You want to create a professional website with WordPress and use a beautiful design? Then I recommend the installation of WordPress with Plesk and a paid theme from Themeforest for WordPress Themes.
The installation is very easy and with a few steps you can create a professional finished website where you only have to exchange the images and text.
Theme selection
Choose a design that fits your website. In this example we take a magazine theme for the website package.travel.
Click on Themeforest and click on WordPress at the top of the menu.
Now you can choose a theme that fits your website. E.g. Business Homepage, or in this example "news".
I recommend to change the search sorting to bestsellers, because then only really professional themes from "elite" developers will be displayed, who have sold a few thousand copies and therefore further development is likely.
You can click on the individual themes and view the finished page with Live Preview. If you like a theme, then it is best to buy it. Support is included for life. You do not need to purchase it additionally. This is offered to you, but the additional support is only meant for inquiries directly to the manufacturer. This happens very rarely. The first 6 months are usually included in the price.
A good theme costs about 60-70 US dollars. You should already plan this for your website. The themes you can buy here are usually complete program packages. In our example of the Sahifa theme from TieLabs, for example, useful programs are included that you can use for subsequent editing. For example, a so-called pagebuilder with which you can easily design the individual category pages or the homepage, or various buttons and so-called widgets with which you can integrate images, or social media buttons, so that the visitor can promote your page or article in social networks.
Almost always several so-called slider programs are included with which you can easily create professional animations.
After you have bought and downloaded the theme you can install WordPress and embed the theme. Usually the theme package contains another .zip file with the theme data, which you have to upload in the WordPress. Please refer to the installation instructions which file you have to select.
The installation of WordPress
WordPress can be installed in most cases with a few clicks. I recommend the installation via Plesk, because there are some small tools included to keep WordPress always up to date and to check the security without installing additional plugins.
1. create a subscription for your domain in Plesk.
Second, clean up. Delete all unnecessary files in your webspace. This includes the files automatically deposited by the provider with the information that a new website is being created here.
3. click on Websites & Domains and select the WordPress app to install
4. use the small arrow next to the Install button to perform the custom installation.
5. accept the terms and conditions and enter your data. Install WordPress in the main directory of your domain, so in the first section you can leave the path behind the domain/ free. Choose an administrator username and a very good password. Enter the email address and select the language. Now you can still define the database name and specify a prefix of the database tables. We have called this "secret" here. The database user name and a database password should also be well chosen and different from the FTP or administrator user. Never choose login names like admin, or your name. Also do not use simple passwords like 123456. WordPress is the most attacked Content Management System because of its high distribution. You should therefore secure your installation from the beginning.
6. after the installation you see here the overview of your WordPress system. You can now set the latest WordPress own Theme Twenty Fifteen active and delete all others.
Afterwards you can log in and update WordPress for the first time if necessary.
Installing a purchased theme
Click on "Design" and "Themes" in the WordPress backend. Here you can now click on Install Theme and then on Upload Theme to upload your theme installation package to the server.
After the upload is done you can activate the theme directly.
Many themes still need a few plugins which are installed automatically after the installation. In this example it is shown at the themes above. Just click on "Begin Installing Plugins" and install the desired plugins.
After the successful installation, these plugins must be activated in step 2.
That's it. That's all there is to it. Some themes have an extra Child Theme, which can be installed afterwards. With these so-called child themes, the changes to the theme itself are only saved in the child theme. In case of an update of the theme, these changes are not lost. So if you intend to change the files in the theme itself, you should install a child theme if necessary.
View new theme
Now that you have installed and activated everything, you can view your website in another browser window. Basically everything is ready, but the theme is still quite naked, so without content like pictures or text.
If you want to install a theme for the first time and test how easy it is to work with, all themes offer demo data to download into your WordPress. This is usually done via the Theme menu. In this case "Import Demo Data". Here, sample texts and images are loaded, so that the website looks exactly the same as in the Live Preview Demo.
Please note that the use of the images is only suitable for demo purposes. If you will eventually use the website you will have to get your own images. In this case it is advisable to use either self-created images or license-free images from e.g. fotolia. In this case you have to make sure that you mention the picture number and the name of the photographer in the imprint.
After you have imported the demo data you can now see the finished website and make some adjustments. I recommend to test the individual functions once. Most of the pages can be reached via the menu and show very impressively which functions the theme offers.
On the one hand the WordPress pages are important for you. This includes the homepage, an imprint page and, if applicable, terms and conditions or contact forms.
Besides the pages there are also contributions.
Posts are sorted in categories and are displayed by date. You have the possibility to display a so-called content block on a part of your homepage, e.g. to display an area on the left side of the homepage with posts from a certain category which are always updated by you. Have a look at the finished website package.travel once. Here we have then displayed on the homepage in the left area a selection of the latest articles of the category "travel information" followed by articles from insurance companies and providers. On the right side, various widgets are visible such as an overview of the latest posts, advertising, Facebook and other social media and a login window.
Posts are always useful if you create a blog, for example, or regularly publish news that you want to inform your visitors quickly without always editing the whole page. You simply create a new post and it will be displayed in the existing design.
The WordPress pages are static pages that can be filled with generated content. The actual structure of the pages is defined here.
Many themes have their own administration page with which you can make many settings. Like in our case the display of advertisements at certain places, the color and design, or the used fonts.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the theme, you can reinstall it without demo data, or delete all posts, pages, comments, media and users, and you will have an empty project again.
It is best to check on the server via FTP whether all media files have really been deleted from the server. These are located in the WordPress directory wp-content/uploads .
What is important for your website
Now when you start your website, you should make sure that you create your website properly from the beginning.
- do not use pictures from the Internet if they do not cost anything
- create an imprint with all the information you need
- have general terms and conditions, a revocation and data protection instruction prepared by a lawyer
- Keep your WordPress always up to date
- Use useful plugins to present your content well in search engines
Which plugins we recommend
Every beginning is hard. Even if you have created a great website. It will take some time until you are found. Therefore it makes sense to present your website optimally for search engines right from the start.
These plugins are available free of charge and offer many functions that take a lot of work off your shoulders.
Yoast Seo
Yoast Seo offers many useful functions for your website with which you can check the keywords of your individual posts and pages, or define the meta description. It also creates a sitemap.xml file so that all pages can be included in the search index.
Analytics by Yoast
From the same manufacturer also comes a plugin for google Analytics with which you can certainly register. You will receive extensive statistics about all page views and links. If you have previously registered with google's Search Console, you can also see what search terms were entered in google and how often your page was displayed in the search index.
Yoast embeds the code in all pages and offers direct access to all data and statistics directly in WordPress.
In this article you will find more details about Yoast.
W3 Total Cache
A nice tool to get your page displayed a bit faster. Your webhoster should provide the necessary functions to benefit from the cache (e.g.: memcached). With the usual website testing tools you can achieve a significant increase in speed with the help of W3 Total Cache. But here you have to test a bit with the settings. It is not always advisable to simply activate everything. Also keep in mind that the more functions and plugins you have installed, the slower your site will become.
Recommendable WordPress Webhosters
In our provider directory you can find suitable WordPress webhosters or directly with one of our advertising partners:
