How to Install and Customize WordPress

WordPress is a popular and free content management system that allows you to create and manage websites without any coding knowledge. It’s an excellent platform for bloggers, businesses, and anyone who wants to establish a web presence. Fortunately, many web hosting services, such as Bluehost, offer an easy way to install and configure WordPress using a user-friendly app installer. One such installer is Softaculous, which is available within the cPanel dashboard and simplifies the entire process of WordPress installation.

Now that you have your hosting and domain set up with Bluehost, it’s time to take the next step and connect to cPanel. From there, you can easily search for Softaculous, the cPanel App Installer that will make installing WordPress a breeze.

Contents

1. Install WordPress

To install WordPress, locate Softaculous in your cPanel.

Your cPanel will look like this:

Click on the Search bar and type: Softaculous. As you are writing, it will appear under the software tab, click on it:

After that you have clicked on Softaculous Apps Installer, you will see a list of applications, choose WordPress:

On the page that will appear, there will be fields and sections to fill.

The first section Software Setup will be used to choose the version of WordPress to install, the URL of your website, and the folder where your installation will be. You can leave them as default.

WordPress, Softaculous, Software Setup Section

The second, third, and fourth sections are very important.

– Under Site Settings, you can set your website’s name and description.
– Under Admin Account, choose the username and the password you want to use to log into your WordPress Dashboard.

– And be sure, to add your email to receive updates on your WordPress installation.

Click on install and wait for a moment for the installation to complete…

After a few minutes you will get:

Installation Complete

You can now visit your website and start customizing it by following the Administrative URL and logging into your website’s dashboard.

2. Customize WordPress

With WordPress, you can create a beautiful website without learning programming languages or spending a lot of time on coding. All you need to do is find and activate the right theme, and you’re ready to go!

In the following lines, I’ll guide you through the process of customizing your WordPress website, so you can get started right away.

1. Let's First Install a WordPress Theme

1. On WordPress Dashboard, point your cursor to Appearance, then click on Themes.

2. To view a list of the available themes, click on Add New.

3. In the search bar let’s try e-commerce.

4. In the list of themes, the theme of New Shop seems to be good, let’s try it.

5. We can install it by clicking on Install and then waiting until it finishes.

6. Once installed, it must be activated, click on Activate.

7. It’s possible now to start customizing the site by clicking on Customize.

2. Let's Now Customize the WordPress Theme

Go to Appearance > Customize. A live preview will open up; the website will look empty and very basic.

On the left side, there’s a sidebar, we can use it to customize our website.

1. Upload a Logo

Let’s start by uploading a logo image by clicking on Site Identity > Select Logo > Select Files.

The following image shows you how it looks on the site.

As you can see, there’s a tagline and a title under the logo. Let’s delete them by unchecking the boxes Display Site Title and Tagline.

uncheck the box Display Site Title and Tagline

2. Create a Menu

Let’s add a menu to our site by clicking on Menus, then Create New Menu.

Under Menu Name, enter the name of the new menu, let’s name it Main Menu. Let’s also check the box Top Menu, and then click on Next.

This theme supports three types of menus: Top Menu, Category menu, and Secondary Menu.

Let’s add Home, About Us, and Contact Us pages to the Top Menu. Click on Add Items, and under pages click on + sign next to them to add them. If they don’t exist, type the name of the page in empty field and click Add.

The top menu has been created successfully! Click on Publish to save the modifications.

3. Create Categories

Let’s create the following categories: Sensors, Security & Cameras, kits & hubs, and Lights & Appliances.

We can create categories by opening up a new WordPress Dashboard (don’t close the first one and be sure to have clicked on Publish). Point your cursor to Posts and click categories.

Under Name, type the name of the category.

Under Slug, type the name that should be in the URL: Slug is just that name appearing in the URL, it should be written in lower case without spaces.

For SEO purposes, it’s recommended to write a description for each category.

4. Create a Menu for Categories

After creating the categories, come back to the first window and refresh it.

Follow the same procedure as before, but, this time, select Category menu.

Click on Add Item > Categories and click on the + sign next to each category to add it to the new menu.Click on Publish to save the changes.

3. Turn the Website Into a Storefront Website

Up to this point, we’ve made some great progress with customizing our website, but it still needs one crucial feature to be able to sell products: an e-commerce plugin.

Fortunately, WordPress has a free and widely used plugin called WooCommerce that can help us set up an online store quickly and easily.

Let’s add it to our website and start selling!

1. Click on Plugins > Add New, on the search bar type “WooCommerce”.

2. Install it and activate it.

3. When activated, WooCommerce will need to be configured. Fill in all the required information: Location of the store, address, currency, whether you sell digital or physical products. Payment, shipping fees.

After completing the configuration, the site becomes ready to sell products.

Here’s how to add products to the store:

1. Hover your cursor over Products, and then Add New.

2. Add your product information: Title, description, price, category, featured images…etc.

3. Click Publish.

If you want your shop on the homepage, do this:

1. Hover your cursor over Settings, and then click on Reading.

2. Set Homepage as Shop.

3. Set Posts page as Blog.

3. Click Save Changes.

Now that your products are added, it’s time to configure the payment processors, such as PayPal and Stripe, so that you can start selling.

This can be easily done through the WooCommerce settings. Simply choose your preferred payment options and set up the necessary information. Once that’s done, your online store is ready to start accepting orders and payments!

Make a beautiful website

It has never been easier to create pages and websites on WordPress