, and then we pay for our domain name once a year. Then once we have our domain name and web hosting, we can move on to the next step which is installing WordPress. This will only take about 60 seconds or so for us to do. And as WordPress is open source software, It's also 100% free for us to use. Then once we've installed WordPress, we're going to move onto the fourth step, which is choosing and customizing a WordPress theme. This is going to change the entire look of our WordPress site and make it more like the website we're trying to build. And then the last thing we need to do is add our different content, which will basically be the main pages that make up our website. So that could be things like an about page and a contact page. Now I will also cover a few other bits and pieces as well as we go along. But these really are the five main steps we need to follow in order to build a professional WordPress website.
3. Register Web Hosting & Domain Name: So as we can see, the first things we need to do are set up web hosting and get a domain name for our website. And lucky for us, we can get both of these from the same place, which is a website called Host Gator.com. And this is a company I've been using for years now without any problems. There are a great low cost hosting company, which is exactly what we want. And they're also here I currently use to host, Let's build WP.com. So if you're going to take my recommendation, we just need to open up our Internet browser and go to Host Gator.com. Once we get here, we're going to hovered over hosting at the top and click shared hosting. And this is going to show us the three different hosting plans that Host Gator offer. Noi to be totally honest with you, the business plan comes with a whole load of added extras you're probably not going to need one just getting started, which really just leaves it between the hatchling plan and the Baby Plan. And the only real difference between these two plans is the amount of websites we can have on each one. So with the hatchling plan, we can have one single website. And with the baby plan, we can have as many websites as we like. So as I'm just doing this for the tutorial, I'm going to go for the hatchling plan. And once we've decided on which plan we're going to go for, we can just click by noise underneath. That's going to bring us here. And this is where we're going to register the domain name for our new website. So we just need to type our domain. We're wanting to register into this box at the top. And for my example, I'm going to type a website about coffee. And then on the right we can choose our domain extension. And I'm going to choose.com, which means the domain name I'm registering in this example is a website abide to coffee.com. Then as long as the domains available, it's going to say primary domain here. But if it comes up and says the domain is not available, unfortunately will need to choose something else. Then as long as the domain we want is available, we can scroll down to where it says domain privacy protection. This is an optional add-on. And I normally just uncheck this box myself and haven't had any problems. But if you're trying to keep your website anonymous, just leave this box checked and it'll be added to your bill. Then underneath it says Choose a hosting plan. And here we just want to check that our package type is correct and choose a billing cycle. In this example, I went for the hatchling plan. So this is correct. And then here on the right we can choose high often we'd like to pay for our hosting. Now, this is going to depend on how much money you have to spend on your website. But I would recommend setting this to 12 months or higher if he can. Not only because there's a great discount compared to monthly billing, but we also get our domain name for free if we go for 12 months or more upfront. So it really is something to think about. And with that being said, I'm going to set mine to 12 months. Then once we're done here, we can scroll down. And here we're just going to enter our email address and choose a password and security pin for our account. And then under this we can enter our personal billing information. So things like our name and address. And on the right, we can choose hog would like to pay for our order. And we can choose either credit or debit card or PayPal. Then once we're done, we can scroll down. And here we'll see it says add additional services. And these are just some added extras that Host Gator offer. I normally just uncheck these boxes myself, but you can have a read through them. And if you want any of them, just check the box and there'll be added to your bill. Then once we're done here, if we scroll down, we'll see it says enter a coupon code. Now I, there might already be a coupon entered in here worth 20 or 25 percent off. But if we delete this and instead type in, let's build WP. When we click File at it and scroll down, we'll see that the price is now even cheaper. And we're getting both our web hosting and domain name for less than $40. And remember that this is for the full year and these are the only things we need to pay four, which means this website is going to cost us less than $3.50 a month, which is awesome. Now I before we continue, I'd just like to quickly mention that I'll receive a small commission from Host Gator if you make a purchase through my link or using my coupon code, this won't cost you anything extra, and it means I can continue making these tutorials for free. So thank you in advance if you use my coupon and even if you don't have still highly recommend using Host Gator for your website. But anyway, let's get back to the tutorial. So here at the bottom, we just want to double-check our orders, correct? And if we look here on the left, we'll see they offer 24, 7 phone, live chat and email support. And they have a 45 day money-back guarantee just in case we change our mind. Then once we're happy with everything here, we just need to check this box at the bottom, the agree to their terms, and then click checkout noise. So if you're following along at home, just pause this video while you're paying for your order and then come back and press play. And we'll carry on building your website together.
4. Install WordPress (.org): Okay. So that's me now I back and when I finished paying for my order, I was brought to a page saying thank you, I'm done. I was redirected to the homepage. So if you're following along at home, at this point, we can close out of Host Gator. And instead we want to open up our email inbox where we should find some new emails from Host Gator. These emails contains some pretty important information, so we should keep them safe. But for now, we're going to click into the email that says you're a conda info. And in this e-mail will see we have a link to your control panel, which is also known as the C panel. Our username and password for logging in some other information about our account. Here we're going to click the link to your control panel, which is going to open up the cPanel login screen in a new tab. And now we just need to copy and P is star username and password from this email into the cPanel login screen. Then once we've got them, P is true, then we can click login. And this is us going to be logging into the host gator see pano, which is where we'll be installing WordPress. Now, this might seem a little overwhelming at first, but it's actually pretty easy. All we need to do is scroll down to where it says software. And then click Wordpress monitor. Then we need to click Install. And this is going to open up the WordPress setup screen. Then here on the right, we just want to make sure this first box says HTTPS, and our new domain name is selected in the box beside it. Then under this, we can change our site title and tagline using these two boxes. So I'm going to type Coffee website as my site title. And then for my tagline, I'm going to put a website all about coffee. Although don't worry about these too much for now, as we can always change them again later. Then under this we can create the username and password we want for logging in DR site. And then we can update our e-mail address under this. Then once we're done here, we can change the language of our site if we need to. But I'm going to leave mine as it is. Then we're going to skip over the optional plugins and themes they offer as we're going to be installing these later. And then finally, we just need to click Install at the bottom. And host gator will start installing WordPress. This will usually take less than a minute. And once it's finished that they'll say, congratulations, the software was installed. At this point we can click the link beside where it says admin URL, which will open up the WordPress dashboard in a new tab. And this is where we can add any content or make any changes to our new WordPress website, which by the way is now a live online. All we need to do to visit our website is click our site title in the top left. And that's going to show us what WordPress looks like when we first install it. No, yours might look a little different and sometimes they change up the default theme. But either way, we're just going to see some demo content or not much else. This is already looking pretty amazing, but we're going to be building something much better than this.
5. Delete Demo Content: Now that we have WordPress installed, the first thing we're going to do is delete all of the demo content before we start adding our own. To do this, we just need to go back to our dashboard by clicking our site title at the top. And then if we click Pages and our left dashboard menu, this is going to show us any pages we have on our site, which at the moment is just this demo page. To delete it, we just need to hover our mouse over the page title and then click trash. Now we're basically going to do the same thing for our demo blog post. Only instead of clicking pages on the left, we're going to click posts. Then we can hovered over the post title and click Trash to delete it. And then finally, we're going to uninstall a few demo plug-ins as well. And to do this, we can click plugins on the left. And this is going to show us any plugins we have installed. Plugins are basically like extensions or add-ons for WordPress that or let us add extra functionality DER website that WordPress doesn't come with by default. So for example, this would be things like contact forms and social share buttons. We're going to come back and cover how to use plug-ins later on in this video. But for now we're just going to remove the ones that came preinstalled. So to do this, we simply check the box at the top to select all of the plug-ins in the list. Then we can select deactivate using this drop-down menu and click Apply. Then once these plugins have been deactivated, we're going to delete them and basically the CMB way. So we just need to check the box at the top again. And then instead of choosing deactivated, we're going to choose Delete from this drop-down list and then click Apply. Wordpress is then going to delete all of the plug-ins from our site. And it usually only takes a couple of seconds.
6. Install WordPress Theme: And now that we've deleted the demo content and removed all of the plug-ins. If we visit our site by clicking our site title at the top, we'll see that it's not a completely empty and ready for us to start customizing. Then the next thing we're going to do is change our WordPress theme. And this is going to change the entire look of our site and make it more like the custom website we're trying to build. So to do this, we're going to go back to our dashboard by clicking our site title in the top left. Then if we click appearance on the left, this is going to show us all of the different themes that WordPress comes with pre-installed. So as we can see, I currently have the 2019 theme active in this example, as it's the one that says active underneath it, then we can change to one of these other themes as well if we like, by hovering are my silver, the theme and clicking Activate. But rather than doing that, we're going to install a new theme by clicking on add new at the top. This is then going to show us the thousands of different free themes that WordPress have to offer. And we can filter through these themes at the top by featured, popular, and latest. Or if we already know the name of a specific theme we're wanting be installed, we can type it into the search bar in the top right. In this example, I'm going to be installing a theme called primer, which is an awesome theme that will work for most types of websites. And it's also the one we saw at the start of this video. Now, uh, you can obviously choose a different theme if you like, and the steps will pretty much be the same. But if you're unsure of what theme to use, I recommend this worm. Plus one of the awesome things about WordPress is that we can change our theme at anytime without affecting our content. So if we choose this theme for noise, and then it turns out we don't like it. We just need to install a new one. But for now, we're going to type the word primer into the search bar in the top right. And then when it shows up, we just need to click Install. Wordpress is then going to unpack and installed the theme for us right away. And once it's done, we can click Activate. And now if we click our site title in the top left to visit our site, we'll see that our theme has been updated and our websites now looking much better.
7. Site Identity (Site Title & Logo): Then once we're happy with the theme we've installed, we can start to customize it. And to do this, we simply need to click where it says Customize at the top. This is going to open up our theme options on the left, and we'll see a live preview of our website on the right. Then if we click into the first option on the left labeled site identity, we can change our site title and tagline by changing the text that appears in these two boxes. So for this example, if I change my site title, does say coffee time on the left will see that it updates right away in the preview on the right. Then we can do the same thing for our tagline, which is the line of text that appears underneath our site title. So I'm just going to quickly type something in here on the left. And once again, when we do this, we'll see it updates on the right. Then if we have a logo image we'd like to use instead, we can click Select logo at the top and then click Upload Files in the middle. Now we're just going to search for the image on our computer. And when we find the image we'd like to use, we just need to click on it and then click open the uploaded to our website. Once the image has been uploaded, we can click select in the bottom right and then crop our image if we need to, or click Skip cropping. When we do this, we'll see that our logo now appears in the preview on the right instead of our site title and tagline. Then here on the left, we can also change our footer copyright text, which is this text that appears at the bottom of our website. So I'm just going to change this to say coffee time instead of my new website on the left. And when I do will see it updates in the preview on the right. Then we can also uncheck this box on the left that says display theme author credit. And that's going to remove the link to go daddy from the bottom. Then the last option here on the left is where we can add a site icon, which is the little icon that appears beside our site title in our Internet browser. So we just need to click Select image on the left. Then we can click upload files at the top, select files in the middle. And then we're going to search for the image on our computer. When we find it, we just need to click on it and then click Open. Then once our image has been uploaded, we can click select in the bottom right and then either crop the image if we need to click Skip cropping. And when we do this, we'll see that our site icon now appears beside our site title in our Internet browser. Then once we're happy with everything here, we can click Publish up at the top to see if our changes. And then click the Back pointing arrow in the top left to go back to the list of Theme Options.
8. Updating Layout, Colours, and Fonts: Now we're just going to click into the next option, which is layout. And here we can change the layout of our website to be either fixed or fluid. And this is basically just referring to the margins of our site. So if we change this to fluid on the left, we can see that the layout only really changes slightly on the right. Personally, I'm just going to put it back to fixed. But if you change it, just remember to click publish at the top to save your changes. And then we can click the Back pointing arrow at the top to go back. Now. Or we can click into the next option, which is colors. And here we can change the different colors of our website. So first, if we click into color schemes, we can choose a main color scheme using this drop-down list. And when we do this, we'll see that the colors update on the right. Personally, I think the default color scheme looks best with the color of my logo, so I'm going to keep it as default. Then once we choose a color scheme, we can click the Back pointing arrow, and then we can change each of the individual colors by clicking into these different sections. So if we click into header, for example, we can change the color of our site title and tagline. If we're not using a logo, then we can also change our header background color as well. So to do this, we simply click Select Color and then choose the color we're wanting DTUs. And as we can see when we're choosing our color, it updates in real time on the right. Then if we want to go back to the original color, we just need to click the default button. Once we're happy with these colors, we can click the Back pointing arrow in the top left to go back. And then we can use this same steps to change the colors of our menus, buttons and things like that. And I'm just going to do this in fast-forward to save time. Then once we're happy with our sights colors, we just need to click publish at the top to see if our changes. And then click the Back pointing arrow to go back. And now we're going to click into the next section, which is fonts. So here we can change the fonts for things like our site title and tagline, our menus, text headings, and things like that. And all we need to do is choose the fonts we'd like to use for each of them using these drop-down menus. So I'm just going to quickly change all of mine to carbon Fontan, this example. But obviously you can spend a little more time and experiment with the full list of fonts. Then once we're happy with our new fonts, we can click Publish at the top to see of our changes, and then click the Back pointing arrow to go back.
9. Updating Header & Background Images: And now we're going to click into the next section which is head or media. And this is where we can add a header image to our website. No, there is an option deobda header video if we like, but most of the time this won't really make sense and can sometimes results in our site loading kind of slowly. But if you want to have a video header, you can just post a YouTube video URL into this box. And WordPress will do it for you automatically. Or if we scroll down, we can upload a header image instead. All we need to do is click add new image and then upload it in the same way as our other images to save some time in this video, there's a default image they have here to show us water to look like. And I'm just going to use this one. So when I click on it, we can see that it updates on the right are not choose the new image as our websites header. And if we want to remove it again, we just need to click Hide image. Then once we're done here, we're just going to uncheck this box at the top that says use featured image. Then we can click Publish at the top to see if our changes and click the Back pointing arrow to go back. No, the next option is background image and I'm just going to skip this myself. But if you want the upload one, You Can. We just need to click Select Image and then we can upload the image in the same way as before. Just remember to click publish at the top if you change anything. And then we can go back to the main list of options.
10. Create Navigation Menu (Add Main Pages): Now if we click and demand news on the left, this is where we can create the main pages were wanting DR. DR. Website, as well as a range or navigation menu. So first we just need to click create menu on the left. And then here we can give our menu and name, the names just for our own reference and isn't going to show up anywhere. And for this, I'm just going to call mine Main Menu. Then we can choose primary menu and click Next. Now or we can click where it says Add Items. And then we just want to make sure that pHs is selected on the right. Then we're just going to type the names for any pages were wanting the ad and then click the Add button. Wordpress will then create the pages for us and add them to our menu. So for this example, I'm going to add our homepage called home, a contact page called contact, a blog page called blog, and an About page called a boat. Us know, you can obviously choose the different pages or call them something different. But I would at least recommend adding our homepage and a blog page. Then once we've added any pages we want, we can click Reorder on the left and then change the order of our menu if we need to. So if I move my contact page to the bottom, we'll see that it now appears on the right-hand side of my menu. So anything we put at the top of this list is going to appear on the left side of our menu. Then anything we put at the bottom of the list is going to appear on the right. Then once we're happy with the order of our menu, we can click Done. And now we just need to click publish at the top to see if our changes and then click the Back pointing arrow to go back. Now at this point we can click on our different pages in the preview on the right. And we'll see that they've been created, but there's still empty. We're going to be covering how to add content to these pages soon. But for now we're just going to click into the next option here on the left, which is widgets.
11. Change Sidebar (Widgets) & Homepage Settings: Then if we click into sidebar, this is where we can change what appears on the right-hand side of our site. So as we can see here on the left, it says search, recent posts, Recent Comments, Archives, Categories, and matter. And then if we look on our sidebar on the right, we can see that these match up. So first we can start by removing any widgets we don't want. And in this example, I'm going to remove everything apart from this search bar and the list of recent posts. And to delete a widget, we simply need to click on it on the left and then click Remove. Then once we've got rid of any widgets we don't want, we can start the add new ones by clicking add a widget. So say for this example we wanted to add an image to your sidebar. We just need to find and click on the image widget in this list. Then we can give it a title if we like. And then click the Add Image button. Then just like always, we're going to click upload files at the top, select files in the middle. And then we're going to search for the image on our computer. Then when we find it, we can just click on it and click Open D, upload it. Once our image has been uploaded, we can choose what size we want it to be using this drop-down menu in the bottom right. And then we can click, add the widget. And when we do this, we'll see our image now appears in the sidebar on the right. Then safer, another example, we wanted to add some text to our sidebar. We just need to click, add a widget and then choose the text widget from this list. Now on the left we can give it a title and then type any text we're wanting to appear into this box or we can just paste it in like I'm going to do. Then once we're done, we'll see that our tax now appears in our sidebar on the right underneath our image. Now you can feel free to add more widgets if you like. But these are the main ones I think you'll need when just getting started. Then once provided any widgets we're wanting in our sidebar, we can click here on the left where it says Reorder. And then we can change the order of our widgets in the same way as we did with our menu. Then once we're happy with the order of everything, we just need to click done. And then we can click Publish at the top, the CFR changes. Then we're just going to click the Back pointing arrow in the top left. Then click it again to get back to the main options. And now we can click into the next section, which is homepage settings. So by default, WordPress is set up as a blog and it's set to show our blog posts on the homepage. But the change this, we just need to select a static page here on the left. And then under homepage we're going to select our pH cold whom. And under posts PJ, we're going to select our pH called blog. When we do this, it's going to update in real time on the right. And we'll see that our homepage is now our static page. And if we click on our blog page in the menu, it should say Nothing find, and this is where our blog posts will appear once we start adding them. Then once we're done here, we can click Publish up at the top to see if our changes and then click the Back pointing arrow to go back. Now there's one last option here at the bottom called Additional CSS, but we're just going to skip over it as this would only be if we were wanting to make changes to our website, CSS files and we don't. So that means we're not finished customizing our theme. And as long as we've saved our changes, we just need to click the X in the top left to close out of these options. That's going to bring our STR site. And here we're going to see that all of the changes we made are not alive. So as we can see, we have our logo at the top. If we added one and our header images, well, our sights colors have been changed and our sidebars looking awesome. Then we also have our menu at the top with our different pages we created. And now the next thing we're going to do is add some content to these pages.
12. Add Content to Pages (Text & Images): So to do this, we just need to visit the page we're wanting to edit. And for me that's going to be my homepage. Then we can click Edit in the gray bar running along the top to open up the main page editor. Then here we can change the title if we like at the top. And then we can just start typing any text we want on our pH into this box underneath. And deceived some time in this tutorial, I'm just going to paste in some text I already have copied. Then if we have any subheadings and our texts like I do here, We can simply click into the line of text and then click this symbol on the left that looks like a backwards P. Now we can choose heading and then choose for one of the available heading sizes on the right. And when we do this, we'll see that our text changes size in the editor. And then I'm just going to do the same thing for my second heading underneath. Then we can also add images to your pages as well. And to do this, we just need to take a new line wherever we're wanting the image to appear. And then we can click the plus sign to the left. Then here we're going to choose Image, click, Upload Files in the middle, and then search for the image on our computer. When we find it, we just need to click on it and click Open the uploaded. And when we do this, we'll see that our image now appears in the editor. Then if at any point we want to see how RPGs looking so far, we can click where it says Preview on the right-hand side. And that's going to open up a live preview in a new tab. Now I'm just doing this all pretty quickly to show you how it's done. So your pages will probably look a lot better than mine. Then once we're happy with our page, we can close the preview. Then we just need to click update on the right to publish it. Now, we can click Visit page at the top and we'll see that our changes are no live. And now that we know high it's done, we just need to do the same for our other pages. So for me that's my about page. And I'm just going to add an image, some text and a few subheadings. Then I also have my contact page as well. And for this I'm going to add an image and some text for noise. And then we're going to come back and add a contact form soon. And then finally we have our blog page. We're going to be adding some blog posts here in a second. But just quickly before that, we're going to change what are known as our sites permalink. And just to explain what these are, if we visit one of our pages and look at the domain name at the top, we'll see that after our domain name, there's a forward slash and then a few random letters and numbers. And these letters and numbers are the pages permalink. But rather than these random letters and numbers, we're going to change it so it choose the page name instead. So to do this, we simply need to head back over to our dashboard by clicking our site title at the top. Then we can hover over settings on the left and click permalink. Now we're just going to choose post name. And then we can scroll down to the bottom and click Save Changes. Then once it's been updated, we can visit our site and click into one of our pages. And we'll see that our permanent inks have been updated at the top under noise showing the page names instead of the random letters and numbers. And now that we have our permalink changed, we can start out in a few blog posts DER website.
13. Create & Publish Blog Posts: So the add a blog post on WordPress, we simply need to click our site title at the top to go back to our dashboard. And then we can hovered over where it says posts on the left and click Add New. This is then going to open up the Post editor, which is basically the same as when adding pages. So we can give our post that title at the top. And I'm going to call mine how to make a great cup of coffee at home. Then we can add any text we liked by typing it into the box underneath, or we can paste it in. If you've already got a typed up. Then we can add any sub-headings we have in our post. And then finally, we can also add images in the same way as well. So weapon cell know this has been exactly the same as when adding pages, but this is where it starts to get a little different. So if we look on the right-hand side, we can see it says categories and tags. And these are what we can use to help organize our different posts. So dad are posted a new category. We simply need to click on add new category type what we want to use into this box and then click the Add Category button. Or if we're going to use a category we've already created, we'll be able to choose it here. So for this example, as my blog post is about making a cup of coffee, I'm going to create a new category called Coffee. Then once we've added our category, we can do the same thing for our tags underneath. So for this post, I'm going to add coffee tutorial, how to make coffee and home brew coffee. Then once we've added our categories and tags, we'll also see underneath it says add a featured image. And this is the image that's going to appear on our list of posts on our blog page, as well as at the top of the blog post itself. Now are the featured image is totally optional, but I definitely recommend adding one when possible. Then to add it, we simply need to click set featured image. And then like always, we're going to click upload files at the top, select files in the middle, and then search for the image on our computer. When we find the image, we can click on it and click Open. And then once it's been diluted, we just need to click set featured image in the bottom right. And when we do this, we'll see the image now appears in the editor. And that's basically everything there is to creating blog posts on WordPress. Once we're done adding our content, we just need to click the Publish button on the right for our posts to go live. And then once it's been published, we can click View Post at the top to see it. So as we can see, we've got our featured image at the top. Then we have our post title, the published date, and the post author underneath. Then if we scroll down, we've got our main content like our text, images and anything else we added. Here at the bottom we can see the category and any tags we are to DR. Post. And then finally we have our comments section where our visitors can leave a reply or ask follow-up questions. And at this point, if we click on our blog page in the menu, we'll see that our blog post now appears here along with our featured image and a button that says continue reading. Then we can also see our post appears in our sidebar as well under our list of recent posts. And no other we know high it's done. We can just repeat the process for any new posts. We want. Another word about it, some blog posts. The last thing we're going to do is add a contact form DER website.
14. Add Contact Form to Contact Page: The last thing we're going to do is add a contact form DER website. This way our visitors can get in contact with us if they need to. Know WordPress doesn't come with an option D odd contact forms by default. So instead we're going to install a free plugin that will allow us to add them. So to do this, we just need to click our site title at the top to visit our dashboard. And then we can hover over where it says plugins on the left and click Add New. We're just going to type the words contact form into the search bar in the top right. And then install this plugin by WP Forms. And then once the plugins been installed, we just need to click Activate. Now I, one of the awesome things about the WP forms plugin is that it comes with a form already created for us on DR. this form, we just need to hover over where it says WP forms and our left dashboard menu, and then click Add New. Then here at the top we can give our form and name. And I'm just going to call mine main form. And then once we've given it a name, we can choose simple contact form here at the bottom. This is then going to open up the main formatted are. And here we can click on each of the different sections to change the information if we need to. So if we click on the name section, for example, we can change the label if we like. And then using this drop-down list, we can change it. So the form only asks for the users firstName and staff first and last. Then if we click on the button at the bottom, we can change the button text as well in the box labeled submit button text. Then once we're happy with our form, we just need to click Save in the top right and then click Embed. Now we're going to highlight, right-click and copy this line of text, which is known as the forums short code. And this is what we'll use dad the form DRP pages. So once we've got our short code copied, we can close our to this and then click the X in the top right. Now we just need to visit our site by clicking our site title at the top. And then we can visit the page we're wanting to add our form to. So for me, this is my contact page. Then once we get here, we can click Edit at the top. Do you open up the editor? I know we just need to paste our short code wherever on the pH we're wanting our form to appear. And for me that's right at the bottom. Then once we've pasted in our short code, we can update our pH here on the right. I know when we visit the page, we'll see that our contact form is now alive on our site. And just to show that it works, if I fill out my name, my email address, a quick message, and click Send. If I open up my email inbox will see that I've received the four mantri as an e-mail.
15. Course Outro: And that's us know at the end of this tutorial, which means the only thing left to do is congratulate yourself because you just finished building your very own professional website with WordPress. So we have our logo and our header image at the top. If we added them and we're using whatever custom colors we chose, then we have our menu with our different pages, like our about page and our contact page. Then we also have our contact form so our visitors can send us a message. And our sidebar is looking awesome with our image, any text we added and our list of recent posts. Then we also have our blog page as well with our different blog posts. And without us needing to do anything extra or websites also 100% mobile friendly. So if we just resize the window and our Internet browser, we'll see that all of our content resizes and moves around, so it looks the best it possibly can. So I really hope that you love your new website and that you found this video helpful. Once again, my name is Marty from let's build WP.com. And thank you very much for watching my video.
Martie, Teaching WordPress online since 2013.
