Are you a newbie in the coding world but still want to have your own website designed & developed totally by you? Wait no more! You have landed on the right blog. Here you will learn various tips and tricks to create your own website based on WordPress. So, let’s start.
Creating a WordPress based web application has become more like opening a Facebook or Twitter account, but people still fear this process and find it more difficult than it really is. But here I’ll show you how to create a WordPress website without any knowledge of coding!
One of the easiest types of websites you can actually set up is what most of the people and small businesses need, a blog which is developed on WordPress. This platform is actually a content management system that can be used to create an interactive, great and extremely complex web app, but it will also create simple blogs that you and I can use.
When coding is crucial while using WordPress?
Before diving in the blog, it is important to comprehend that by “coding” we mean basic knowledge of CSS and HTML at the very least. Although these two programming languages will help you research the basics of customizing WordPress, you will also need to have at least a basic understanding of PHP if you want to dive into more advanced things on your website.
With that in mind, here is a quick list of various tasks that you will need some coding knowledge to do:
- Creating customized plugins and themes.
- Customize your website style with CSS.
- Add new functionalities or edit existing ones.
In order to give you an idea of what we are talking about. If you want to build a new WordPress theme on your own, you need to create at least two files, called index.php and style.css. The simple index.php file may only contain some HTML, but you have to use PHP and understand the basic functions of WordPress “loop” if you want to build anything of value.
Likewise, even if your appearance is fully functional here, it would not look beautiful at all without some CSS files. You might be able to drop a lot just by Googling code guides and snippets. However, at this point in time, you are already learning the basics of custom web app development.
The good news is that none of these tasks mentioned above is absolutely necessary in order to create a professional-looking WP powered website with somewhat advanced functionality. However, you may find yourself wanting to explore some other capabilities of the platform in greater depth, this is almost entirely optional for you. Sure, learning some basics of custom web app development will be a good investment for your time, but you can easily create an attractive and effective WordPress based site without any encryption at all.
Here some tasks you can do with WordPress to have your own website:
We’re now going to show you what it’s possible to accomplish in WordPress even if you can’t code (or don’t want to, for that matter). Let’s go!
1. Create Websites and Online Stores
“Website Development” is a very broad turning point for a term we may refer to a blog, online store, service website or even wallet. There are a plethora of types of any site, and with WordPress, you can create any of them.
The platform is ideal for blogging directly, and if you want to run an online store, you can use the free WooCommerce plugin – or any other eCommerce plugin. In other words, you can’t do much with the right mix of add-ons and features.
If you are new to the working and functionalities on your website, you may also find a useful website building plugin. For instance, our Divi theme contains its own Divi Builder, which allows you to create advanced websites using a drag-and-drop interface and modules.
The website builder is one of the best ways to follow when personalizing your site, especially if you prefer to use a visual interface. It is an intuitive way to group a website, where you can visualize each section without having to worry about comprehending the basic code.
2. Modify the layout and design of your site
According to the latest web design stat, 48% of the people all across the world cited that the design of any website is the primary factor in determining the overall credibility of a business. Therefore the layout and design of your WP powered website is crucial.
One of the best aspects of using WordPress CMS is that you can radically change the look of your WP powered website just by switching themes. If you can find a look that fits your style and makes your WordPress site shine, you may not need to do a lot of personalization work to make things look perfect.
Ideally, you will choose a theme that enables you to customize the style of your website and every element within your pages.
You can also access custom settings for each module that you place, which often includes a full set of options that you can play with. In addition to this, the theme supports custom CSS for your entire WordPress powered website or any of your pages or every element. This means that if you are quite familiar with the language, you can achieve some great and eye-catchy effects, although they are not necessary.
3. Add Complex Functionality Using Plugins
You can imagine creating a new web app and realizing that you need a contact form for your visitors to contact you. With WordPress based websites, all you need to do is find the best contact form plugins, read their features, and then decide which one is perfect for you.
Plugins are a great reason for WordPress being popular as it enables anyone to add new functionality or features to their WP powered site with just a few clicks. If you do not like the plugin, you can simply uninstall this plugin and try another one. There are thousands of free and premium options in WordPress to choose from, and the whole process often takes less than a minute.
The story repeats itself for almost any feature that you can imagine implementing on your website. You can use plug-ins to run various online sales, help you improve search engine optimization, and add live chat to your site, to name a few.
These previous examples are all the kind of job that needs knowledge of coding to do this yourself. However, thanks to the content management system, all it takes is a little research in order to find the best option for you. If you know PHP, you can even take action on building your personal plug-ins, whether for personal use or to share them with the world!
4. Troubleshoot your website
Although very rare, you may occasionally encounter an error while using WordPress based websites. For instance, your WP powered website may fail to load and you will only see a blank page. Sometimes, you will also get 504 gateway timeouts or even a “Cannot establish a secure connection” error on your website. They may all be confusing if you are new to this CMS platform, but the good news is that it is relatively easy to get fixed.
Due to its popularity, it is pretty easy to find clues in order to help you troubleshoot any bug based on WordPress. The solutions are usually simple and can often be traced back to even minor problems, such as broken plug-ins and many more.
Sometimes you may have to mess with one or two files to play things again. In all these cases, understanding the code that you are looking for can be quite helpful, but this is not necessary if you are following a detailed guide.
If you encounter a bug on WP powered websites, your first stop should be the basic troubleshooting guide, which will help you fix its source in a single go. Once you can fix one or two of these bugs, you’ll realize that troubleshooting is not nearly as hard as you might imagine!
5. Backup and migrate your website
No matter what type of website you run or which platform you use, you should always make sure to make regular backups of all your work. If you are unfamiliar of this, a backup is a copy of your site data as it appeared at a certain time. This can be used if something happens to your site at any time, making it unusable or broken. You can then revert to a previous backup.
In fact, we recommend that you back up your website data at least weekly, and even more often if you post content on a very tight schedule. Some hosting platforms of WordPress take care of this with daily backups. However, it is always better for you to know how to do this backup task yourself. In WordPress, you can access many easy-to-use and implement backup plugins, such as UpdraftPlus.
In some of the cases, you can even use backups in order to migrate your WP powered website from one server to another. This idea might be a little scary for you, but it’s something anyone can do at his own side, even if you do not have a web app development or coding background!
Conclusion
Creating a website has never been easier. For a long time, building a website without any coding experience or knowledge would be almost impossible. Now these days, this is no longer true thanks to CMSs like WordPress & Drupal.
In this article, we have covered 5 things that you can do for creating WordPress powered sites, even if you do not have any experience in coding. For instance, you can:
- Create a web app and online stores.
- Modify the layout and design of your site.
- Add complex features and functionality using various plugins.
- Troubleshoot your website for any bug or error.
- Backup and migrate your WP powered site.
If you have any questions or want to know more, you can contact a WordPress development company in India or you can also hire WordPress developers who can add more complex features on your website and can customize it as per your requirements.