Lots of people from around the world use WordPress for their websites. Most of them use it for their blogs. And many are directed to WordPress.com, which is free and easy to set up in a couple of minutes.

I know, I know… comfort is one of our favorite words. But if you want a website you can entirely control and personalize, one to carry your signature, then that’s why WordPress.org is the optimal choice here. To allow you have the last word when it comes to your website’s design and performance.

In this article, I’ll help you with a few vital steps that you need to go through in this process: from hosting, plugins, and tools to themes – the key for a successful site.

WordPress has it all

WordPress is an incredible platform that brings the user tons of tools, plugins, themes, services, and resources you weren’t even aware of. With WordPress you can customize, literally, every small detail about your site.

But many confuse WordPress.org with WordPress.com. Why is WordPress.org better?

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• You can use your own domain name by buying your own hosting service so you can have a personalized address. You can consider these Hosting Providers for your WordPress site
• By buying a good hosting service you will be able to optimize your site’s performance (speed, bandwidth, etc.). WordPress.com is self-hosted and you don’t have any control over your site’s uptime if something goes wrong at times.
• Using WordPress.org you can customize everything. And when I’m saying everything, I mean it. You can completely customize your theme, add plugins and tools to improve different aspects of your site, use shortcodes to embed various files and so on. In short, you will have exactly the site you’ve dreamed of. WordPress.com does not come with any of these features. You will have to use a pre-built template without being able to make any customization.

How is WordPress.org working?

Installing WordPress on your website is not a big deal. Besides an appropriate budget, it only requires some spare time. These are the main steps to build a site with WordPress:

1.  Research for a good hosting provider. There are plenty of them, just look for one that fits best your needs. It’s very simple, you only need to go through a sign-up process and follow a few steps. One vital advice: don’t try free hosting!
2. After you set up the hosting, download WordPress and follow the guidelines to install it. The installation is quick and sometimes the hosting service has its own tool to automatically install WordPress for you.
3. After you installed WordPress, let the fun start! It’s time to choose a theme. There are plenty of free and premium themes filtered by categories and work fields.
4. Look for every tool and plugin that can improve your site’s performance. You’ll notice that for any small thing you need, you’ll always find a specific tool that will help you with the optimization process.

   For instance, if you need better SEO optimization for your website, search for WordPress SEO plugins and you’ll find tons. It’s available for any other new feature you want to add to your site.

Choosing a theme, the most exciting part in the process

We all know that browsing for themes is the greatest part in building a site. A theme is very important if not the key in making your site popular. That’s because the front-end is always the bridge between the you and the visitor. If your theme has an engaging design and an easy-to-access interface, the user will stay. And later he will return. The visuals and the content structure are always crucial to convince your visitor to read further and not go away.

So yes, in this case, do judge a book by its covers!

The difference between free themes and premium themes?

Money.

Nope, I’m just kidding. Money is just one of the differences, but not the most important.Many free themes are good and look great. But if you want your site to be known, you should consider buying one. Why?

• Premium themes have a better quality and are better coded.
• Unlike the free ones, they offer full support and are updated very often. Updates are VERY important!
• Most of them have a more attractive and engaging design. They are also coming with an user-friendly interface and a more complex set of customization options that are really easy to use.
• They are more feature-rich and the premium ones come with the whole package, while most of the free ones only provide the basics. You will rarely see a free theme with all the vital features a site needs.
• Premium themes are secure. The free ones have various vulnerabilities.

Must-have features for a theme

• Responsiveness. We’re living in a time when mobile phones rule the world. Click to tweet ”Go Mobile or Go Home”
• Easy-to-use interface. It should be easy for any user to simply make the customization by themselves.
• Cross-browser compatibility. What if there are still people using Internet Explorer?
  
• If you need a website for marketing purpose, you should check if your theme has optimization for SEO, social media, and speed. Google’s search engine will surely appreciate it.

Customizing a theme is not difficult at all. The customization can be done right from your admin panel. You’ll simply be directed by intuitive steps.

There are themes mostly designed to make users’ lives easier, so they can customize them in just a few clicks and minutes. TeslaThemes Framework is one of them and it was built to improve the user’s experience when working with WordPress.

How does TeslaThemes framework improve your life?

• Updates your theme with just one click.
• Comes with predefined templates for every page in your menu.
• Lets you create custom posts by easily creating and managing sliders, icons, logos, social buttons, contact info, portfolio items and much more.
• Allows you to import a theme demo that makes your website look exactly like the live demo. Also, exporting your existing theme’s options and importing them back is a piece of cake.

TeslaThemes are built to beautifully integrate with this framework. So here’s a start for choosing a modern and easy-to-manage theme for your website. There are plenty of categories here, so there’s a big chance to find what you’re looking for.

Cons of using WordPress.org

• Can get expensive at some point. If you put in balance all the things you need to buy, you’ll have to look in your wallet. But you know, in the end, putting money on the table for a goal can turn into something successful.
• Have patience, it takes time! Taking everything step by step can take a while until everything is set and done. But patience leads to excellent achievements, it’s proved.
• If you’re not very experienced in working with online platforms, maybe you will need somebody else’s help. So it’s possible to get yourself stuck at some point. Still, I believe that WordPress is easy for most people.

The bottom line

WordPress is like a universe that comes with tons of tools and services made to improve the user’s experience in working with the platform. The great thing is that you can travel all around this universe by yourself and taste a little bit of everything. WordPress can satisfy all your needs if you’re curious enough to see how it works.

Author Bio

Adelina Tuca is a writer and WordPress blogger at CodeinWP. She also creates content for JustFreeThemes website. She loves sports, hiking, books, rock concerts and puts down the paper everything she finds challenging and unique.