When you first build your first site in WordPress, you can be lost in what to do. There are so many steps it can be confusing for a newer WordPress user.
How long does it take to build a website in WordPress in
Kenya? It can be completed in as little as 1 week or as long as 1
month depending on the amount of content on the site. The key is to
be organized and take the site step by step until you reach the end. Sites
with less content will always be much quicker to put up than sites with a bunch
of content.
Below we will go over ten steps to get your WordPress
website up and running and figure out just how long it will take you. Each step
will break down the time you can expect to spend and also go over the detailed
information included to make it happen. Let’s dive into building your first
WordPress website
1. Mapping out your structure for your website.
Before you think about website copy or even images, it’s a
good time to sit down and decide on structure. WordPress website works just
like a house. You need to consider what your website will look like to someone
from the outside.
Most designers will either use a mind-mapping tool or
an analog written tree that shows the pages. This is important because as
you go through your pages it will give you a better idea of what needs to be
done and what can be skipped.
Lofty first-time website owners want to include anything and
everything on their sites but often it's better to build it one step at a time.
Your first page should be your homepage followed by
supporting pages such as a service, about page, blog, contact us, etc. If you
have any sub-pages, list these under the appropriate parent page to keep order.
So, for example, if you did website design under services
you might have the following sub-pages:
- Web
Design
- SEO
- Graphic
Design
- Logo
Design
Sub-pages can be moved around using the WordPress menu
without a problem so it’s not stuck in stone under one menu item.
Continue to do this for every page on your site until you
reach the end of your mind-map or tree. Once you reach the end, you can count
and see how many pages you have. Assuming a certain number of hours of work per
page (we will dive into this figure later) you can do math and figure out the
time it will require to finish.
Keep in mind all of this is subjective depending on how
picky you are and what you are trying to accomplish. You may need to
adjust the work hours per page to get a more accurate number once you have
completed one.
Once you have done this move on to step 2.
2. Figuring out who your audience is and building for
them
Long before you ever dive into designing any pages you need
to have content. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat down with
clients and found out they have zero content ready for me.
The same goes for you when you are designing your own
personal site. You need to have written content you are ready to use for the
site. You don’t want a designer to tell you what your business is.
For most people, I would consider collecting things like
brochures or sales information you have on your company. The more information
you can gather the better.
Also, you want to make sure this information is in a format
that allows you to copy and paste. That way when you start work on your site
you can take the information from the Word application and move from there.
I would highly recommend working with a writer but if this
is a brand-new website and you are bootstrapping, then writing your own copy
is fine. Just remember to keep the website lingo simple and make sure you talk to
the customer as a friend. People like friendly websites and they don’t like
things they don’t understand.
There are also several books on Amazon that can help with this process.
This process can range from several hours of work to days or months once again
depending on the amount of content. I recommend blocking content into
2/5 hour incriminates just to make calculating it easier.
3. Picking a theme that is user-friendly
newer themes are user-friendly out of the box but knowing
which one is the right one depends on several factors including:
- features
- Personal
- Preference
- Stats
Features are often what the theme can do out of the box. This means what is included without having to purchase extra support or plugins or
anything involving that.
Personal Preference is just what it means. Some people
prefer one theme over another because they like the builder. Look over the
community and find a theme that works for you and your business. There is no
wrong answer here.
So don’t spend too much time focusing on this. Use
what works for you. You’ll spend on average about 1 hour finding the theme
right for you.
Stats are often the most important thing that people like to
talk about. These are things often like how fast the theme loads, what type of
things you can turn off and on as well as an overall value. Some themes such as
OceanWP give you a ton of functionality with the free and paid version. Some
themes are more restrictive but are faster such as Astra.
4. Adding mandatory plugins
Once you have your theme installed it’s time to look at what
plugins you need to use. Skipping these can cause major problems later on so I
would consider these mandatory.
I detail below why each one is important including what
plugins you should consider.
A. Security Plugins
Before you ever install anything on your website, you need
to have a security plugin. WordPress is one of the most targeted CMS’s on the
market for hackers. This is because they often scan your website looking for
outdated and broken software. These attacks are normally done by bots, so it’s
important that you choose a decent security tool.
I prefer Wordfence. It’s a solid system but I have also
heard excellent things about Sucuri and even Bullet Proof. Your mileage may vary
so pick the one that makes the most sense to you but do not skip it.
B. Backup Plugins
You need to have a backup for your website. The likelihood
of something taking place is too high for most websites. If a hacker does make
it through and mess things up then having a good backup can be a lifesaver.
Never rely on your host for backups as this can be a very messy process and
they will not have the most recent save of the website.
I like All-in-one-migration for my backups. I have a
tutorial on how to use it here to move a site, it briefly talks about the
backup process and moving a website. It’s a solid program for me. Duplicator is
another popular one.
C. SEO Plugin
Even if you have zero idea how SEO plugins work, install
one. WordPress has functionality out of the box but it is little compared to
what SEO plugins offer. A popular option is Yoast SEO. I prefer a new SEO
plugin that is much cheaper and has better pricing called SEOPress.
Yoast had an update that came out that dropped rankings on a
lot of websites. The way the company handled it was not my favorite,
so I moved my SEO over to another company. Any SEO plugin will work.
5. Building your homepage and supporting pages
There are two ways to build pages using WordPress in my
humble opinion. You can either use the limitations of your default theme which may be the design you want in the way you want it. Or you can customize your
site using something like Elementor which offers full WordPress building
capability.
Elementor will provide a longer learning curve but you will
design the website from top to bottom including things like:
- Headers
- Footers
- 404
Pages
- Blog
Pages
- Archive
Pages
Most themes will have a default skin for these pages and
only allow certain customization’s. Elementor provides a way for people to
design these with little or no problems.
There is also the third option of hiring a web designer and
having them put together everything for you. This can range from $250 to
several thousands of dollars depending on what you want. A designer will also
free up most of your time so I would consider it an investment.
Expect that each page will require the same out of time
detailed above. Once the pages are complete, they will require routine
maintenance to make sure your copy is up to date so you will probably spend a
few hours each month doing this.
6. To blog or not to blog, that is the question?
New websites often want to know, should I blog or should I
not blog? The answer is simple. For most website owners the answer is NO. If
you will not commit to a daily, weekly or monthly schedule of writing up
content then don’t worry about it.
For those people who say yes, I will commit and it is a part
of my marketing strategy, good. Then the first step is to layout a plan of how
you will use your blog. Things like image sizes, advertising space, and what
you will write about are all important.
Make sure when you are mapping this out you market down
things like categories you might use for the blog. Expect that this
might take you another 2 to 3 hours of setup with your initial page timing.
7. Making sure your SEO is in order
We talked above about making sure that your site SEO is
installed. Now is the time to go through the tutorials and set up things like:
- Permalinks
- Default
site titles
- Default
post titles
- Default
page and post descriptions
Each SEO program will have a different way of handling these
requests so it’s important that you spend the time to learn them. Most will
require about 2 hours of investment on your part to learn the basics of SEO.
It’s important that you do things right from the start.
This will also help you get found easier on Google and other
search engines so I can not overstate the importance. Not to mention SEO
hucksters are one of the biggest growing rip off trends in the industry of
WordPress. They will take your money and give you the illusion of getting
listed on Google.
You having knowledge of this subject will help protect you
against such people.
8. Installing SSL
SSL is another important security trend that is happening via
Google updates. If your website isn’t running an SSL, then you will be showing
up further and further down the page in Google’s rankings.
If you want to be found then you need to use an SSL, not to
mention that it helps your website look professional. I often consider websites
that have no SSL unsecure and Chrome will now warn users with the following
message:
Installing an SSL is simple. You can use free services
like CloudFlare and Let’s Encrypt to
secure your website. Each one of these services has special instructions on how
to install the SSL on your site. CloudFlare will do most of the work for you
while Let’s Encrypt requires a little more of your time to set up.
Both solutions are free, you can also buy SSL certificates
through your host or just Google SSL. They will walk you through installing
them. After which I recommend you install a plugin on your WordPress site
called Really Simple SSL.
It will make the rest of the process much easier by
making sure images and links are properly pointing to your new HTTPS instead of
HTTP which is not secure.
9. Add your site to Google Search Console and Analytics
Google Search Console is helpful for finding out what
your website is doing right or wrong not to mention traffic you may be getting
from organic search. This will also allow you to ping your site map to Google
which is one of the fastest ways to determine if you have been searched by
Google.
Analytics is by far the most popular service by
Google. It keeps track of all things that happen on your websites such as the
number of users, the number of pages, bounce rates, and more. It’s superb to
get familiar with Google Analytics because it really is a marketer‘s best
friend. I can’t tell you the number of people who have no idea how many
customers visit their website on a regular basis.
What gets tracked, gets managed so make sure you are
tracking as much as you need to without hindering your customers.
Expect at least 2 to 4 hours of setup time for this.
10. Getting found the long game
Now that you have completed all the steps above, you are done.
Sit back and enjoy your site. You should spend some time maintaining the site's plugins and themes. They will often require updates so make sure you are doing
these updates.
You will also need to back up your site on a regular basis to make sure nothing bad happens to it. Expect it to take some time before Google finds you and puts you on their site six months to a year is pretty common.