How to install and use WordPress: a beginner's guide

To use WordPress, you need hosting and a domain name, and then you install WordPress on them. After that, you choose a theme for the design, add plugins for extra features, create your pages and posts and publish your site.

Is WordPress free and easy to use?

Yes, the WordPress software is free, and it's easy enough for a beginner to start with. It's open source, so anyone can download it and use it. What you pay for is the hosting that keeps your site online and the domain name that gives it an address.

WordPress is a content management system (CMS): software you use to create, edit and publish the pages of your website. At the time of writing, it runs 39.6% of all websites, which is 58.3% of the websites whose CMS is known.

You can use WordPress as it comes with little technical experience, and learn the rest as you go. In the block editor, you build pages and posts from blocks, such as paragraphs, images and buttons, and see the layout as you work. There are thousands of themes for the design and thousands of plugins that extend what WordPress does.

When you're stuck, you can ask a question in the support forums on WordPress.org and get help from a volunteer. You also keep control of your site. You choose your own host, and you're allowed to install, use and modify the software as you see fit.

WordPress.org or WordPress.com?

This guide is for WordPress.org, the home of the free WordPress software, which you can download and install on any web host. People call this self-hosted WordPress, because your site runs on hosting you choose yourself. WordPress.com is a separate, for-profit hosted service run by a company called Automattic. When you install WordPress with us or another host, you use the software from WordPress.org.

What you need before you start

We recommend deciding first what the site is for, such as a portfolio, a blog or a shop, before you pick a theme and plugins.

Then you need hosting and a domain name. Hosting is a server that stores your site's files and shows them to visitors. Our Hosting for WordPress comes with a one-click installer and a guided set-up. A domain name is the address people type to reach you, such as yourname.co.uk.

If you haven't picked a name yet, our guide to finding the right domain name helps you choose one.

If you're happy to run updates and fix problems yourself, Hosting for WordPress is the right start for most beginners. You run the major WordPress releases and your theme and plugin updates whenever your dashboard shows that new versions are ready. If you want the updates done for you, choose Managed Hosting for WordPress. We then update WordPress, your theme and your plugins automatically and test each update first.

How to install WordPress

With us, you install WordPress from your control panel once you have a plan with web space and a domain. The installer asks whether our AI tool Aida helps build your site or you build it yourself. If you build it yourself, you get an empty WordPress installation with only our plugin activated. You then add a theme and plugins in the dashboard, as the rest of this guide shows. To install WordPress and let Aida help set up your site with the 1-click installation:

1. Log in to your control panel and start a new WordPress installation.
2. Choose the language and whether WordPress goes on your main domain or on a subdomain.
3. Create your WP Admin login: an admin email address, a personal username rather than "admin", and a secure password.
4. Choose to build your website with the help of our AI tool Aida.
5. Give your website a name, then choose a theme and the plugins you want installed.
6. When the set-up is finished, you're logged in to WP Admin and can start working on your site.

You can also install WordPress manually, but the installer above is quicker and easier, so we recommend it. The manual route takes you from finding your database details to uploading the files and running the set-up.

Get to know the WordPress dashboard

When you log in, WordPress opens the dashboard, also called WP Admin. Its home screen shows boxes such as At a Glance, Activity and Quick Draft. They give you an overview of your site and let you jot down an idea for a post. Under Screen Options you choose which of these boxes you see. Each screen has a main navigation menu, and these are its main areas:

• Posts: write and edit your blog entries and sort them with categories and tags.
• Media: the images, videos and other files you upload and use in your posts and pages.
• Pages: edit, delete or view the fixed parts of your site, such as your home page and contact page.
• Comments: approve, edit or delete what visitors write on your site, or mark it as spam.
• Appearance: your theme, and the place where you change your site's design, menus and layout.
• Plugins: the extensions you've installed, which enhance WordPress or add new features to your site.
• Users: add people to your site and change the details of your own account.
• Settings: the options for the whole site, such as the general, reading and permalink settings below.

When new versions of WordPress, your plugins or your theme are ready, you'll find them under Updates.

Change the first settings

Before you add content, check a few settings. Under Settings > General you set the site title and tagline, the language and the time zone, then click Save Changes before you move on. The time zone decides the date and time on your posts.

A permalink is the permanent address of a page or post, the one people share and link to. Under Settings > Permalinks you choose how these addresses look. By default WordPress puts the date in them. We recommend the post name setting, which keeps them short, such as yourname.co.uk/about/. Choose it now, before you publish, so the addresses people link to don't change later. Click Save Changes to keep your choice.

Under Settings > Reading you decide whether your home page shows your latest posts or a static page you've made. This choice only works once your site has at least one page. For a blog, your latest posts work well. For a portfolio or a shop, a static page tells visitors straight away what you offer. While you work on the site, you can also tick Discourage search engines from indexing this site and click Save Changes. This setting asks search engines not to index the site yet.

While you build, you can show visitors a coming soon page instead of a half-finished site. Our Maintenance Mode keeps your site private while you edit and tells visitors that the website is under construction. If you installed WordPress with us, you turn it on in our plugin in WP Admin.

Choose and install a theme

A WordPress theme is the overall design of your site: its colours, graphics and the look of your text. The WordPress.org theme directory holds thousands of free themes, and you install them from your dashboard:

1. In your dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes and click Add New.
2. Find a theme with one of the search methods on the screen.
3. Click a theme's thumbnail to see it in a full-screen preview.
4. Click Install to download the theme to your site.
5. Click Activate to make it your site's theme.

Once the theme is active, you customise it under Appearance, where you change its colours, fonts and layout. A child theme is only worth it for bigger changes, such as editing the theme's code. It lets you customise a theme without changing the theme's own files, so you still get its updates and keep your changes. Setting one up takes more technical knowledge.

Add plugins for the features you need

Plugins add features to your site that WordPress doesn't have on its own, such as a contact form, spam protection or an online shop. Our guide to the plugins most WordPress sites need helps you pick the first ones. Install only the ones you use, because each plugin is one more thing to keep up to date. You add them from the plugin directory:

1. In your dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New.
2. Search for a plugin by keyword, author or tag.
3. Click a plugin's title or More Details to read about it before you install it.
4. Click Install Now.
5. When the installation is complete, click Activate.

Create your first pages

Pages often hold your site's timeless content. Start with a home page, an about us page, a contact page and a privacy policy. To add a page to your site:

1. In your dashboard, go to Pages > Add New.
2. Add a title for the page.
3. Add the page's content with the blocks of the block editor.
4. Adjust the page's settings in the sidebar.
5. When the page is finished, click Publish.

Patterns save you work. They're ready-made groups of blocks, such as a header or a contact section. You add them from the block inserter and fill them with your own text.

When your pages are ready, add them to your site's navigation menu under Appearance, so visitors can find them.

Write your first blog post

Posts are the dated entries of your blog, and by default WordPress shows the newest first. Use them for news, tips and anything else you publish regularly. To write a post:

1. In your dashboard, go to Posts > Add New to open the block editor.
2. Write your post in the content area, adding blocks, patterns or media with the block inserter.
3. Open the settings sidebar to set the post's details, such as its category and tags.
4. Click Publish to make the post public.

WordPress categories sort your posts into broad topics, and tags describe the details of each post. Every post goes in at least one category, while tags are optional. On a film review blog, for example, the categories could be horror, drama and comedy, and the tags the actors and directors. Visitors then find every review of an actor's films, whatever the genre.

Start your own site on Hosting for WordPress and follow every step of this guide as you go.

Publish your site and keep it up to date

Once your pages and first posts are ready, you can go live. If you turned on Maintenance Mode, turn it off in our plugin. If you use Performance Cache, clear it as well. Then go to Settings > Reading, untick Discourage search engines from indexing this site and click Save Changes, so search engines can find your finished site.

From then on, keep everything up to date. Updates close security holes and fix bugs. WordPress already installs its minor releases, the ones with security and bug fixes, automatically. On Hosting for WordPress, major releases, your theme and your plugins wait for you to update them, unless you turn on automatic updates for them.

Before you run those updates, back up your site, so you can restore it if something goes wrong. A backup plugin from the plugin directory can take scheduled backups of your WordPress database for you. Choose one that backs up your files as well, such as your images and theme, because you need both to fully restore your site. With Managed Hosting for WordPress, we make daily backups of your site.

With updates and backups in a routine, your time goes into your pages and posts. To set up your WordPress site this way, choose a Hosting for WordPress plan, install WordPress in one click and publish your first page.