What Do I Need To Build A WordPress Website?

If you’re thinking about building a WordPress website, you’ll encounter a handful of terms almost immediately: domain, registrar, hosting, DNS, WordPress.com, WordPress.org…

If none of those mean much to you yet, that’s okay. You don’t need to become a web developer to understand the basics.

Here’s what all of it means. (Please note that I neither recommend, nor do I have an affiliate program with the services listed below.)

Domain Name

Your domain name is the address people type into their browser to reach your website — something like google.com or marybscott.com.

A good domain name should be relatively short, easy to remember, and easy to say out loud. That last part is more important than you might think. If you have to spell your domain every time you tell someone your website address, you’ll probably wish you’d chosen something simpler.

You don’t actually buy a domain forever. You register it, usually for a year or several years at a time, and renew it as long as you want to keep using it.

Domain Registrar

A domain registrar is the company where you register and manage your domain name.

There are many registrars to choose from, including GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and Namecheap. Your web hosting company may also offer domain registration.

You don’t have to register your domain and buy your hosting from the same company. There can actually be advantages to keeping the two separate, particularly if you ever decide to change hosting companies.

Whichever registrar you use, make sure you or your organization owns the account. Your web developer can help you manage it, but your domain is an important business asset and shouldn’t belong to your developer, designer, or agency.

• Namecheap  established, straightforward domain management, and familiar enough that readers may already recognize the name.
• Porkbun  inexpensive, relatively beginner-friendly, and includes things such as WHOIS privacy and DNS management.
• Godaddy  a veteran in the game, but can be confusing for a beginner.

Web Hosting

If your domain is your website’s address, web hosting is where your website actually lives.

A WordPress website consists of files and a database. A web hosting company provides the server that stores those things and makes your website available to people on the internet.

Hosting plans range from inexpensive shared hosting to managed WordPress hosting and dedicated servers. You don’t necessarily need the most expensive option. What you need depends on your site’s size, traffic, functionality, and how much technical management you want to do yourself.

Many hosting companies offer WordPress-specific plans and will install WordPress for you when you create the account.

• Liquid Web  premium managed hosting with a stronger emphasis on performance and support. More than a beginner with a small site generally needs, but a solid example of higher-end hosting.
• Pantheon  a managed WebOps platform for WordPress and Drupal. It’s much more developer/team-oriented than typical consumer WordPress hosting, so I wouldn’t describe it as an easy beginner host.
• SiteGround  probably the most approachable of these three for someone starting an ordinary WordPress site.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

This is where things get confusing.

WordPress itself is free, open-source software. Anyone can download it, install it on a server, modify it, and use it to build a website.

When people talk about a self-hosted WordPress site, they generally mean the WordPress software available through WordPress.org installed on a hosting account that you control.

WordPress.com is a commercial hosting service that uses WordPress. It takes care of much of the technical setup and maintenance for you and offers several levels of service.

Both use WordPress, but they aren’t quite the same thing.

WordPress.com can be a convenient way to get started, particularly if you don’t want to deal with hosting and technical maintenance yourself. A self-hosted WordPress installation gives you more control over the site and where it lives.

So when someone says, “WordPress is free,” they’re talking about the software. You may still pay for the services and infrastructure needed to put your website online.

DNS

Now you have a domain name and a hosting account. How does one find the other?

That’s where DNS, or the Domain Name System, comes in.

DNS is essentially the internet’s address book. It tells a browser where to go when someone types your domain name.

If you registered your domain with one company and purchased hosting from another, you’ll need to connect them. Your hosting company will give you the DNS information you need, and you’ll enter that information through your domain registrar.

The exact instructions vary depending on the companies you’re using, and most hosting companies will help you through the process.

One warning: DNS settings are important. Changing the wrong record can affect not only your website but also services such as your email. If you’re not sure what a setting does, ask before changing it.

SSL Certificate

You’ll also hear about an SSL certificate.

SSL allows your website to use https:// and creates an encrypted connection between your website and its visitors. Modern websites should use HTTPS, and browsers may warn visitors when a site doesn’t.

Most reputable hosting companies now provide basic SSL certificates at no additional cost and can install or activate them for you.

WordPress

Finally, there’s WordPress itself.

WordPress is a content management system, or CMS. A CMS gives you a way to create and manage the content of your website without editing the underlying code every time you want to change a paragraph, add a photo, or publish a new page.

Once WordPress is installed on your hosting account and your domain points to it, you have the foundation of a website.

From there, you can choose a theme, add your content, install plugins for additional functionality, and start turning that basic installation into your website.

And if somewhere between “buy a domain” and “change this DNS record” you decide you’d rather have someone help you with it, that’s perfectly reasonable. That’s what web developers are for, so contact me if you need help.