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When it comes to finding website builders for WordPress (opens in new tab), you’re spoilt for choice. With the world-famous, popular CMS’s open-source plugin architecture integrated with thousands of free or low-cost plugins, and with the best website builders (opens in new tab) often  providing WordPress site creation, you might struggle to narrow down your options.

Before you make a website with WordPress (opens in new tab), you’ll also need to ensure that the builder you’ve chosen includes the best web hosting (opens in new tab): if not, or if you’re using a plugin, you’ll need the best WordPress hosting (opens in new tab) to get online.

Last year, I designed several patterns for showcasing coupon codes on a site. They were part of a larger theme project that I never finished. However, I had a ton of fun playing around with variations. Disliking them withering away on my laptop’s hard drive, I thought I would share them with the Tavern audience.

The base coupon card looks like the following:

When I designed it and the others, I had Christmas on my mind (if that was not obvious from the screenshot). Of course, I am always thinking about the holiday, usually starting my shopping by at least July each year.

Other than the image, I intentionally left most of the design generic so that it easily applies to other holidays and events.

This tutorial in the Building with Blocks series will walk you through each step of creating custom coupon cards from the editor. I will also share a couple of ideas for variations at the end.

Step 1: Adding a Group Block

As with most patterns, you should start with a container-type block. For the coupon card, begin by inserting a Group. You are free to personalize this however you want. However, to use the same layout in the tutorial, you should at least set the block’s padding to 0px and block spacing option to 0px. Those need to be zeroed out for the rest of the design to work.

I adjusted my Group block to have a light gray background color. Then, I added a 4px dashed border and an 8px border-radius. Each of these design tools is available in the block inspector in the sidebar panel. Have a little fun with colors and other settings until you find something you like.

Step 2: Add an Image

This step is straightforward. Insert an Image block inside of the Group from step #1. There are no particular settings required.

Of course, you should link it to something via the insert-link button in the toolbar. You are presumably selling a product and want folks to click on it.

Step 3: Add Content Group

This should be another simple step. Below the Image block from step #2, add a new Group. This will house the “content” you will add in step #4.

The most crucial setting for this block is to add padding via the block design tools in the sidebar panel. I opted for 2rem to match my theme. Remember that you zeroed out the padding in the outer Group in step #1. Now, you need to add some to keep the content from butting against the side of the container.

Step 4: Add Content

With the Group block in place from step #3, you have a new freeform area to throw in your sales pitch to potential customers. This can be as simple as a Heading followed by a Paragraph or something much more complex. It is probably best to keep it short and on point.

Step 5: Coupon Code Row

To highlight the coupon code, add a new Row block below the Group block added in step #3. This allows you to add a section for the code and expiration date in the next step.

Select the “space between items” option for the justification control. This setting pushes each nested block away from the other.

Then, select a custom background color. This should automatically give padding to the Row block. If you opt out of setting a color, you should manually set the padding to match the Group block above it.

Step 6: Add Code and Expiration

The final step is to add two Paragraph blocks into the Row container. The first should read something like “Coupon: XMAS2022,” and the second should be “Expires: December 31.”

Of course, it is your card, so have fun customizing it.

Variations

The wonderful thing about the WordPress block editor is there are so many ways that users can modify the output of a set of blocks like the above. Something as simple as changing the colors can give you an entirely different look. And, by rearranging a block or two, you can craft something uniquely your own.

One of the easiest ways of customizing the coupon code above is by throwing in a few emoji, as shown in the following screenshot:

OK. I was having a bit of fun with that. On a more serious note, there are many ways to tinker with the formula and create something new.

It took me only a few moments to merge steps #2 and #4 (skipping step #3) from earlier to create the following:

That is a Media & Text block in the mix. I will leave you with the challenge of recreating this variation without a complete walkthrough. If you get stuck, check out my previous tutorial, which covers Media & Text extensively.

This tutorial is about How to delete a WordPress account. We will try our best so that you understand this guide. I hope you like this blog, How to delete a WordPress account. If your answer is yes, please do share after reading this.

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WordPress is the easiest and most popular way to create your own website or blog. In fact, more than 43.3% of all websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress. Yes, more than one in four websites you visit is probably powered by WordPress. On a slightly more technical level, WordPress is an open source content management system licensed under the GPLv2, which means anyone can use or modify the WordPress software for free.

A content management system is basically a tool that allows you to easily manage important aspects of your website, such as content, without having to know anything about programming. Have you ever thought about deleting your WordPress account? Sometimes it is necessary to delete a WordPress account on WordPress.com. For example, if you want to deactivate your WordPress website and reinstall it with the same user.

For a self-hosted WordPress website, “delete WordPress account” means deleting a user’s account. To uninstall WordPress, please read our related article. Please note that before deleting a WordPress account on wordpress.com, you need to delete the content on your website. To do this, you will need to login to your WordPress dashboard and select and delete your posts, pages, comments, etc.

How to delete a WordPress account

• Login to your WordPress account.
• Click on “My Site” in the upper left corner.
• Select “Manage”, then “Settings”.
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and select “Permanently delete your site.”
• Export any content you want to keep.
• Scroll down to the “Delete Site” button.
• Enter the name of your site and click “Delete this site”.
• Click on your profile picture in the top left corner.
• Select “Account Settings” from the menu on the left.
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Permanently close your account.”
• Make sure you read and understand the risks, then click “Close Account”.
• Type in your username and click “Close your account.”

Final words: How to delete a WordPress account

I hope you understand this article, How to delete a WordPress account. If your answer is no, you can ask anything via the contact forum section related to this article. And if your answer is yes, please share this article with your friends and family to give us your support.

For the first time in WordPress’ nearly 19-year history, the software’s usage stats are showing signs of declining market share. Its remarkable ascension to 43.3% market share took a turn in March 2022 and usage has slowly declined since then, according to a new WordPress market share report from Joost de Valk that references stats from W3Techs.

In a post titled “WordPress’ Market Share Is Shrinking,” de Valk highlighted the numbers from the last few months, which now conclusively demonstrate a decline:

de Valk’s analysis elaborates on how WordPress’ market share, and that of its open source contemporaries, is being eroded by competitors like Wix and Squarespace. He attributes this change to two major factors: WordPress’ lack of focus on performance, and the complexity of the unfinished full-site editing project:

If you look at cwvtech.report you’ll see that in the last year, sites on Wix and Squarespace on average have improved their site speed more than WordPress sites. WordPress has a performance team now, and it has made some progress. But the reality is that it hasn’t really made big strides yet, and in my opinion, really should. Project leadership still seems unwilling to focus on performance though, which has to do with the next point:

WordPress’ full site editing project is not done yet. Anecdotally, more and more people are having a hard time deciding how to build their site on WordPress. Wix and Squarespace are simply way simpler tools to build a site. As they improve their SEO tooling, there’s less and less reason to switch over to WordPress.

The post inspired rampant speculation in the community, and the discussion has splintered off into different pockets across the web – various Twitter threads, Post Status Slack, and a post in the Advanced WP group on Facebook that has already received more than 100 comments.

It’s not realistic to expect any CMS to make gains every month, even if it has grown steadily in the past. WordPress is still far and away the market leader, but many see the new decline in market share as a symptom of a deeper problem. No one can definitively say why WordPress is losing market share but the community has a few prevailing theories.

Performance is one of the contributing factors that is easier to measure than many others. According to data from HTTP Archive, WordPress trails its closest competitors when it comes to percentage of sites with good Core Web Vitals scores.

“I’m not excited to see the percentage drop, but it confirms even more that something needs to change,” Google-sponsored contributor Felix Arntz said. “It’s also worth adding that the growth rate of other CMSs like Wix or Shopify has already long surpassed WordPress even before this. My session at WordCamp Europe is precisely going to focus on this topic.

“All this is why we started the WordPress performance team a couple months back, we need to make more solid performance decisions out of the box for WordPress. Let’s work together so that we can turn this around over the next few years.”

Many saw the news of WordPress’ declining market share as an opportunity to weigh in on their pet grievances about WordPress and the Gutenberg project in general, but there are some legitimate concerns about the condition of the software when it’s rolled out to millions of users.

“Full site editing and its deployment into core before it has really been ready isn’t doing us any favors for newcomers to WordPress,” WordPress developer Daniel Schutzsmith said. “It throws them off and scares them because it feels broken in many aspects.”

WordPress’ increasing complexity is another strong factor many participants cited as a possible influence, particularly those who build websites for clients. The software has become more sophisticated, enabling users to do more things than ever before, but it’s not getting easier to use.

“I don’t do much WP dev anymore, but after needing multiple articles and a YouTube tutorial for me to understand the new Navigation block, I knew WP was in serious trouble,” developer Alexis Rae said. “That 5.9 pushed out full site editing as the only option (that I can tell) while it’s a beta is insane.”

Multiple participants in the discussions on Facebook and Twitter said they have recently been building some of their clients’ sites with other technologies to make it easier for their clients to manage their websites.

… for the last few years, this hasn’t been our experience and eyes are wondering towards other solutions. We’ve already delivered sites on Webflow, and even a couple on Squarespace. That would have been unthinkable two years ago.

— Nick Wilmot (@nickwilmot) May 11, 2022

“From working with clients I notice that the quality of the admin interface is really becoming an issue that turns people off from WordPress,” Florian Fermin said. “On the lower end, this drives people to go to Squarespace and Wix instead. On the high end, I have now migrated multiple sites away from WordPress to CraftCMS and clients have been delighted with the clean interface it provides, and they’re confident to make small changes themselves, allowing me to put my energy in more exciting stuff.”

WordPress gained popularity early on by being the best free software available for blogging, and then later for its flexibility as a CMS. The transition into a nocode style site builder has been difficult with extensive periods of growing pains. As most of the energy and resources put into core seem to go towards Gutenberg, other older aspects of the software have gone neglected.

“WordPress has really developed into jack of all trades and master of none,” Fermin said. “In my experience, this has meant in the last years that when I have to recommend a CMS for the use case of a client, more and more often the answer has been something else and not WordPress.”

WordPress used to be one of the strongest solutions on the market for building small, simple sites but competitors are making it faster and easier to launch these kinds of sites. Meanwhile, WordPress themes are going through a rocky transition towards better accommodating full-site editing features.

“For my clients (mostly government), FSE is not the way to go,” WordPress developer Roy Tanck said. “I spend a lot of my time disabling new features now. If WP continues to become a ‘site builder,’ traditional CMS clients will likely start to look elsewhere.”

In his conclusion, Joost de Valk contends that the full-site editing project is taking far too long.

“That’s causing the rest of the platform to lag behind current web trends,” he said. “Without a drastic change in this approach I think WordPress will continue to lose market share for the next few years.”

Although some may agree that the project is taking a long time to reach a polished state, much of the feedback on social media indicates that developers do not find FSE user friendly enough for their clients.

“WordPress is just too complicated for the majority to use effectively,” development agency owner Jon Brown said.

“WordPress ought to be way more opinionated on accessibility and performance such that users should not even have to think about them. The problem with the current WP philosophy it is ‘let’s do as little as possible to leave options for the user or make the user rely on plugins’… No! Stop that. Do more by default and then give the user the option to override that if/when necessary.”

Brown said this applies to core WordPress but is most evident in WooCommerce, where, after ten years, “you still need 25 add-ons just to get a basic store up and running.”

“This is why Shopify is devouring e-commerce market share,” he said.

“And simple personal sites, way easier to setup a five-page site on Squarespace or Wix for laypeople than it is to navigate WordPress.

“How to regain market share? Simplify.”

Is WordPress losing touch with every day users? After two years of drastically reduced WordCamps and meetups, this is a genuine possibility. Many months before WordPress’ market share growth started leveling off, the strangely feverish push to return to in-person events during a pandemic seemed to betray an insecurity about what might happen to the community if required to continue on in isolation. WordPress usage numbers could be impacted by missing out on some of the grassroots growth and momentum that in-person events often generate.

WordPress’ relationship with the common user seems strained at the moment. It is no longer considered one of the easiest ways to get a website off the ground. Those who are eager to see WordPress succeed and grow can likely agree at almost any point in time that WordPress is not yet easy enough to use. A veritable army of Gutenberg contributors are working day and night to make full-site editing possible, but the project cannot afford to shelve usability concerns for too much longer, or it risks becoming software that is only used by an elite, knowledgeable few.

If you don’t already have a website for your business, there’s no time like the present to create one. Building a business website can expand your market, increase your customer base, and grow your revenue.

What’s not to like, right? Still, setting up a website can be a daunting task.

WordPress.com is one of the most popular website builders. We’ll go over its features and pricing below to help you decide if it’s the best choice for your small business website.

Who is WordPress.com for?

WordPress.com launched in 2005 as an invitation-only blogging platform for individual users. Subsequent versions and upgrades transformed it into a full-fledged content management system (CMS) and e-commerce platform that’s used by companies like CNN, Sony, and Fortune.com.

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS, used by 35% of websites worldwide. Joomla, which is used by 2.6% of websites, is the closest competition among WordPress alternatives.

WordPress.com has maintained a wide user base even as it has grown. It has an enterprise plan that begins at over $20,000 per year, but it still offers a “forever free” plan for basic WordPress.com sites.

WordPress.com’s features

The Ascent’s WordPress CMS review noted that the WordPress website builder doesn’t require coding skills, but you can customize its code with upper-tier plans. Many free and paid website themes are available, and WordPress.com sites are mobile device–responsive.

WordPress also has a dedicated user community that’s convinced it’s the best CMS software.

The admin dashboard

Your WordPress site has two different yet fully functional admin dashboards. You can use the classic WordPress dashboard located at your website or a newer one at WordPress.com.

The classic WordPress dashboard

The classic WordPress dashboard at your website has a left-hand menu to access different site content: posts, pages, media library, comments, and links. You can also access other tools and any plugins, which, as shown in the screenshot below, include Events, PublishPress, and Ninja Forms.

The rest of the page consists of content blocks you can rearrange or delete, such as quick stats, recent activity, and a quick draft tool for new posts.

The classic WordPress admin dashboard allows you to access each area within your site and customize the content blocks displayed. Image source: Author

The classic WordPress admin dashboard is a page within your website; that is, its web address begins with your website domain name. For example, the Waco Insider’s dashboard URL in the screenshot above is https://wacoinsider.com/wp-admin/.

The second WordPress.com admin dashboard

A parallel admin dashboard for your website, introduced several years ago with an updated design, is located at WordPress.com. Its left-hand menu and content blocks contain much of the same information as the classic dashboard, but it’s organized differently and includes options in a right-hand menu to manage your site.

You cannot go directly from the classic dashboard to this one. The “WP Admin” option in the lower left-hand corner of the WordPress.com dashboard does link back to your site’s classic dashboard.

The WordPress.com admin dashboard is similar to the classic dashboard and includes a menu option to take you to it. Image source: Author

This admin dashboard is a page at WordPress.com, not your website. The Waco Insider admin dashboard URL in the screenshot above, for example, is https://wordpress.com/home/wacoinsider.com.

Website design

WordPress.com provides over 350 free website themes with its free plan, and over 7,000 more themes are available for free and to buy with its paid plans.

Sort themes by the newest, most popular, or free versus paid. You can also filter them by purpose or type of business, different features, and various page layout schemes.

WordPress themes demonstrate the high degree of design customization possible. Image source: Author

Browsing all the website themes, even if you know you’ll use a free one, can be productive. See how different businesses structure their websites and identify design elements you might incorporate into your own site.

Post and page editor

Creating posts and pages uses the same drag-and-drop block editor. Each time you hit “Enter,” a new content block is created. You can then choose from multiple types of content blocks — paragraphs, lists, quotes, photos — or combine photos and text into a single block. You can also group a sequence of blocks together.

The WordPress.com post editor can combine photos and content in a single content block with different photo-text orientations. Image source: Author

You can also save a post or page as a template. If you’re creating multiple product pages, for example, this will be a timesaver. Templates also help with formatting consistency across your website, which aids visitors’ ease of reading.

Statistics

All WordPress.com plans include website performance analytics. The statistics dashboard displays the number of page views and visitors by day, week, month, and year and the links and search engine terms visitors used to reach your site.

The stats dashboard shows your site’s page views by day, week, month, and year, and prompts you to go to WordPress.com for more information. Image source: Author

The “View more stats” button in the screenshot above directs you away from your site to access additional information at another statistics dashboard at WordPress.com.

WordPress.com’s ease of use

Much of WordPress.com is well-designed and easy to use, which accounts for its place among the best CMS software. When you first sign up for a website plan, a simple process walks you through choosing a domain name, title for your site, and other information.

You can easily create posts and pages in the block editor, access the media library to embed content, and see your latest site stats.

The biggest usability issue is the two parallel interfaces: one within your website and the other at WordPress.com. Both interfaces have the same functionality, but their design and organization are different enough to create confusion when moving between them, which you are prompted to do on occasion.

One example is the layout of the left-hand navigation menu in the classic dashboard used at your website versus the newer one at WordPress.com.

The classic dashboard left-hand menu is on the left, and the newer WordPress.com menu is on the right. Image source: Author

The menu options are almost the same — almost! — but are arranged a little differently. The same is true when comparing the stats at your site versus WordPress.com and using the post and page editors at both sites. Everything is 90% the same but is still different enough to make things confusing.

Having two interfaces does not on its own create critical errors, but website management will be more cumbersome because you must be familiar with their differences.

WordPress.com’s pricing

WordPress.com plans include:

• Free: $0/month — Comes with unlimited bandwidth, 3 gigabytes of storage, free website themes, and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) data encryption.
• Personal: $48/year — Includes customer support by email and live chat, a free domain name for one year ($15/year after that), 6 gigabytes of storage, and the ability to accept recurring payments.
• Premium: $96/year — Includes the ability to upload audio and video files, access to Google Analytics, premium website themes, and 13 gigabytes of storage.
• Business: $300/year — Includes access to custom themes, search engine optimization (SEO) tools, 200 gigabytes of storage, and two one-on-one customer service sessions to help build your website.
• eCommerce: $540/year — Includes access to premium storefront themes, premium WooCommerce extensions, integrations with shipping carriers, and the ability to accept payments in more than 60 countries.
• VIP: $20,400/year and up — You’re prompted to contact WordPress.com for more information.

WordPress lists plan prices per month, but you must pay for a year at a time. Image source: Author

WordPress has a plan to meet your needs whether you run one of the most well-known companies in the world or want to post funny pictures of cats.

WordPress.com’s support

Customer service is contingent on your plan, but WordPress.com offers no telephone support. The free plan includes no customer service, but the WordPress website does provide documentation, tutorials, and user forums that anyone can access.

All paid plans come with email support, which you can expect a response from within 24 hours under normal circumstances. The Personal and Premium plans provide live chat support 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Business and eCommerce plans have 24/7 live chat.

The Business and eCommerce plans include two free half-hour sessions where you can share your screen and talk by voice online with a customer service rep. These sessions can be purchased if you don’t have these plans or want additional ones.

Benefits of WordPress.com

WordPress.com has additional benefits to aid website marketing and management, including built-in SEO tools, plug-ins, and a mobile app.

SEO tools

SEO helps push your site, posts, and pages up search engine results by adding “meta data.” This behind-the-scenes information is used by search engines to determine a site’s relevance in search results.

WordPress.com has four built-in SEO tools:

• Front page meta description: Add a brief description of your site that search engines can access.
• Custom post meta description: Add a brief description of an individual post’s content for search engines.
• Custom title formats: Customize your content titles’ appearance for your site, reorder items like “Tagline” and “Site name,” and add custom separators.
• Search and social previews: See how your meta data efforts will appear before you publish your content.

You may offer the best products and services and have a great website, but without SEO optimization, you won’t reach the widest possible target market.

Plug-ins

You must have at least the WordPress.com Business plan to use plug-ins. This is well worth the expense because you will have over 55,000 plug-ins to choose from. Many are free, but others require a one-time purchase or an ongoing subscription.

Use different filters and search terms to find the right plug-ins among the more than 55,000 available options. Image source: Author

WordPress has plug-ins to customize your site’s appearance and functionality in any way you want. Need a sales and marketing funnel? Take a look at the CartFlows funnel builder plug-in.

Want to integrate an email marketing campaign into your website? Mailchimp has multiple plug-ins to help you do that.

Mobile app

You can check your site’s latest stats, create new posts and pages, and manage reader comments with the WordPress.com mobile app. You can also switch between multiple sites and go to the classic admin dashboards.

The WordPress.com mobile app gives you control over your site while you’re on the go. Image source: Author

The app is available in iOS and Android versions for use on smartphones, tablets, and other digital devices.

Let WordPress.com power your website

WordPress.com can work for you because it has the features to support websites built for anything from niche topics to global brands. It is not the easiest software to learn, so setting up your website will not be a one-and-done activity.

You must schedule time to become familiar with its idiosyncrasies, and more time after that to maximize the benefits of its capabilities.

WordPress is popular, affordable, customizable, and fairly intuitive. With some solid planning and a step-by-step approach, building a WordPress website is easier than you might expect.

If you’ve been anywhere on the Internet, you’ve probably used a website powered by WordPress. More than one-third of sites worldwide use WordPress, including big names such as Sony Music, Microsoft News, and The Walt Disney Company.

So, it makes sense that you might consider using WordPress to build your own website. It’s affordable, customizable, and relatively intuitive. With some solid planning and a step-by-step approach, creating a WordPress website is easier than you might expect.

Overview: What is WordPress?

WordPress is one of the simplest and most popular ways to build your own website. It powers more than 35% of websites worldwide, making it by far the most widely used content management system (CMS).

Content management systems allow users to create and manage online content without coding. With little or no programming knowledge, you can use WordPress’ website builder to create and modify essential aspects of your site. For those with more advanced skills, upper-tier plans and a vast array of features and plug-ins allow for increased customization.

Initially developed for blogs, WordPress has expanded its use to business sites, e-commerce stores, portfolios, membership sites, and beyond. If you have a vision for a website, you can bring it to life with WordPress. Check out The Ascent’s WordPress CMS review to learn more about this CMS system.

WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com: What’s the difference?

Many WordPress beginners don’t know that WordPress.org and WordPress.com are two separate platforms. It’s important to understand the difference to make sure you create a website that meets your needs.

When people refer to WordPress, they typically mean WordPress.org. WordPress.org requires you to pay monthly for web hosting. It allows access to increased customization and plug-in options, including powerful SEO features and analytics.

WordPress.org also includes the ability to create e-commerce stores and membership sites. You’re responsible for maintaining and optimizing your website.

On the other hand, WordPress.com offers free WordPress hosting and automatic maintenance. Unless you upgrade to the Premium or Business plan, it comes with limited theme options and no third-party plug-ins, which reduces your access to SEO and analytics tools.

Also, you’re not allowed to sell ads on your site with WordPress.com, and you can’t create an online store or membership site unless you upgrade.

If you want more control over customization and monetization of your site, WordPress.org is your best bet. You can choose to pay for upgrades on WordPress.com, but using WordPress.org is more cost-effective.

However, if you’re looking to create a simple blog or a basic website, WordPress.com is a free option with convenient automatic maintenance.

What to consider before creating a WordPress site

Before you jump into building your WordPress website, pause to consider factors such as the purpose and objective of the site, your budget, and whether you’ll need to hire extra assistance.

1. What features does your WordPress site need to include?

With any website, it’s vital to establish your purpose and objectives upfront. Answer such questions as:

• What do I want to accomplish with this site?
• What types of products or services will I offer?
• Who will use the website? What are they looking for?
• What actions do I want site visitors to take?

Answering these questions will help you determine which features you need on your site. For instance, do you need the ability to sell products through an e-commerce store? Do site visitors need to sign up for memberships, download digital products, or log in? What metrics will you use to measure success?

Some features may require plug-ins, which you need to factor into your budget. If you only need the basics to accomplish your goals, you might want to create a WordPress.com site instead of using WordPress.org.

2. What is your budget?

There are some costs you need to consider with both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Here’s a quick overview of WordPress pricing.

WordPress.com plans include:

• Free
• Personal — $48/year
• Premium — $96/year
• Business — $300/year
• E-commerce — $540/year
• VIP — $20,400+/year

If you use WordPress.org for your site, you’ll pay a yearly domain registration fee and a monthly fee for site hosting. Expect this to cost around $45-$100 annually.

Additional charges may include pre-made themes, plug-ins, website security, and anyone you hire to help with your website. Take these costs into account as you map out a plan for your site.

3. Will you need help building your site?

Depending on the size of your business and the budget you’ve established, hiring a site administrator or a web developer might seem obvious. And if you have limited experience with building and maintaining a website, it’s typically a good choice.

Of course, budgets don’t always allow for hiring a web specialist, and finding the right person takes time. Fortunately, learning WordPress is fairly simple. It’s intuitive to use, and you can find plenty of free and low-cost WordPress tutorials and WordPress training online.

If you have more complex needs for your website or will require some coding, consider hiring experts on a contract basis.

How to use WordPress to build your website

After you’ve decided between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, built your budget, and planned out your site, you’re ready to begin building. Get started with these simple steps.

Step 1: Choose and register your domain name

A domain name is your website’s name and address. It’s a vital part of your web presence and branding. Your domain name should be short and straightforward, and it should include your company name.

Once you’ve selected your domain name, purchase it from a domain name registrar or the hosting provider you use for your site. Some providers such as Bluehost offer free domain name registration for the first year.

On most provider’s websites, you’ll simply search for your domain name.

Bluehost allows you to easily search for a domain name and check its availability. Image source: Author

The provider will inform you whether the domain name is available. If it isn’t, you’ll usually receive a list of similar available options. From there, add the domain name registration to your cart and proceed with checkout.

Bluehost offers additional domain name options. Simply select the domain name you want to use and proceed with checkout. Image source: Author

Step 2: Set up web hosting

The next step is to set up web hosting. Since you’re building a WordPress site, choose a host that offers one-click install for WordPress. Due to the popularity of WordPress, most hosts have this feature. You also want a host with no web traffic limitations and reliable customer support.

Most web hosts offer tiered plans, so you’ll select the plan that works best for you and checkout. You will receive login information and nameserver information.

If you register your domain name separately, you’ll need to copy the nameserver information and add it to your domain name. It tells the domain registrar which hosts your domain should point to.

Step 3: Install WordPress

Now it’s time to install WordPress. Because most hosts offer one-click WordPress installation, this step is fast and easy. Depending on your host, you may need to fill out a form. In other cases, you simply click “Install” and let your host do the work for you.

Once you’ve installed WordPress, browse the Dashboard and click around to get a feel for how it works.

Step 4: Choose a WordPress theme

The theme you choose for your website dictates the appearance of your site. Many themes also come with a variety of built-in features.

You’ll find a wide variety of free and premium theme options through WordPress itself or via other online marketplaces. As a beginner, it’s best to use one of the carefully vetted themes from WordPress’ directory.

WordPress features a wide variety of easy-to-install themes that have been thoroughly vetted. Image source: Author

Choose a theme that’s easy for you to use, supports your needs, loads quickly, and is mobile-friendly. Quality support is also important, and you’ll want to read reviews and check how regularly the theme is updated.

You can install most themes with one click. From the library, click “Install” and then click “Activate” to apply the theme to your site. If additional steps are required, you’ll receive a welcome message that walks you through them.

These may include customizing the color and type font, selecting from a variety of layout options, and uploading your logo.

Step 5: Select your plug-ins

Plug-ins add features and functions to your website. Like themes, plug-ins can be found within the WordPress library or from other sources. They can be free, paid, or free with premium features.

Plug-ins add exciting functions and features to your WordPress site. Find thousands in the WordPress directory, or choose from thousands more from other online sources. Image source: Author

Every site needs the basics such as cache, security, backup, and SEO. You may also want plug-ins that add contact forms, social features, analytics, and much more. With thousands of plug-ins to choose from, you’ll find something to suit just about any need for your website.

Step 6: Add pages and content

With the basics of your website set up, you’re ready to begin adding pages and populating your website with content.

Essential pages include:

• Homepage
• About Page
• Contact Page

Depending on the purpose of your site, you might also have a Blog page, a Services page, and a Shop page.

To add a page on WordPress, click “Pages” on the sidebar to the left, then “Add New.” The WordPress editor makes it easy to add a title, insert images, and set up attributes for your page. When you’re done, you click “Save Draft” or “Publish.”

After your Pages are set up, you can add Posts. Posts work just like Pages. Under “Posts” on the dashboard menu, you click “Add New.” You then add your title, content, and images to the WordPress editor before publishing or saving as a draft.

You’re ready to launch your WordPress site

With such a simple and intuitive setup, it’s no wonder that WordPress is one of our favorite website builders for small businesses.

Depending on your needs and how you’d like to customize your site, you may follow additional steps, but the basics remain the same. The intuitive dashboard, block editor, and wide range of online tutorials and tips will continue to guide you on your WordPress journey.

And if you’re not convinced that WordPress is right for you, check out some alternatives to WordPress that might be a better fit.

Squarespace and WordPress are both evenly matched when it comes to ease of use, each earning a 7 out of 10, and are very close in other areas.

Although a close match throughout, sometimes Squarespace edged ahead, and sometimes it was WordPress clinching the win in multiple categories.

But which one is the winner for your own needs?

Squarespace vs. WordPress CMS: An overview

Let’s start with some good old-fashioned origin stories.

WordPress, a common Squarespace alternative, was one of the first players in the game, having been built as an original open-source option for blogging, quickly securing a foothold in the wordier space of the web.

Squarespace can also claim some originator status, though, as the site builder made for e-commerce and purchasing.

As needs grew and became more entwined, both systems expanded with the market. These days, both Squarespace and WordPress are ubiquitous options, being ideal for multiple kinds of websites and content.

Both systems offer flexibility, customization options, a user-friendly interface, and a template-based architecture. Both are widely used with big groups of followers.

Who is Squarespace for?

Thanks to its origins, Squarespace is an e-commerce top choice. However, because of its templates and creative-focused approach, it can be used by anyone.

More recently, Squarespace has gained increased popularity as a WordPress alternative, and as a site builder for restaurant websites, interactive blog sites, and portfolio pages for creatives, anything that requires a showcase approach and minimal complications.

Who is WordPress CMS for?

While in its early days, WordPress was really meant for bloggers. These days it is a one-stop shop that can be used to build any site.

Thanks to its over 50,000 optional integrations and its multiple levels of technical customization, WordPress can be used for any industry, from small businesses to large enterprises. You will often find it hosting online stores, multi-featured blogs, informational sites, and business landing pages.

Squarespace vs. WordPress CMS: Features

While both options offer features for a broad audience, they differ in focus and availability.

What Squarespace offers

One of Squarespace’s main selling points is its simplicity and lack of clutter. However, that also means it has fewer features and add-ons than WordPress. The options it does offer, though, are purposeful and efficient.

Smart templates

Not just templates, Squarespace takes it a step further by offering up ones that are professional looking and intuitive. Over 100 themes are available from the get-go, and you’ll suffer no headaches if you need to abandon one template later on; you can easily transition everything to a new layout.

Blogging integrations

Squarespace smartly encroaches on WordPress’s territory by integrating smart blogging features such as scheduled publishing, easy commenting, multiple authors, batch publishing, and more. You can even subsequently break down a whole litany of blogs. If you have multiple blog channels run from the same site, the site builder allows you to pull them out, and publish and promote them separately and efficiently.

E-commerce excellence

Those e-commerce roots are strong, and Squarespace streamlines transactions and customer flow.

Setting up and managing sales and customers is simple in Squarespace. Image source: Author

Manage your customer cycle, create and update product pages, handle shipping, create post-purchase touchpoints, and much more.

Customize aesthetics

Sparing you the headache of learning a lot of HTML, Squarespace lets you get down to details to customize.

Using a mix of dropdown menus for fonts and gradient color pickers, plus an option to add on Unsplash or Getty images, you can control the creative direction of your content easily with Squarespace’s design reputation as an easy-to-use website builder.

Analytics

Convenience is king, and having an easy way to glance at your analytics means you are more on top of your game and can adjust content and marketing strategy that much faster. The website analytics are simple to read and pulled directly from Google Analytics.

What WordPress CMS offers

WordPress is full of features and has offerings for every variety of industry and website functionality. Pretty much, if you can dream it, WordPress has a function to build it.

Managing users

This may sound simple, but it is so important. The ability to manage multiple users with varying levels of permissions is a vital necessity.

You can allow certain team members unique access to only what they need, meaning that they can get their job done without messing up something they shouldn’t, plus, you can track their activity.

The WordPress dashboard is the ultimate enabler for efficient teamwork and multiple contributors. Image source: Author

WordPress offers four main levels of users: Admin, with full access; Author, with write and content upload rights; Editor, who can access content and pages; and Subscriber, who can manage personal profiles only. From there, you can even create even more detailed permission levels.

Manage multimedia

Storing and embedding media images such as videos and links is essential for any CMS. A simple chunk of words doesn’t cut it anymore, and having the ability to store media files that may otherwise get lost directly in your CMS is a biggie.

Uploading couldn’t be easier, too, as WordPress offers drag-and-drop upload versus the limited ‘search by name’ option in some other systems. It may seem like a minor detail until you are searching through files and folders because you forgot what you titled a specific image.

SEO readiness

You need online visibility to grab an audience, and that means you need to rank in search engines.

WordPress is designed to be SEO friendly right away, with automatic creation of proper HTML pages preferred by search engines, search engine-ready permalinks, titles, and headings, as well as many integrations, to elevate keyword ranking in your content.

Themes

Like Squarespace, WordPress understands the value of a good pre-coded theme.

And, like Squarespace, it recognizes you also need flexibility. If you need to overhaul your website’s look, the theme customizer transitions and modifies for you.

Plugins

Without a doubt, WordPress is idolized for its plugin library. Plugins are, essentially, apps or software extensions that you can add on to your CMS that expand its functionality. Boasting over 50,000 integrations, this makes WordPress the ultimate adaptor.

And with so many to choose from, WordPress has you covered: shopping integrations, spam blocking, SEO refinement, social media integrations, landing pages, forms, widgets, scheduling, the list goes on and on.

Results

Winner: WordPress

Thanks to its near-infinite number of integrations and features, WordPress soundly beats out Squarespace in this category.

If there is a feature you want with WordPress, your choices are virtually unlimited. If it doesn’t come with it out of the box, you can easily integrate it from a third party. While some of those features come with a separate price tag, many are free.

Squarespace, while not featureless by any means, is more niche and reined in when it comes to features, though many of its offerings are quite useful.

Squarespace vs. WordPress CMS: Support

Support is an essential part of any software. Unless you are a master coder, you’re probably going to need help at some point, and that’s where one CMS really shines.

What Squarespace offers

Squarespace is renowned for its support. Their help is so good that many people choose Squarespace based on that alone.

Email support is available 24/7 and live chat, which boasts a speedy response time, is available from 4a.m.-8p.m. EST.

They also host a vast library of resources for you to refer to if you prefer to figure out smaller questions on your own.

What WordPress CMS offers

Since WordPress is open source and free, that means there are no paid professionals to help you.

While traditional support is a non-option, though, they do still offer a wealth of online resources in the form of community forums, videos, instructions, etc.

If you have a specific question, you can post it on a community forum and wait for help. Responses are often fruitful, but taking away the availability of direct support is a bit of a hurdle, especially if you aren’t by nature web-development savvy.

Results

Winner: Squarespace

It’s not even close in this category. Though WordPress has a robust online community of resources, there’s no beating live support, especially live support as competent as Squarespace’s. From online instructions to email tickets and live chat, Squarespace has you covered with support.

Squarespace vs. WordPress CMS: Ease of use

Ease of use is important for content managers and business owners when it comes to building a website platform, since we generally aren’t coders or computer science majors. It’s also an area that both WordPress and Squarespace take seriously.

What Squarespace offers

Squarespace prides itself on being straightforward and streamlined. It’s incredibly easy to just jump right in — with or without a tutorial — and create a your dream website. You build pages in sequential methods, all from an interface that is clean and not cluttered.

Page building and customization are easy to understand on Squarespace. Image source: Author

The tools are not complicated either, and you can click around your dashboard easily. When it comes to customizing, your options are spelled out for you so well, it’s pretty much foolproof.

What WordPress CMS offers

WordPress is also designed to be user friendly. Working from a toolbar and dashboard approach, WordPress is easy to understand and intuitive with a logical layout. They don’t throw coding at you or disguise processes and steps.

WordPress has easy-to-understand instructions for some of its technically challenging aspects. Image source: Author

It’s easy to stay updated, too, and WordPress keeps you informed on what to update from your dashboard.

Results

Winner: It’s a tie.

The race is so close here, we can’t in good conscience call a winner. Both systems are clean and straightforward and don’t require a computer science degree to use. In fact, both WordPress and Squarespace scored a 7 out of 10 in this category.

Squarespace vs. WordPress CMS: Pricing

The big question for any purchase: What does it cost? And, just as importantly, is it worth that cost?

What Squarespace offers

Squarespace cost includes Squarespace hosting, which makes their pricing all the more reasonable.

After a two-week free trial, you can choose from several manageably priced Squarespace plans, ranging from $12 to $40 a month.

Though no long-term free options are available, paying as little as $12/month still fits into most budgets.

What WordPress CMS offers

Always a big selling point, WordPress costs nothing to buy. Since it’s open source, it’s free.

That does mean you will need to host your site outside of the CMS, though, so the external costs can factor in.

At a glance, though, you can’t beat the $0 of WordPress, especially with all it has to offer.

Results

Winner: WordPress

Free is free, and the free cost of WordPress doesn’t sacrifice on quality at all. Thanks to its $0 price tag for a system that puts in the work, WordPress wins here.

Squarespace vs. WordPress CMS: Integration with other software

No CMS functions on its own; it needs to play well with others when it comes to site hosting, marketing automation, and more.

What Squarespace offers

Originally Squarespace was designed for e-commerce, so it integrates well with other e-commerce software. You should have no trouble incorporating it into your already live website or with general software.

However, since third-party integrations aren’t a part of Squarespace’s DNA, you may run into some hiccups along the way. This is especially true if you’re looking for external plug ins since the few available are focused on expanding an e-commerce site.

What WordPress CMS offers

WordPress has such a significant market share that it can integrate with just about any software, and it transitions easily.

For example, if you are switching your marketing automation, i.e., website tracking, lead tracking, and content emailing, WordPress integrates with every option out there and switches over with ease, thanks to quickly installed plug ins.

Its reputation as being a site builder for any industry means that it meshes well with pretty much every software.

Results

Though both are designed to integrate into your business with ease, WordPress is so vast that you’re hard-pressed to find a needed software or plug in that doesn’t integrate with it, making it the winner here.

Squarespace vs. WordPress CMS: Security

Safety and security are significant cyber concerns. This is even more an issue when you are encouraging an audience to store information on your site, such as emails, payment info, browsing habits, etc. An inherent anxiety naturally surrounds sites staying safe.

What Squarespace offers

Squarespace comes automatically with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates, and auto encrypts information. They also have a dedicated security team on staff to ensure proper cybersecurity controls and processes are installed, followed, and updated with your site.

What WordPress CMS offers

Since WordPress is open source, it doesn’t do automatic security checks. However, it does offer high performing cybersecurity plug ins and notifications of updates to install to keep your site safe.

Results

Winner: Squarespace

A dedicated, in-house team of security experts can’t be beat. Squarespace wins for its constant, automatic, and certified security updates.

Learn the steps to install WordPress CMS on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish using LAMP server- Apache, MariaDB, and PHP.

If you want to run your blog, you will quickly come across WordPress software. What WordPress is and what possibilities it offers, we will tell you in this practical tip.

WordPress is the world’s most popular software that allows you to create a website. The special thing about it is that you have an innovative interface at your disposal.

Its plugin system is an additional feature for WordPress. There are thousands of free and also paid plugins. With a plugin, you extend the functions of your website. We can install, configure and of course delete plugins via the dashboard. A theme is an outfit, i.e. the design of your website. There are thousands of free and paid themes here. We can change a theme with just a few mouse clicks and thereby change the look of your website. Plugins & themes help you build your WordPress website.

WordPress is suitable for pretty much all websites such as Private Websites, Blogs, Company Websites, Company websites, Online shops, and Member Pages.

Steps to install WordPress on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Linux

The steps given here in this tutorial can be used for other Ubuntu server versions such as 20.04/18.04. Whereas to follow this guide the user should have Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, access to a non-root user with sudo rights, and a LAMP stack (will install here).

1. Perform Ubuntu 22.04 update

First, of all, run the system update command to ensure all the packages on our system are up to date and also the APT package index cache is in its latest state.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

 

2. Install Apache & PHP for WordPress

We need an Apache web server and PHP programing language for setting WordPress CMS, let’s install both in this step.

sudo apt install apache2

Once the Apache installation is completed, enable and start its service.

sudo systemctl enable apache2

Check status:

systemctl status apache2

We can also check the working of the Apache webserver by accessing its default page. For that open your local system browser that can access the IP address of the Ubuntu 22.04 server where you have installed the Apache.

Note: server-IP-address with your actual address

http://server-ip-address

 

Install PHP version 8

The default version of PHP is available to install using the standard Ubuntu 22.04 LTS repository. Hence, simply run the given command to install the PHP and the required extensions on your system.

sudo apt install -y php php-{common,mysql,xml,xmlrpc,curl,gd,imagick,cli,dev,imap,mbstring,opcache,soap,zip,intl}

To check the version after completing the above command, use:

php -v

 

3. Install MariaDB or MySQL

We can either use MariaDB or MySQL Database Server on Ubuntu 22.04 to store the data generated by the WordPress CMS. Here we are using MariaDB Server.

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Enable, Start and check service status:

sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb

Check:

systemctl status mariadb

Ctrl+C to exit.

Secure your Database Installation:

To secure our Database instance, run the given command:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Output  

The given questions will ask by the system, the example of answers is also given below:

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Press ENTER
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: Set-your-new-password
Re-enter new password: Set-your-new-password
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y

 

4. Create Database for WordPress

Login to your Database server by using the password you have set for the root user of it.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Follow the command to create a new DB. However, don’t forget to replace new_user with whatever name you want to give to your Database user and in the same way- new_db with a name for Database and your_password for the password.

CREATE USER 'new_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';

CREATE DATABASE new_db;

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON new_db.* TO 'new_user'@'localhost';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit;

 

5. Install WordPress on Ubuntu 22.04

Files to set up WordPress need to download manually and we can do that using the command terminal. Here are the commands to follow:

sudo apt install wget unzip

Download WordPress:

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip

Extract file:

sudo unzip latest.zip

Move it to the web folder: 

sudo mv wordpress/ /var/www/html/

Remove the downloaded files to free space:

sudo rm latest.zip

Change file permission

sudo chown www-data:www-data -R /var/www/html/wordpress/

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/wordpress/

 

6. Configure Apache on Ubuntu 22.04

Next, enable modules and the Vhost configuration file of your Apache webserver to ensure it serves the PorcessWire CMS files without any error.

Create a configuration file for WordPress

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf

Copy-Paste the following lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerAdmin [email protected]

DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wordrpess
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com

<Directory /var/www/html/wordpress/>

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted

</Directory>

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Save the file by pressing Ctlr+O, hitting the Enter key, and then exiting using Ctrl+X.
 
Enable virtual host
sudo a2ensite wordpress.conf
Enable rewrite module
sudo a2enmod rewrite
Disable the default Apache test page
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
Restart the Apache webserver to apply the changes:
sudo systemctl restart apache2
 
7. WordPress CMS web interface setup
After following the above steps, open your system browser that can access the server IP address of the system where you have installed the WordPress.
And point it to as following:
http://your-server-ip-address
Start Setting up:
Select WordPress Language you want to use and then click on the Continue button.

 
8. Add Database information
Next, click on the Let’s Go button that will create a wp-config file to store the database details.

The Database, its user, and password we have created in this tutorial to store the data generated by WordPress; add its details in the WordPress setup wizard when it asks for, after that click on the “Submit” button.

Finally, click on the “Run the installation” button.

 
9. Create Admin user and password
Add the Site Title you want to give to your website and then add the username along with a password to use for it. After that add the email address and then hit the “Install WordPress“.

 
10. Login to the backend
Finally, the Admin login page will appear; add the user and password you have created.


 
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