I’m Ryan T. Pacificador, I’m an Outsource Freelancer based in Davao City, Philippines. For more details about this document please visit my website at http://rypacimarketingsolution.com/
How to Troubleshoot Apps for the Modern Connected Worker
Steps to build yourself a website
1. Do it yourself: Steps to Build a Website
Having your own website for your business is very necessary nowadays to race with your
competitors. Your website help you advertise your business, tell the customers that your
business exists and you can also promote your products here. The reality is if you get onto
Google or start conversation to people about options for your website you will receive so much
information you won’t be able to deal with it. That’s why this article is going to be very simple
and concise by telling you exactly what you have to do. Just follow these 6 steps:
Step 1 ‐ Get a domain if you don’t have one yet
Every serious business needs to have their own domain. If your business is ‘Rypaci Marketing
Solution’ then you should be emailing people from ryan@rypacimarketingsolution.com. And
when they visit your website they should be going to www.rypacimarketingsolution.com. If you
aren’t sure where to go to get one, go to hostgator.com (for .com domains) and follow the
prompts to register your domain.
2. Step 2 – Get a hosting
If you want to use your domain you need a hosting account. A web hosting service is a type of
Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website
accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server
owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data
center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for other
servers located in their data center, called colocation. Apparently being a web developer and
host myself I advise hosting with your web developer because I believe it makes it easier for
both of you but make the decision that is best for you in this case. If you are going to take
things into your own hands there are some things that you will need from your host in order to
make it easy. The first thing you need is cPanel. Every host will push their own preferred
hosting control panel but I’ve seen them all (well a lot of them anyway) and cPanel is the best. If
your host does not offer cPanel, it would be better to choose a new host. The best feature is
simplicity in which you can swap between hosting providers if it doesn’t work out. Don’t
underestimate the importance of this as there are a lot of deceitful hosts out there.
Now while cPanel makes your life easier, there is something else you will need if you are doing
it alone and that is a 1‐click WordPress install. Installing WordPress is not difficult by any means
‐ especially for web developers but if you don’t want to learn all the technical things a 1‐click
WordPress install is essential. If you are using cPanel usually your choices are Fantastico or
Softaculous. I use Fantastico but I’ve used both, they are both good.
Step 3 ‐ Point your domain to your host
This step sounds complicated but it’s not. This is how it works. Your domain is just a name that
will identify you from others; it doesn’t give you anything other than the right to use the name.
In order to ‘use’ the domain you need hosting. Unless your domain provider is the same
company as your host then you will have to ‘point’ your domain to your host. Right at the
moment if you visited your domain name in the browser you would most likely just get a ‘page
cannot be found’. That is because it’s not pointed anywhere. So to point it somewhere what
4. • When you signed up for hosting you would have been provided with a hosting control
panel (hopefully cPanel) login. If you are using cPanel you should be able to go to
www.yourdomainname.com/cpanel and log in there. After you log in you should see something
like the screen here (note there are a number of themes available so it might look slightly
different).
• There is a lot to see here but all you are looking for at this point is the 1‐click install.
Depending on what is provided it might be Softaculous or Fantastico or something else. Either
utilizes the handy find tool on the left or just searches the page and click on the icon.
• When you get to the installation page you will get a lot of options. Assuming you want
to install WordPress as the main site on your domain (so it shows up when people go to
www.yourdomain.com) then just make sure the folder field is empty so it doesn’t try to install it
in a folder on the site. Most of the other fields are very self explanatory. You will have to create
a username and a password for your own account so make sure you write these down. Then
click install and watch the magic happen.
• After installation you should be provided with 2 links. One link will take you to your
main website homepage and the other will take you to the admin area where you can manage
the site. They will be: www.yourdomainname.com ‐ for the front end and
www.yourdomainname.com/wp‐admin for the admin area.
Step 5 – Make your WordPress live!
What you have now is a very basic website, so your task now is to make it into an awesome
one.
• The first step is to change the look and feel because you want something that looks and
performs better than the standard WordPress theme. The worst thing you can do is search
Google for ‘Free wordpress themes’ ‐ if you are interested as to why this is the case, see this
post for the reasons. What you want is a trustworthy provider of quality themes.
On my site Rypaci Marketing Solution I have a heap of totally free WordPress themes that have
been designed specifically for small business owners. Not only do they look good, but they
contain the main features needed by small business (social media integration, newsletter
5. signup, news items, product slider etc) and most importantly they can be set up via a super
easy 1‐page configuration screen. Theme Forest is a great provider of themes both free and
paid. We have used them and their designs are excellent, their service is great and the
configuration options available for the themes are impressive.
• Through logging in at www.yourdomainname.com/wp‐admin, you should make yourself
familiar with the interface; you’ll be using it quite often. Anything and everything that you do to
your website will be done from the Dashboard.
In the “Right now” section you’ll notice a quick link section to posts, pages, tags, category and
comments. This will allow you to quickly get into the areas that you’ll most frequently use. Pay
close attention to the “Update” button as well, it’s important to keep your WordPress software
updated at all times!
On the left side, you’ll see a navigation menu that will give you access to all the other tools
available to you. There are tons of things, but I’ll talk about the important ones:
• Posts — this is used more often when your website is acting as a blog. It will
allow you to publish articles, select the category in which they’ll be archived, and let to
set options specifically for that post.
• Media — you’ll be able to manage your images, videos, sounds from this menu.
• Links — if you’ve ever wanted to create a “friendly links” list, this is where you would do
it. You can then use it for your sidebar widget.
• Pages — this is where you’ll create static pages, like about us, product information,
contact information, etc.
• Appearance — this is where WordPress is absolutely amazing. You’ll be able to totally
customize the look and feel of your website by using themes, menus, widgets and more.
• Plugins — there are thousands of plugins available to make your site cooler or your life
easier for managing things. Browse the plugins area to find what you’re looking for.
• Users — you can give access to other people to modify your website, add posts, pages,
etc.
• Settings — this is where you’ll manage the configuration of your WordPress installation,
such as site name, URL, date format, media settings, comment settings, etc.