Out next class assignment is setting up a website for WordPress. I plan to use Bluehost as my hosting platform so their blog, How to Create a WordPress Website in 5 Easy Steps, about WordPress seems like a good place to get started.

I’ve decided on the domain name: LiannesSimpleSolutions.com and will host with Bluehost. From what I learned today on the LinkedIn Learning sessions, it looks like a simple thing to set up WordPress and get started building my website. I look forward to getting started building my business with a website to highlight my work and show my credentials to the world.

According to the Bluehost blog, there are five steps to getting started. I will briefly go over each of these five steps. First, is picking a domain name which I have already done as stated above. The next step is to choose a hosting provider and package. I chose Bluehost and signed up for a year of service with them.

The next step is the one that is giving me issues. I’m having a hard time finding a WordPress theme that I like. What I’m looking for is something where I can highlight pictures of my work as well as before and after photos. I would also like to highlight some customer feedback that I have gotten along with the five star reviews I got on Thumbtack. Maybe I can tweak my theme with widgets and customize it to look more the way I want it to look. I’ll know more about that when I get into actually building my site but for now I just want to find a theme that makes me happy and that hasn’t happened yet. I don’t even mind paying for a premium theme if that’s what I need to do.

The next thing I will need to do is to learn my WordPress dashboard. This will take some time to do and I will need some help from other blogs and such to get up to speed with this before trying to get started. It looks like there is another Bluehost blog post about getting started with the WordPress dashboard that I may want to review before trying to get started there.

Finally, there is the fun part, customizing the theme and really getting my website up and going. Here I can customize themes and colors. As I have made a logo using Illustrator, I want my website to match the colors I used there. Bluehost suggests clicking on each tab on this page to learn what my options are and I plan to do just that. I’m looking forward to building my website for my small business using WordPress and getting it just right.

This chapter is a revised version of a blog post titled “Setting Up WordPress” on Lianne Learns Publishing