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10+ Best Free Gutenberg Ready WordPress Themes

Posted on August 2, 2019 by Hosting

The post 10+ Best Free Gutenberg Ready WordPress Themes appeared first on HostGator Blog . There are hundreds of thousands of WordPress themes on the market. A lot of them are free while some cost more than a few hundred bucks. Finding a theme that suits your WordPress site’s style and is compatible with all the plugins you use is very difficult. If you want to use WordPress’ new Gutenberg editor , then you need a theme that is compatible with it. With thousands of themes to choose from, most of which aren’t compatible with Gutenberg, I wanted to make it easier for you to find the perfect theme. So, here’s my collection of the best free Gutenberg-ready WordPress themes right now. What is Gutenberg? Gutenberg is the latest page/post editor that comes with WordPress. If you are a fan of the original, the classic WordPress editor, then it might take you a few minutes to get comfortable with the new editor. Gutenberg is WordPress’ attempt at creating a drag and drop page builder that can make it easier for beginners and novices to create beautiful looking pages. If you want your website to stand out, you need your content to stand out in your niche. The easiest way to do this is by improving the design of your blog’s content. Now, if you hire a programmer to do it, it will cost you well over $500. But with a tool like Gutenberg , you can do it all by yourself within minutes… for free. Why you need a Gutenberg compatible theme? If you want to use the new Gutenberg editor and take advantage of all the wonderful tools and widgets it has to offer, then you need a WordPress theme that is compatible with Gutenberg . Most themes on the market, even the premium ones, aren’t compatible with Gutenberg. If you use a theme that isn’t compatible, most of your pages will break in unexpected places. If you don’t want your blog to break right when you catch your big break, then you should only use a theme that is compatible with Gutenberg. To make it easier for you to find the perfect theme, we have made the following list of the best free WordPress themes that are Gutenberg-ready. Best Free Gutenberg Themes 1. GeneratePress Best suited for: All types of websites, is a Multipurpose theme. Sites having this theme activated: 200,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/generatepress/ GeneratePress is one of the most popular WordPress themes out there. Unlike some other themes on this list, this is a multipurpose theme. That means, you can use it to build almost any type of website you want. Whether you want to use it on a travel site or cooking blog, you can easily customize this theme to suit your niche. You can customize almost all elements of this theme without writing a single line of code. This theme is made to be a lightweight kickstarter for any kind of a project based on WordPress.  They offer a big library of importable templates for all types of websites including travel, cooking, and personal blogs. You can also use this theme to build an eCommerce site and sell your products online. Features: Clean minimal design that is suitable for all types of websites. A huge library of hundreds of design templates available to choose from. Easily customize almost all aspects of the theme’s design. Compatible with all page builder plugins on the market including Gutenberg and Beaver Builder. Translation ready and supports over 20 languages. A lightweight theme that won’t slow down your website. 2. Gucherry Blog Best suited for: Personal Blogs, Travel Blogs, and blogs that display large images. Sites having this theme activated: 700+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/gucherry-blog/ GuCherry Blog is a beautiful free WordPress template designed for blogs. It offers a very clean, minimal design that focuses the user’s attention on the content. If you are looking for a theme for your personal blog, then this is one of the best options. You can easily customize this theme to suit your personal style by changing the colors and typography of the design. It comes with full support for page builders like Gutenberg. It is optimized for speed and is translation-ready. This theme is perfect for bloggers who want to start a blog , build an audience online and stand out in their niche. It offers a simple design and comes with everything you will need including social media share buttons and a lot of built-in widgets to choose from. It is also SEO optimized so that you can focus on creating content without worrying too much about the search engine bots. GuCherry blog is designed to be fast and offers lots of space placing advertisements on your blog. You place ads on your blog with just a few clicks in many different places without editing any code. Features: A minimal design that will help you stand out in your blogging niche. Lots of places to place ads on your blog to earn a side income. Optimized for SEO and fast load times. Easily customize everything from the colors to typography. Built-in support for page builders like Gutenberg. Translation-ready and supports RTL languages. A theme best suited for bloggers. 3. Getwid Base Best suited for: Startups, Digital Agencies, and Portfolio websites. Sites having this theme activated: 700+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/getwid-base/ Getwid Base is a free WordPress theme that is designed specifically to work with Gutenberg. Getwid Base theme is a part of Getwid, a bundle of multipurpose blocks designed for Gutenberg. To get the most out of this theme, we recommend that you install the Getwid plugin but even without the bundle, this theme has all the features you will need. It offers a beautiful, minimal design that is compatible with Gutenberg. It is best suited for digital agencies, startups, and portfolios. Although it is designed for digital agencies and startups, you can customize it to suit whatever niche you are in and change the design to suit your brand style. Features: A theme that is built specifically for Gutenberg page builder. Customize the theme easily with just a few clicks without touching code. You can add more blocks and widgets compatible with this theme by installing the free Getwid Gutenberg bundle. It comes with a simple design that looks great on all devices. 4. Page Builder Framework Best suited for: Agency Sites, Portfolios, and Service Businesses. Sites having this theme activated: 10,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/page-builder-framework/ Page Builder Framework is a free WordPress theme that is designed to be super fast. It is a lightweight theme that weighs less than 50 kb and doesn’t slow down your website. If you need a clutter-free, minimal design that you can customize yourself without editing code, this theme is a great option. This theme is designed for page builders like Gutenberg and Beaver Builder. You can easily customize all aspects of this theme’s design to suit your personal style. This theme scores 99% on all speed test tools like YSlow, Pingdom, and GTmetrix. It loads in less than 100ms. Features: This theme is built for speed and will never slow down your website. Customize all aspects of this theme’s design with just a few clicks. Designed to be compatible with all page builders including Elementor and Gutenberg. Responsive design that works on all screen sizes. WooCommerce support, if you want to build an eCommerce store. 5. Mission News Best suited for: News and Magazine sites, and sites with lots of content. Sites having this theme activated: 3,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/mission-news/ Mission News is a free WordPress theme designed for news and magazine websites. The design is clean and makes your website look like a classic news site. It’s fully responsive and looks great on all devices no matter the screen size. The layout of this theme is minimal, clean and focuses attention to the content. It is fully compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, and some other page builder plugins. It also offers WooCommerce compatibility so that you can build an online store within a few minutes. This theme is optimized for speed and loads really fast. Features: WooCommerce support allows you to build an eCommerce site without writing any code Easily customize all aspects of your website’s design using the customization options. 100% responsive and looks great on all devices. Compatible with Gutenberg and Elementor. 6. Storytime Best suited for: Personal Blogs, Story Blogs, and Author Blogs. Sites having this theme activated: 1,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/storytime/ Storytime is a theme designed for authors and creatives. If you are a writer or really want to showcase your work, this is the theme for you. This theme comes with hundreds of customization options. You can choose from 2 blog layout options and 10 sidebar options. It is fully compatible with Gutenberg and is designed with the tool in mind. It also comes with its own built-in Gutenberg blocks you can use to improve your content. The theme offers a fully responsive minimal design. It offers a beautiful layout design that focuses attention on the content of your blog. If you are starting a personal blog and want to stand out in your niche, this theme is one of the best options. Features: Fully compatible with page builders like Gutenberg. Comes with additional built-in Gutenberg. Easily customize the theme using WordPress Theme Customizer interface. Hundreds of customization options so you can customize the design to suit your brand. 2 Blog layouts and 10 sidebar positions to choose from. 7. Music Lite Best suited for: Music artists, Bands and Musicians. Sites having this theme activated: 2,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/music-lite/ Music Lite is the free version of Music Pro. The free version of the theme comes with dozens and dozens of customization options. If you want more customization, then you can always upgrade to the pro version. It is built on a responsive framework to make sure it always looks good across different devices. It is also retina-optimized to look good on a large screen and high resolution displays like Apple’s products It comes with a tour dates page that you can easily customize and change dates on for your fans and followers. The theme comes with custom page templates that you can use to build your whole website in only a few minutes. It also comes with multiple column layouts. This theme allows you to easily customize the logo, the header, and even the background without writing any code. Features: The design is built on a mobile responsive framework and works on all screen sizes. Tour dates pages where you can list your tour dates with just a few clicks. Easily customize the theme using WordPress’ Theme Customizer tool. Custom page templates. The theme comes with multiple column layouts to choose from. 8. Portfolio Lite Best suited for: Photography Portfolio, Creative Portfolios, Freelancer Portfolios. Sites having this theme activated: 2,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/portfolio-lite/ Portfolio Lite is a portfolio theme for creatives. It offers a very unique design to help you stand out of the crowd. The design is very minimal to focus the attention on the portfolio items. If you are a freelancer and need a site to show off your work, this is the best theme for you. It comes with a sidebar menu on the left to allow for easy and minimal navigation. This theme will allow you to build your portfolio online in only a few minutes. This theme is best for portfolios with lots of images. It is best suited for people who wish to show off their designs or photography. It comes with a few different page templates to choose from for your portfolio items. You can easily create a slideshow for your portfolio within seconds. Features: A clean minimal layout to show off your creative portfolio. Showcase large images in a beautiful layout. Different page templates for portfolio items to choose from. Get more features by purchasing the premium version of this theme. Dozens of customization options and support for WordPress Theme Customizer. Support for Gutenberg and other Page Builders. 9. Davis Best suited for: Personal Blogs and sites that are more focused on the content. Sites having this theme activated: 3,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/davis/ Davis is a minimalistic WordPress theme that you can either use as a framework to build your own theme or you can use to build a superfast website that scores high on all page speed test tools like Google PageSpeed. It is super lightweight and weighs only 61 kb. This theme offers a super minimal design that focuses the attention on the content. It is fully responsive, looks great on devices, and comes with a dark mode option. It also supports featured images, and aside post format. This theme is built to be fast and minimal and to be used as a framework to build upon and as such doesn’t offer many options or customization features. It is pretty minimal. Features: Fully responsive design. Super minimal, clean design. Super lightweight theme that weighs only 61kb and loads really fast. Comes with full support for Gutenberg and other page builders. 10. Block Lite Best suited for: Creative portfolio sites and photography portfolios. Sites having this theme activated: 1,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/block-lite/ Block Lite is a theme that is built for the Gutenberg editor. It comes with dozens of customization options that you can use to customize all aspects of the theme. It offers a responsive design that is minimal and looks great across all screen sizes. This theme is best for showcasing your creative portfolio. If you are a designer or a photographer, this theme will allow you to focus the visitor’s attention on your portfolio items. It is retina optimized to make sure the design looks great on even large-resolution displays. Block Lite’s premium version offers dozens of more customization options and features. Features: Easily customize the design of this theme using WordPress Theme Customizer. Customize the Typography and use any of the free Google Fonts you like on your website. A clean, minimal design best suited for showcasing creative portfolio items like pictures and designs. 11. Atomic Blocks Best suited for: Blogs and websites that need a minimal design. Sites having this theme activated: 2,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/atomic-blocks/ Atomic Blocks is a free WordPress theme that offers a simple design. It is fully compatible for Gutenberg page builder. This theme is a part of the Atomic Blocks plugin. The plugin adds more blocks to the Gutenberg builder. With this theme, you don’t need to download a hundred different plugins. It comes with blocks for everything including pricing table, newsletter sign up forms, post grid blocks, call to action blocks, testimonial block, sharing block and much more. Although this theme offers a minimal design and is best suited for blogs, it can be easily customized and used to build any type of a website. Features: Add dozens of new blocks to Gutenberg page builder by installing the accompanying Atomic Blocks plugin for free. Simple, responsive design. Dozens of theme options to help you customize the design without touching a single line of code. Fully compatible with Gutenberg and other page builder plugins. 12. Richone Best Suited For Minimal, basic portfolio sites. Sites having this theme activated: 600+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/richone/ Richone is a clean, beautiful portfolio theme that is compatible with Gutenberg editor. It offers a super minimal design that looks clean and focuses attention on the portfolio items. This theme offers full support WooCommerce so you can create an online store on our own. This theme comes with dozens of customization options so you can customize everything from the typography to the color scheme of the design. It offers a widget sidebar at the bottom. Features: WooCommerce ready so you can build an online store in minutes. Fully compatible with Gutenberg. Comes with custom page templates so you can build your website in minutes without any code. This theme is optimized for SEO, so you can focus on creating content. Fully responsive minimal design that focuses attention on the content Wrap Up All of the themes in this list support Gutenberg and will help you create content that stands out of the crowd. Most of these themes not only support Gutenberg, they also support other page builder plugins like Divi and Elementor , and others. If you are still having trouble deciding which theme to go with, let me make it super easy for you: If you need a theme that loads up really fast, then go with GeneratePress . It’s mostly a theme framework to help you build super fast websites. It comes with dozens of customization options and is really lightweight. If you produce a lot of content on your website, then go with Mission News . Although it’s a theme built for news sites, it is fully customizable, so you can easily customize it to suit your needs. If you want more Gutenberg blocks than the defaults, then go with the Getwid theme and download the accompanying Getwid plugin to add more blocks to the Gutenberg editor for free. Are you using a free Gutenberg compatible theme that has been left off this list, and you think is worth mentioning? If so, we would love to hear all about it in the comments! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Posted on July 9, 2019 by Hosting

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Product Pages Matter More Than Ever. Here’s How to Make Yours Better

Posted on July 1, 2019 by Hosting

The post Product Pages Matter More Than Ever. Here’s How to Make Yours Better appeared first on HostGator Blog . Pop quiz: Which matters more, your website’s homepage or your product pages? Thanks to the way most people search and shop now, one of your product pages will probably be their first contact with your store. In fact, they may never see your homepage at all. That’s okay–it means people are landing on your product pages when they’re ready to buy. But will they buy from you? It depends on how effective that product page is. Here are some ways to make yours convert. Use SEO to Help Shoppers Find Your Products SEO can be intimidating to new store owners because there are a lot of elements to consider, and best practices change when search engines like Google update the way they index and rank sites. It’s a good idea for any new eCommerce entrepreneur to master the basics of SEO and keep learning. To start, these are some of the elements you’ll want to optimize on your product pages: Page speed There are two things to keep in mind as you check how long it takes your product pages to load. One, this page may be a visitor’s first experience with your store. Two, if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds or less on their phone, they’re probably going to leave. How can you get a page full of high-resolution product photos and demo videos to load fast? Start with a host that delivers fast load times, like HostGator’s managed WordPress hosting. Choose a theme for your store like Astra or Schema Lite that’s lightweight and doesn’t slow down load times. And follow our recommendations for selecting image formats, sizes, and indexing for better SEO and, yep, faster page loads. Keywords and unique copy You might be tempted to save time by copy-pasting manufacturer descriptions or descriptions from other pages on your site, but this can ding your search rankings. Every product page needs its own unique description that includes the keywords shoppers use to search for that type of item. Go beyond basic keywords like “boys sandals” to so-called long-tail keywords that help people find exactly what they want to buy: “boys soccer sandals” or “toddler boys suede sandals.” This takes time, but it will help your product pages rank higher in the kinds of specific searches people do when they’re ready to make a purchase. Behind-the-scenes SEO Meta tags and schema markup are two elements that customers don’t see, but search engine crawlers do. The meta tags and descriptions on each page tell crawler bots what’s on the page, so make sure those robots can tell it’s a page for a “red enameled tea kettle” or “small martingale dog collar” for better click-through rates. You can also add schema markup to your product pages to generate rich results in Google searches. The easiest way to do this is with Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper . Enter your page URLs and start tagging. Create a Good Customer Experience with Smart Web Design and Copy Google’s UX playbook for eCommerce is full of research-based recommendations for product page improvements. For example, each product page should include a value proposition —a free shipping deal, a coupon code, or something customers can’t get anywhere else.   Don’t be shy about putting product prices up front. Customers prefer it, and if they must hunt for the price they may move on to another store. Google recommends displaying prices above the fold (before a user has to scroll down) on product pages. Make your descriptions easy to read Google suggests bulleted lists, and I agree. No one wants to read a paragraph full of product details on their phone. Customers are more likely to buy if they get the details at a glance. Include customers’ product reviews This is important for any kind of eCommerce site, but it’s absolutely critical if your store has many similar products. This helps shoppers decide which option is right for them without having to leave your store to find reviews. Bonus: customer reviews can help with SEO. First, add reviews to your product pages. Then, use schema markup (see Behind-the-scenes SEO, above) to format your reviews for rich search results. Add secondary calls to action “Add to cart” is the most important CTA on every product page, but not every shopper is ready to buy right now. Maybe they’re on their phone and don’t want to enter credit card data on a tiny screen. Maybe they’re at work and their break is coming to an end. Secondary CTAs like “add to wishlist,” “save for later,” and “add to favorites” encourage your customers to come back later to complete their purchase. Test, Adjust, Repeat How will you know if your product pages are working well? Test them! Marketers use A/B testing to compare the effectiveness of two different versions of one element—an image, a headline, a call-to-action button, even the color of your page background. Once you know whether version A or version B gets better results (more click-throughs, more sales), you know which one to stick with. For an in-depth example of A/B testing, you can read how we A/B tested 300 million emails to find the best design elements. To begin A/B testing elements on your pages, you can register for a free Google Optimize account . Optimize integrates with your site’s Google Analytics, and it walks you step-by-step through the process of optimizing your online store. The very first step? Create an A/B test. You’ll get a tutorial that shows you what to test, how set it up, how long your test should run, and how to manage and get reports on your tests. Ready to start setting up your online store? Choose one of HostGator’s managed WordPress hosting plans for fast load times, easy set-up, and free SSL certificates for site security. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Posted on June 2, 2019 by Hosting

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How to Build Your WordPress Website [Step by Step Guide]

Posted on May 31, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Build Your WordPress Website [Step by Step Guide] appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve decided to build a website. Whether you’re building a site for your physical business, a personal project or you’re gearing up to launch your own online business, then this post is for you. Luckily, you’re reading this today and not ten years ago. Technology and the internet move so fast, that once impossible or laborious tasks can be done in a single afternoon. The same can be said for building your website. Back in the old days of the web, before content management systems, and beginner-friendly website builders existed you’d have to code every aspect of your website yourself. If you didn’t possess the ability to code or didn’t want to learn, then you’d be out of luck. Unless you had the budget to pay a professional of course. But, today’s web is much different. Anyone with the desire to build a website can go from no website to a published website in a single day. Below you’ll learn everything that you’ll need in order to build your first website, including a variety of website building tools you can consider using. The most difficult thing you’ll face isn’t actually building your site but choosing which approach to take. 1. Choose the Right Platform Like we just mentioned you have a ton of different options for actually building your website. Choosing the right approach is important and might be one of the most time-intensive parts of the process. For example, you can build your site entirely from scratch, using languages like HTML, CSS, and more. You can use a website builder to drag and drop your way towards creating a basic website. Or, you can rely upon a CMS to provide you with a customizable framework to build your site from. The best options for beginners are using a website builder or an intuitive CMS like WordPress. If your plan is to build out a fairly basic website, then using a website builder will be the easiest course of action. Website builders are designed with complete beginners in mind. With these the process is simple: You pick a website builder Choose a payment plan for your site and traffic needs Add your domain Select a theme or template Customize your site Publish it live on the internet! If you’re going to take this approach, then consider using the HostGator website builder. If you’re already a HostGator customer and want to create a simple site, then this is a no-brainer. For those with more complex site requirements, then WordPress is the way to go. With WordPress, your customization options are nearly unlimited. Plus, it’s built to help you create content and get the most out of your site. Nearly every single host will let you quickly install WordPress in a couple of clicks. And even though it’s a more complex platform the learning curve is very small, making WordPress an ideal choice for beginners. For the sake of this walkthrough, we’re going to assume you went with WordPress as the CMS you’re going to use to build your site.   2. Secure Your Domain Name and Host In order to have any site live on the Internet, you’re going to need a domain name and host. Without a domain name there’s no way for people to access your site, and without a host, there’s no place to store the files that make up your website. There are ways to get a free domain name and hosting, like using a subdomain of a larger site, like “yoursite.wordpress.com”. However, this doesn’t look very professional, and you’ll have a hard time building a following without a professional domain name. Same goes for purchasing your own hosting. There are a ton of different options to choose from, but for those building their first sites, a basic shared hosting plan will suit you just fine. In time you may want to upgrade your package, but there’s no need to complicate things from the start. With shared hosting, you’re sharing server resources with other sites using the same server. This effectively spits costs between a ton of different users, so your monthly bill will be very low. Like anything online, there are multiple ways you can secure your domain name and hosting. You can spend time researching all your available options, or to keep things simple, just follow the process below. Here’s how you can purchase a shared hosting plan from HostGator. First, head over to this page and select your plan. On the next screen you’ll be asked to enter more information, and even have the option to add a domain name . Complete the steps, enter your payment information, and you’re all set. If you have an existing domain name, then you’ll have to point it towards your new host. You also have the option to purchase your domain name from another provider entirely. However, if you’re already purchasing hosting from HostGator it’s much easier to add a domain to your order.   3. Install Your CMS on Your Host With your hosting and domain name taken care of, it’s time to install WordPress. Most beginner hosts make this easy by including software that lets you install your CMS of choice with a few clicks. Instead of having to download your CMS yourself and upload it to yourself, this software will automate all of those technical tasks. To do this we’re going to need to access your server. If you went with a host like HostGator, then we’ll be doing this with a tool called cPanel. This software is installed on your server and makes it incredibly easy to manage your server environment. Here’s how to do it: First, log in to your server via your control panel. You should have been provided your login link, along with your username and password when you signed up. Next, locate a tool called ‘QuickInstall’. You’ll see that there are numerous other content management systems you can install, but for this tutorial, we’re going to be using WordPress. So, select ‘WordPress’, enter your relevant site details and click ‘Install’. Once the installer is finished WordPress will be installed on your site. Just a few more steps and your site will be ready for the world.   4. Choose Your Theme WordPress will form the foundation of your site. But, in order to make any customizations to how your site looks you’re going to need to install a WordPress theme. Essentially, a theme is a collection of files that determine how your site looks and functions. You can think of WordPress as the foundation and scaffolding for your house—it’s basic structure. While your theme is the color your home, your wood floors—what it looks like. Since the WordPress ecosystem is so large you’ll have thousands of different themes to choose from (and that’s just including the free themes). There are also premium themes that provide you with even greater functionality, features, support, and a lot more. Premium themes generally look and function better than paid themes, have higher-quality code, and have dedicated support teams behind them. The cool thing about WordPress is that you can switch up themes at any time. It won’t have any effect on your existing blog posts, pages, and other media. If you’ve done a lot of customizing it might not display properly, but your content isn’t going anywhere. Here’s how you can select and install a theme on your site: From the backend of your WordPress dashboard navigate to Appearance> Themes . Then click the button that says ‘Add New’. Here you’ll be able to browse the massive selection of free WordPress themes or even search for a theme. Once you’ve found a theme that you like hover over it and click ‘Install’, then ‘Activate’. Now you’ll be able to customize your theme to your liking. If you want to use a Premium theme, then the installation process will be a little different. First, you’ll need to purchase and download a theme. There are dozens of places you can purchase high-quality themes online, including: Elegant Themes StudioPress ThemeForest Once you purchase and download your theme you’ll have a .zip file that contains all of the theme’s files. Now, you’re going to upload this file to WordPress. Navigate to Appearance> Themes , then select ‘Add New’. On the next screen select ‘Upload Theme’, then either drag and drop or locate the .zip file on your computer. WordPress will then upload and install your theme, just click ‘Activate’ and you’re all set.   If you want to more features to your site, then you’ll be relying on the nearly endless library of WordPress plugins . There’s a wide variety of both free and premium plugins that can help you add whatever features you desire to your site. To install any plugins navigate to Plugins> Add New . Here you can browse by popular plugins, recommended plugins, or search for a plugin you’ve found online.   5. Customize Your Site By now you’ve gotten your domain name and hosting, installed WordPress, selected your theme, and maybe even installed a few plugins. Now is where the fun really begins—it’s time to customize your site. The first thing you’ll want to do is create a few necessary pages. Home page Contact page About page Blog page Depending on your site there are probably additional pages you’ll want to create as well, like a services page, resource page, or anything else really. Adding pages to your WordPress site is very easy. Once you’re in the backend of your site navigate to Pages> Add New . This will open up a screen where you can add a page to your site. Just add your title, text, any images, or media, then click ‘Publish’. If you want to add any blogs to your site, then you’ll be following a similar process. Click on Posts> Add New , and you’ll be taken to a screen that looks nearly identical to the page editor. Write your blog post and click ‘Publish’. The approach you take to customize your theme depends upon what theme you’re using. For example, your theme might have its own customization options which you’ll control from a different tab. If you’ve purchased a premium theme, then check the documentation that came with your theme to see how to make customizations. However, you’ll also be able to make general customizations by navigating to Appearance> Customize . On this screen, you’ll be able to do things like change your site’s color scheme, header elements, menus, general theme settings and a lot more.   6. Launch! Once you’re satisfied with how your site looks and functions it’s time to launch your site. If you’ve done everything above then your site should already be online! Just type in your URL to the browser and you should see your site live. If you want to build out your site without people being able to see it in an unfinished state, then you might want to use a coming soon, or maintenance mode plugin. To do this you can install a plugin like ‘Coming Soon Page & Maintenance Mode by SeedProd’. Head over to Plugins> Add New , then search for ‘coming soon seedpod’. Then, install a plugin that looks like the one below: Once you’ve activated the plugin head over to Settings> Coming Soon Page & Maintenance Mode , here you’ll be able to customize the appearance of your coming soon page. Then, when you’re ready to launch just make sure to disable the plugin.   Closing Thoughts Building your website isn’t as difficult as it once was. If you followed the steps above you’ll be on your way towards having a fully functional website live on the web. Note that there are multiple approaches you can take, some are easier than others. For example, if you’re already using HostGator hosting, then one of the simplest options will be using the bundled website builder. This tool is very straightforward and intuitive to use and is equipped with a variety of templates to suit your needs. For those looking to create a more robust website, then consider using WordPress. This widely used CMS is the foundation for a lot of the largest and highly-trafficked sites on the entire Internet. With its flexibility and ease of use, you can create whatever style of site you desire. The route you choose is up to you. Just make sure you take stock of your needs, current skills, and overall goals of your site before you choose the best approach for building out your site. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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